Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day and to
celebrate this feast the Gospel we read is The Beatitudes. It is an interesting
passage to spend time with. Jesus is not moralising in this text, he is not
telling us what to do. He is stating facts and we are invited into each Beatitude
and given space to draw our own conclusions. The Beatitudes may shock us, but
they force us to think and to ponder the paradox in each statement. There is
much human experience within each one and as you read them you may recognise
your local or ‘urban saints’.
This week can you spend time with each
beatitude? There are seven so one per day is totally doable. Who are the peacemakers
around you? Who are those who are persecuted? Who is mourning? The beatitudes
call us to live life more fully, to see all as connected. Saints
are all around us, pointing the way for us, teaching us something about God
through their lives. They persevere in all they do for their families and
communities, especially those on the margins. They
are the blessed ones.
“Saints
make our hypocrisy so apparent that we want to change our lives – not because
of guilt but because we want to be alive, we want to be more like Jesus…[they]
leave us the scent of God, the aroma of Christ. In God’s flirting with
humanity, God occasionally drops a handkerchief – and these handkerchiefs are
called saints” (Shane Claiborne).
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