Secularism and the Beatitudes - Reading the Signs of the Times

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." (Mt. 5:3) How might we best apply the first of the Beatitudes to living our Catholic Faith amidst the secularized surroundings of our modern world?

Ever since the Enlightenment, the prevailing image of God in the West has been that of an aloof Creator, distant from His creation and not involved in the lives of human beings. This is obviously in direct contradiction to the gospel of Jesus: "Every hair on your head has been counted." (Lk. 12:7) In contrast to the pride of those who refuse to acknowledge God"s intervention in human affairs, is the humility of those who do accept it: "Father in heaven, I give you praise. For what you have hidden from the learned and the clever, you have revealed to the merest of children!" (Lk. 10:21)

Poverty in and of itself is by no means blessed by Christ. It was Christ"s first miracle to come to the aid of a newly married young couple who ran out of wine for the customary wedding feast. Christ took to task the Pharisees who "emptied the coffers of widows," and He gave us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to make it clear that God depends upon us to do something about the impoverished conditions of our fellow human beings.

Christ did warn of the dangers of riches and the desire for riches, which cannot co-exist with a desire to serve God and our neighbour in charity. Conflicts between earthly riches and our duty before God affect not only the materially rich, but the materially poor as well. Perhaps for the poor, it is a matter of cultivating a sense of gratitude for what God does provide, rather than envying those who are better off and giving into resentment over what can, at times, even be a matter of injustice. For the better off it is, perhaps, a matter of cultivating a healthy fear of God, that if one does not come to the aid of those who are in need, their own souls are in peril: "It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." (Mt. 19:23)

However, by specifying the "poor in spirit," Christ seems to bypass a merely material view of the universe and get to the heart of this blessing: it is a blessing not upon material poverty in itself, but upon an inward disposition of the heart. What is this disposition of heart? It is when we realize that, in every single aspect of life, we depend, willingly or unwillingly, from Almighty God; when we recognize ourselves as indigent, poor and helpless, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, physically, psychologically and economically.

What is blessed about such a disposition? Doesn"t it sound like someone who has come to his wits" end and is ready to give up on life? Could Christ have meant blessed are the depressed? Or blessed are the ignorant? If that was the case, the picture that our secular world paints of Christians might begin to ring true: poor, passive, ignorant, escapees of a reality that they cannot handle.

The 19th century philosopher Frederich Nietzsche said that Christians were merely weak individuals who needed their God in order to escape from their own personal insecurities. But as one commentator on Nietzsche has observed, he obviously never made the attempt to draw near to Christ in prayer. The saints themselves found this prayer anything but easy or for the weak. When St. Teresa of Avila writes about the importance of persevering in mental prayer in her autobiography, she observes, "I know these labors are very great, and require, I think, greater courage than many others in this world." (Life, IX, 17)Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Christians believe that we are destined by God to receive salvation as a gift. However, this does not exclude activity or initiative. "Christians submit themselves to the will of God, but because, in mostly all cases, this will is manifested only by facts, we must act in order to know it.

"For instance, suppose you become seriously ill. Does God desire to heal you? You know not, and precisely because of this, you must send for a doctor and follow his prescriptions. The result will tell you of God"s decision.

"Or say you are engaged in business. You should work " work hard " move heaven and earth, and if you do not succeed, then, and then only, resign yourselves to the Divine Will.

"God even asks us to contribute to the extension of His Kingdom. There are some who think that the welfare of the Church is God"s affair more than ours. "God will provide," they say. God will always defend His interests, but in doing so, he desires to use us as His instruments. It is through the agency of natural causes that He fashions the delicate tissue of flowers, and it is through the ministry of apostles that He purifies and sanctifies human souls. When they go astray, and when faith waxes cold, we must be in a position to say, "It is not through my fault; I have done all that I could for the cause of God."" (Fr. Henri Morice, Why Bad Things Happen to Good Catholics)

But in order to be able to say this, we must also know ourselves and be sincere with ourselves. Christian spirituality is a spirituality for sinners. Christ made it very clear that he came to save the lost, to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who know they are wounded by original sin; not to call those who are convinced of their own righteousness.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. We must realize profoundly that we are nothing, and that we have and possess undeserved and continuous graces freely bestowed on us from the abundance of God. Once we are convinced of our dependence on God in everything, even our talents, health and personal qualities, then our pride begins to be replaced by true humility. If I only know a saving God without knowing who and what I really am, how can I be saved? Only sinners need a Savior. What will release me from my tangle is self-knowledge tempered by God"s mercy and love.

When I have received the grace to know the Truth, to know God as He reveals Himself through His Church, I see God: how wonderful He is, and how good He is, and how loving He is. I have a merciful, wonderful, beautiful, saving God, and I need a Savior. An objective knowledge of God and myself together make up humility and poverty of spirit.

Such a knowledge of God and ourselves would surely aid us in finding our complete fulfillment in God instead of in this world. Without despising the goodness of creation, we would look hopefully toward our completeness and final reward in the awesome vision of the Blessed Trinity. If we recognize in ourselves imperfections and faults, this is no reason to be sad or give up. This is nothing other than recognizing our complete dependence upon God, even in removing our faults, if He should be pleased to do so. This sheer poverty is a great source of joy because it puts our security not in human limited means, but in the infinite goodness of the Father.

This spirit of joyful repentance is a very important means of evangelization in our own day and age. It is especially suited to the prevailing anti-religious culture we live in, and is an apostolic work that is within the reach of all. Casual conversation with co-workers and strangers when doing daily jobs or travelling, can awaken in others a joyful awareness of the goodness of God, in contrast to the sadness of a world that has made peace with sin. Christian joy is the joy that comes from knowing that we are worshipping a loving, forgiving God, a God who becomes one of us and who gives us His Mother for our maternal, virginal intercessor.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. If there is a lack of joy in our own day and age, it is because there is too much self-righteousness and not enough of a spirit of obedience. As Catholics, we are part of a "universal" society, founded by Christ and preserved by the apostolic succession, which has as its ultimate authority on earth the Vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter. Recognizing and acknowledging this very real society, we become truly blest by enjoying a full share in the Catholic Faith handed on by the Apostles. Once we are in contact with this Truth and once we have made it a reality in our lives by allowing Its claims to effect us in a practical way, then we have begun to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which is nothing other than God Himself and his reign in our hearts and minds.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, addressing the world's cardinals just hours before the conclave during which he was elected pope, declared, "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism â?| that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one"s own ego and one"s own desires as the final measure." The modern world, Ratzinger insisted, has jumped "from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism,

up to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and on and on."

The object of relativism is to deny the truth. It is those who are truly poor in spirit who will be able to resist this "dictatorship of relativism" by being sincere with God, with themselves, and with others. "The Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force." (Mt. 11:12) For many Catholics in our day and age, this will mean being a solitary witness among their peers, in their work place, and within the prevailing culture of relativism. This is why God loves a sincere heart, a heart that is in love with truth. "He who acts with sincerity and speaks sincerely ... will dwell in the heights, he will find refuge in a citadel built on rock." (Is 33:15,16)

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