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FROM A READING FOR JAN. 29, FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
'Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account....Your reward is great in in heaven...' -- Matthew 5:12

(Editor's note: With this column, Rev. John Cush joins The Evangelist as a writer for the "Word of Faith" Scripture column. Father Cush is a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn who is serving as academic dean and assistant professor of theology and U.S. Church history at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.)

The central theme, as I perceive it, in all of the readings this Sunday is "strength in weakness."

We are the ones Jesus addresses in this selection from St. Matthew's Gospel (Mt 5:1-12). We are poor in spirit; we mourn, longing to be comforted; we hunger and thirst. In the Beatitudes, Jesus presents the way the world is supposed to be -- the way we are supposed to be, instead of the way we experience the world and ourselves to be.

We are weak, due to our fallen human nature - the result of original sin.

First lapse
What is original sin? Ultimately, it is lack of trust in the Creator and abuse of the great gift of free will given to us by God, our Father.

In choosing to disobey the one thing that the Creator had asked -- not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil -- Adam and Eve forget their place in the universe. They forget that God is Creator and they are creatures.

"They who were called to be 'like God' suddenly decided that they wanted to be 'without God, before God and not in accordance with God,'" says the Catechism. Those created in the image and likeness of God begin to reflect a distorted likeness, like a funhouse mirror. Everything is put into disarray; relationships are thrown asunder.

In human relationships, people are divided: We know in our soul that we are created to know, serve and love God in this life and to be with Him in the next; but, if we're honest, we know we really want to serve ourselves first.

Our focus is on the things of this world, not on our true home, heaven. Our relationship with the world is now disordered. We see the bad fruits of sin: alienation of the human being from God, others and self. We see the true wages of sin: death.

Longing for God
This is the world in which we find ourselves. We are longing for a savior to come - and He has. The Lord, a God of mercy and justice, comes to save us.

God is the liberator, the one who frees His chosen people from oppression. He carries His children out of Egypt with "hesed," God's tender and faithful covenant love.

In the Old Testament, "hesed" (merciful love) goes hand-in-hand with justice, and justice is equivalent to salvation. God's mercy is manifested in His saving justice. God will always vindicate His people. He cares for the poor and afflicted; He is a father to widows and orphans; He lifts up the lowly.

God also establishes right relationships in the order of creation, between God and humankind, between human beings and within the people themselves.

Hubris causes alienation from God, others and self. The passion, death and resurrection of Christ leads to reconciliation.

Protestant theologian Jose Miguel Bonino puts it this way: "God acts in righteousness when He establishes and reestablishes right relationships, restoring those who have been wronged in their legitimate claims as members of the covenant. Such action is the equivalent of 'salvation.' When God liberates Israel, when He protects the unprotected, when He delivers the captive or vindicates the right of the poor, He is exhibiting His justice."

The Beatitudes demonstrate how the world should be. In our weakness, we are made strong in Christ Jesus. Trust in this saving fact.

(Other readings for this Sunday are Zep 2:3;3:12-13 and 1 Cor 1:26-31.)[[In-content Ad]]

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