[00:00] Jesus saw the crowds. He went up the mountain. He was about to teach them a new law. In contrast to the law of Moses, when He went up the mountain to obtain the Ten Commandments from God, He went up in trumpet blasts and lightning and thunder. But in this new age, I should say,

[00:37] of the coming of our Lord, He went up the mountain and He did not leave the people behind. He brought them up with Him. And it was not in trumpet blasts and thunder and lightning and fear, but it was in love. And our Lord wanted to teach them something that went beyond the Ten Commandments. He wanted to teach them the state of life by which we come not to just blessedness, because the true

[01:10] translation of the Greek word for what they translate blessed, and it's still in the Latin, is happiness. Our Lord is describing the state of being, of being happy. And in a way, it seems sometimes a little bit contradictory of what He says is the way to happiness, to be blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit, by the Fathers

[01:45] of the Church, was interpreted as being humble in spirit, relying on God for everything that we have, just as our Lord said that we must become like little children, not childish, but like children, meaning that we rely on our parents for everything. We get all of our resources from them. And in this, our Lord wants us to recognize where all of our good comes from. We recognize that it comes from

[02:19] God, whether it be material resources, or whether it be our spiritual resources, whether it be the good things that we do, or even the bad things that may fall upon us, like Job's mentality when he said, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of God." That is spiritual humility. That is poverty of spirit. St. Francis's image that we see of him embracing the cross, but with his foot,

[02:54] what looks like a chain, a ball and chain, but it's actually the earth, putting the earth below him, and reaching for that which is higher, that we arrive at through the cross. So our Lord gives us many good things. Our Lord also gives us suffering. But it is in order, not just for suffering for its own sake, but it's for something greater, to be rewarded with happiness, with blessedness,

[03:26] and in the kingdom of heaven, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Yes, our Lord's talking about mourning those who have passed on before us. That's the main thing that we think of when we think about mourning. But our Lord is speaking of all types of evil. Everything that is the absence of good that should be there in any creature or in any system, I guess you'd say. It's the mourning of that which we lost,

[04:01] that our first parents lost after their disobedience. It is the mourning of the difficulty in learning about God, in coming to the truth. The difficulty in uniting our wills to His will. The difficulty in battling our concupiscences. It's the evil and the suffering and all the things that make us question, you know, what's going on in the world.

[04:32] And then it's also, obviously, when we suffer that loss of those whom we love, because that is one of the first things that were given to us as a punishment for our disobedience, is that which was unnatural to us. Death. Death was something that we were not supposed to experience, that we would see in the animal kingdom, but we ourselves would not have experienced it. But it came into this world through the disobedience of sin. So anything that touches

[05:05] the consequence of sin, we mourn. And it says, we will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. There's different meanings, I guess, you could say or talk about when it's blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. You could look at it like, well, first of all, we think of meekness as a weakness. We think of the meekness as a complete opposite of those who are powerful, which is true. We think that

[05:38] those who will inherit the land are those who have money, those who have power, those who are great in the eyes of the world. But when we look at everything as our Lord wants us to, to the big picture, we see that one day our Lord is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. And who will inherit that new earth? Those who are Christ-like, those who have made it through everything that God wants them to undergo for the sake of the kingdom. And they will be the ones

[06:13] to inherit the land. Hopefully, we will be the ones to inherit the land, the new heaven and the new earth. But also there's another aspect to meekness. We sometimes think of it as a weakness, as I said, but meekness is more like, imagine if you had a big giant boulder at the top of a mountain and you had a little town below. That boulder, if it ever fell, would crush that town. It has the strength to just plow over

[06:46] everything. Meekness is like the little rock that's placed in front of the boulder that keeps it from rolling over. You could look at it as like a tractor trailer or a semi. You put a chalk under the wheel. The chalk is like the meekness. It's when you have the power and you have the means, but you do not use that means out of mercy, out of a sake of a desire for peace,

[07:17] that you do not, in a certain way, it's turning the other cheek when you could do something about it. It is suffering for the sake of Christ. "Forgive them for they know not what they do." The meek are those who have great strength, but they choose in mercy and for righteousness, not to act when they could for the sake of peace. There's another aspect of meekness as well.

[07:51] It's the ability that is given to those who are gentle, those who are rich in spirit, to be able to influence that which is almost impossible to influence, to be instruments of God in shaping the hearts of men, to be able to be instruments in bending the iron wills of men, to influence others for the good. That is a sign of meekness. Blessed are they who hunger

[08:24] and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. We hunger and thirst for that which is right. We hunger and thirst for true order in the world between God and man, and man and his brother. And if we hunger and thirst for this, we will be satisfied. Because remember, all of these teachings take into account all of reality, not just the life that we're living here. It's the

[08:55] bigger picture, that what is not given to us now in time will be given to us for eternity. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. We will receive to the degree or the measure that we measure out, to the degree that we are merciful to others, because mercy is not something that we give just because of the fact that the person that we're giving it to was a great friend or who was someone we like. Mercy is given to those, I mean it might be the case as well, but

[09:32] mercy is shown in His greatness through giving goodness to those who may not deserve it, may never deserve it, and may even reject it. It is showing goodness, which is another way of saying a love, a participation in God's love, and sharing that with others when they do not even deserve it. I mean, they could deserve it, but mercy, really the definition of it is giving

[10:06] that which is undeserved, and to even those who might reject it, who might even be one's enemies. And basically, our Lord's saying that we will be shown mercy ourselves. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Those who have the proper intentions, clean of heart. Heart is another word for will in the Bible. Our will is the bedrock of our desires, of our reaching out

[10:40] for union with God. That is one of the hardest things we can easily, we can come to know God more easily than sometimes we can in accepting and also placing our own will in line with His. But that is the way to true happiness, is purity of intention, in trying to unite our will to the plan of God and seeing the providence of God in all things that befall us. Blessed are the clean

[11:15] of heart, for they will see God. For truly, one day, we will see God face to face. And because, as I said, we have purity of intention, we will see God's providence in all things. This means that we will see God in all things. It's like Mother Teresa saying that she saw Jesus in the poor. We will see our Lord's working and His face in the good things that He created

[11:49] and in the events that take place around us as part of His plan. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. One of the greatest signs that we are filled with the grace of God and His life within us is that we are peacemakers. What have I said many times? The true definition, the best definition of peace is tranquility of order. Who's a peacemaker? A peacemaker is one who brings order, one who truly

[12:27] makes that which is in chaos properly ordered, whether it's in the spiritual life or whether it is in relationships and between God and man and between men and others. So we are peacemakers because we bring tranquility of order, both by truth and by example, because I've said before,

[12:58] you can't have proper tranquility of order and peace without having first peace of mind and then peace of heart, meaning that we make peace by teaching the truth, enlightening others' minds, just as we want to be enlightened ourselves and know the truth of God, but then also to bring strength to their wills in order to put into practice that which God wants and what the truth

[13:29] reveals, which means that we have peace of will in uniting our wills and helping others unite their wills to God's will. And we will be called children of God because when we have that, when we reach this level, then obviously we are acting as God acts. We are showing that we are children of God because this fosters the good dispositions to act within His love,

[14:01] within His very nature and His life within us. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We are persecuted, those we have to understand that if we follow Christ, we will be persecuted in one way or another. We may be spat upon, we may be hung up from the light posts, who knows what may happen, but we do know that we will never get out of this life if we're practicing the faith without experiencing some sort of

[14:34] persecution, even if it comes from the friction that is created because of our lives against the world's life. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. A reward again, just as the poor in spirit is the kingdom of heaven, meaning that we will inherit everything that our Lord inherited because He died as a natural son of God for all of us and He and everything that He inherited through that death and suffering, we too will

[15:11] have a share and a part in. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven, thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. We must have the big picture, that our Lord does not promise us always happiness and all the good here in this life, but He will make everything right and just in the next life. But even here, if we have these dispositions,

[15:45] we will care less about the things that we could receive in this life and we will be concentrating on that purity of heart, we'll be concentrating on the righteousness, we will be concentrating on that which will be ours in the kingdom of heaven where it really matters, building up merit for the kingdom of heaven. So let us pray to God that we will have the disposition to enter into the state of being blessed and happy, truly happy, following not just the law of Moses, but the greater law

[16:25] of the nature of God, which is love. Love for Him and love for our neighbor and then we shall truly be blessed and happy even in this life. you