“Blessed are the peacemakers: they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice: theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
These two beatitudes are perplexing to people today. They talk about peace and justice, two magic words that say what we want. But they collide with one of the strongest tendencies of our society: the demand of each one of their autonomy and their happiness, of each one for themselves.
The happiness of humanity begins with my happiness, which often comes down to my well-being. We say: “feel good” about yourself. Here we will explain what this biblical expression said by Jesus means
What does blessed are the peacemakers mean?
Christ promises happiness to those who forget themselves to make peace, to defend justice. So must such a heavy price be paid for true brotherhood among all men? Everyone, young or old, asks the same question. (…)
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One of the most amazing paradoxes of our time is that, in order to recognize this brotherhood and reject intolerance, the fight against intolerance itself becomes the triumph of intolerance.
That is why I now suggest that you reflect on the two paradoxical statements of Jesus.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: they will be called children of God. “
An explanation of the meaning of this sentence.
First, we must translate: “Happy (forgive me the harshness of this literal translation) making peace with them.” Would I dare to say “make, make peace”, or better still: those who “never stop making peace”?
Then, “they will be called children of God.” Out of respect for God, the language of the Gospels speaks as Jesus expressed himself, as all the Jews of his time expressed on this subject. The passive – “will be called” – designates an action that, without naming it, has God as its author; divine passive, we say. This is what it’s all about: “God will call you sons.”
Scrutinizing the words in this way gives enormous power and demand to this word of Jesus: “Blessed are those who make peacethose who never stop making peace, because God will call them his children”.
Make peace, create peace, never stop making peace, as this beatitude suggests, what is it?
What does that mean?
Otherwise we overcome the insurmountable contradiction that we more or less identified at the beginning of our reflection. What is the basis of the desire for communion that unites men? How to remedy the violence it generates?
Because it is not just about cultural, physical (skin color), ethnic or social differences; after all, it escapes human responsibility; It is of the order of a determinism linked to the carnal condition of men and that we can more or less overcome with more instruction, intelligence, communication, etc.
The biggest obstacle is the inability of the human being to get out of himself to the point of loving others and forgetting himself. Because the other feels dangerous to me if he doesn’t submit to what I want and what I am. We are not far from Jean-Paul Sartre’s formula: “Hell is the others“.
However, I gave our theme as a title: “Happiness is another. This ambition is the exact opposite of the most spontaneous human solution: to reduce the other to being just myself. (…)
Blessed are the peacemakers
Making peace in this way is literally tearing down what Saint Paul called “the wall of separation” (Eph 2, 14) between the man imprisoned by his idols and the man whom God has freed from all idolatry by revealing to him that he is a child of God. Thus, man can love and must love his neighbor as God the Father loves him. Saint Paul continues: “Christ wanted to create in himself a new man, making peace (poiôn eirênên)” (Eph 2, 15). (…)
The only one who can make peace in this way, who is a peacemaker, and does not stop doing so, is the Messiah himself, Jesus, as Saint Paul says again in his Epistle to the Colossians (1, 20)using the same expression: “He was the peacemaker, by the blood of his Cross” (…)
We then understand the extraordinary meaning that this phrase of the beatitudes acquires when it concludes with the reward, the promised happiness: “God will call them his children.”son of God” which gives the beloved Son, the Messiah.
Therefore, the messianic vocation of the disciples of Jesus is to be with him, “making peace with the blood of his Cross”. (…)
Example from real life (blessed are the peacemakers)
You will tell me: we are far from the UN, from failures in the establishment of peace where conflicts are currently burning. Think again. On the contrary, we are at the center of this process. Because we must first understand why the conflict exists. (…) They are constantly emerging in new places where we did not expect them.
(…) Human laws cannot change hearts, because the heart of men, let’s say that the secret of each man is his freedom, weak, wounded, ambiguous freedom, capable of both the best and the worst; and to want to prevent it by force would be to reduce men to slavery.
This is not the solution that Christ offers in these Beatitudes. It’s about being “peacemakers.” So on this root of evil, work as he himself does through a work of liberation of freedoms in his most intimate secrets. (…)
But why does the idea of failure come to mind here? Because what we dream of, the ideal peace, has not happened. We mentioned it at Christmas time, Isaiah described to us a heavenly universe where “the wolf will live with the lamb, where the calf and the lion cub will be fed together, a child will lead them…, the infant will have fun, over the hole from the cobra, over the viper’s hole, the child will stretch out his hand” (Is 11, 6-8).
Start by being “peacemakers,” says Jesus; and this, as a permanent task. It is a real fight and a spiritual fight. (…)
If we unfortunately stop fighting, it would be hell on earth; and it would have to be said that Sartre’s formula is the most correct that exists. A hellish world is the caricature that we sometimes manage to build: dictatorships seem immortal or slavery seems indefinable, be it the slavery of passions, drugs, money, the desires of others, etc. (…)
- “Happy are those who suffer persecution for the cause of justice; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “
Blessed are the peacemakers who will receive heaven
We must understand: “because God will give them the Kingdom of Heaven”, that is, the Kingdom of God, His Kingdom; he will bring them, he will share it with them. This does not surprise us; the same blessing was said for the first of the Beatitudes pronounced on the “poor in heart”.
But what does “persecuted for justice’s sake” mean? We would spontaneously think of heroes in the defense of human rights who oppose injustice, who attack the powerful and who, as a consequence, suffer the opposite fate. (…).
Is this what Jesus means?
To be sure, just read the comment you give us. “I tell you: Blessed are you when you insult and persecute you, when they say all kinds of evil against you, lying for my sake; rejoice, rejoice, your salary is abundant in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets, those who preceded you. “
What do you mean when you talk about “justice”?
For us, it is an abstract term; it covers the idea of equity, the idea of social justice. However, here justice becomes a person, Jesus alone! How can we not remember the messianic name that will be given to Jerusalem, as the prophet informed us: “The Lord is our righteousness”?
We suppose that it is something more and, in a certain way, much vaster, broader, richer than our spontaneous idea of justice. It is something that assumes it but that surpasses it and surrounds it, that overflows it on all sides.
Indeed, Jesus defeats evil at the cost of his Passion, as we have seen in the beatitude of the “peacemakers”. Jesus in this struggle does not present himself as a triumphant avenger, but as the overwhelming and incredible figure of the poor who voluntarily accepts to become a victim, who bears all the evils inflicted by all the executioners, who suffers all the injustices of all the unjust. who bears the sins of the world.
Overcome injustice not by force, but by the forgiveness that comes from Above and by love. It is literally a complete reversal of the human condition achieved by the Son who became man.
Blessed are the peacemakers (a cause for rejoicing)
In this beatitude, Jesus gives us two reasons to rejoice. Because in fact it is about “rejoicing” and not just being declared happy. Rejoice, rejoice now and in this world; therefore in the midst of this immense task of subversion of evil with the weapons of good and not with the weapons of violence.
(…) This is not a promise of the future. From now on we play infinitely more “in Heaven”, that is, in God. The word “heavens” does not designate an empty space, on earth and different from it, but the divine reality, stronger, greater than man. Make no mistake about it. The heavens came down to earth with the messianic announcement of Jesus (…).
In the persecution that we fear, we already have, in this life, the abundant and superabundant reward in God. Jesus gives us a second reason to rejoice, he calls us by another title: “Thus the prophets were persecuted before you.” “
He designates us as successors of the prophets.
The just man persecuted by justice is a prophet not because he denounces injustice, but because he reveals the force that will prevail over any force hostile to justice. We have already shared in Christ’s victory in his resurrection through baptism. (…)
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You see, in this struggle, within the multitude of men of which we are a part, we are the sign and pledge of another way of living, of another possible communion among men, in another way. To make people meet and accept. each other, in their differences, not only by simple tolerance, compromise, acceptance of limits, but by a superior communion in the One who is at the source of human existence, since He is the Creator of all things. mens. (…) “
conclusion
This logic is not developed here in the pastor’s meditation, but it underlies his choice of the general theme of these Lenten conferences: “Who will make us see happiness? That is why the motto of blessed are the peacemakers that Christ shows us in this passage tells us gives the assurance that we will be called children of God.