My Thoughts on 10/07/2020
The beatitude we are pondering today is “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”. Charles Wesley wrote a hymns the first two lines of which were
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Meek is a word that doesn’t always have a positive meaning. It sometimes suggests the passive meaning of submission. What picture of the master do we imagine when we use the adjective “meek”?
Jesus is proposing a way of meekness at a time of conflict, disputes. We see Jesus acting with respect, courtesy and mercy. This is the gentleness and mercy that he is showing us.
We heard in last Sunday’s gospel the words of Jesus, “Learn from me for I am gentle of heart and you will find rest for your souls. If the beatitudes are a self-portrait of Jesus then he is calling us to draw on his own meekness.
St. Paul writes to the Colossians, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience. “Kindness and meekness are like a robe that Christ has won for us and which, by faith, we can clothe ourselves” (Cantalamessa).
Here is one of the petitions from the Litany of the Sacred Heart, “Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like yours.” This could be our prayer today.