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Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-11
Blessed Are The Pure in Heart
Verse 8:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (NRSV)
You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. (The Message)
Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere. (Aramaic)
To be pure in heart means to live in congruity between your inner life and your outer life; it means to live from an awareness of the Sacred Source who is pulsing in your own heart and in the world around you, moment by moment. Where in your life do you have a longing for integrity and for seeing God more clearly in each moment? (Christine Paintner, The Artist’s Rule)
Who does Jesus choose to commend? Not the totally pure but the “pure in heart,” to use Jesus’ phrase, the ones who may be as shop-worn and clay-footed as the next one but have somehow kept some inner freshness and innocence intact. (Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark)
Reflections on this beatitude
Which of the five versions appeals to you now in your life?
When has your life radiated from a place of love and you noticed?
How has it felt for you to have your inner life and outer life be congruent?
How do you show a longing for more of God?
How do you keep an inner freshness, despite all of life’s challenges?
What is your prayer for yourself and others around this beatitude?
Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-11
Blessed Are The Merciful
Verse 7:
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. (NRSV)
You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-ful,’ you find yourselves cared for. (The Message)
Blessed are those who, from their inner wombs, birth mercy; they shall feel its warm arms embrace them. (Aramaic)
Those who are merciful are the ones who extend grace; they also receive grace in return. Where in your heart do you experience the longing for grace and mercy? Which part of you offers mercy and grace to others and which part resists? Christine Paintner, The Artist’s Rule
Who does Jesus choose to commend? Not the winners of great victories over Evil in the world but the ones who, seeing it also in themselves every time they comb their hair in front of the bathroom mirror, are merciful when they find it in others and maybe that way win the greater victory. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark
Reflections on this beatitude
Which of the five versions appeals to you now in your life?
Who has been most merciful to you in your life? How did it affect you?
Who do you feel the most mercy for at this moment? Why? What will you do?
What is your prayer for yourself and others around this beatitude?
Beatitudes: Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
Matthew 5: 3-11
I share four versions of each beatitude: New Revised Standard Version, The Message, one of several choices from an Aramaic translation, and Christine Paintner’s reflection from her book, The Artist’s Rule. The reason for this is that the Beatitudes are frequently hard to understand or to translate to our own lives. I hope that this opportunity to experience them from different viewpoints will open them for you and take you to a new place within yourself. I hope this inspires you to write your own beatitude or to sing it or to pray it. Blessed are you who receive this love.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Verse 3:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (NRSV)
You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is the more of God and his rule. (The Message)
Tuned into the Source are those who live by breathing Unity; their ”I can!” is included in God’s. (Aramaic)
Paintner’s reflection: She says the Beatitudes are not about our big radiant self, but about the tender, quiet self, or the self who has been shut out for some reason. Now we can invite the wisdom of the quiet self.
“To be poor in spirit is to surrender yourself to something much bigger and vaster than you own ego. This poverty allows you to recognize your experience of exile in the world. God is present as the one who stirs in the depths of our hearts, not in the dominant ways we usually think out in the world. The experience of poverty and brokenness often acquaints us more deeply with the gift of simplicity as we discover what is most important. Where in your heart do you experience this call to simplicity, to finding that place where you and God meet? Notice what stirs in response, and be present to this experience. “
Reflections on this post.
Where does this beatitude resonate in you?
Which version speaks to you and why?
Where are you poor in spirit right now?
Where in your heart do you experience the call to simplicity that Paintner describes?
At Rivers Edge by Janet Hagberg 