The Beatitudes

Dedicated to my fellow European travelers

I don’t know about you, but, frankly, every time I come across these Beatitudes I feel a bit, well, queasy.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps in exotic places, perhaps in exotic places like Rome
Perhaps the people of the Beatitudes are there among the beggars jingling their cups and calling out, Padre Padre with twisted limbs and darting glances, furtive glances, answering their I phones and moving on
Among the people on the 64 bus, cramming, careening around corners
The furry, coats and hats and animal pelts
The stinky the perfumed and the putrid
The felonious pick-pocketing their way between exhausted tourists
The frantic, panicked, heated, desperate – Scusi, porta, permesso
The catatonic riding round and round with no where to go
The feely, prurient or pecunial, you decide
People eating oranges, and pizza and Chinese food
Cardinals, birds of men, authoritative
Bishops, purple and pointed IDEO
Monks, solemn and screaming out across the piazza, Va, throughout the bus: GET OUT!
Seminarians bundled and backpacked and enthralled and fatigued and very endearing
1-16
Chow Chows lost and forsaken
Justin Bieber and Gru
Free WIFI at the corner


Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps in distant places like London among the harried commuters minding the gap
Crazy bus drivers threatening death on double deckers
Shoppers frantic and rushed
Beefeaters reveling in MURDER
Horse guards, Bobbies and soldiers, sharp, arresting, combed, trimmed
Girls in pink wigs dolling out the sandwiches at Pret a manger
Folks in the street crying out: OOOO I love a bus parade
Dancers, Accordion Players, Soliloquizers, itinerate tunes sung through the nasal choruses of coughs and wheezes throughout itinerate lives lived with only a Tube pass and a cup from McDonalds, jingle, jingle, jingle.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps they are only be to found in big cities among the confused Japanese tourists, clicking, digitally clicking a scrapbook of memories that they will never remember how to interpret.
Infants, mewing and bound up in blankets and furs and hats and mittens with one lost or on the breast completely unabashed pushing his own stroller
Children so intelligent they speak Italian, French, British and crying out and clamoring over things and heedless
Teenagers, pimply and hormonal, twisting, shouting, texting and texting and texting
Married Couples holding hands, they still do that
Old People, wobbling and tottering like an Egyptian obelisk, but majestic
Lovers, kissing and touching and whispering meaningless things and wondering

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

Who are these people anyway? The Beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Perhaps among the dead, they might be good candidates:
Kings and princes
Presidents and Heads of State
Heroes, mythologically preserved in verse and prose
Saints, embalmed, immured, ennobled in marble and bronze
Fidelia, Sophia, Valentinia, Laurentia, Cecelia, Agnes, Lucy
Artists forgotten or immortal
Musicians with too many notes
Painters of canvases too large
Architects of buildings too grand
Sinners, forgotten and reconciled long ago

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

In Rome, or closer to home?
Erstwhile seminarians with evaluations and goals
New men looking a bit dazed
Old men looking a bit dazed
Monks, young and old looking a bit, well, dazed
Back and forth to class, shovel some snow, no trays, napkins, please, e-mail reminders, trips to Walmart, Death by boredom, football fever, ministry assignments, no desert, smoking in a refrigerator, Doubt, meetings, chop that wood, new bishops, new pastors, new deans, doubt, Father manners, TIOP, WITH, IDGAD, sisters, movie nights, borrowing, Los Bravos, Ferdinand Chinese, doubt, missing comrades, discernment in the subject line, bold red type from the vice rector, another book in the mailbox, doubt, home, confessions,
Real hurts
Real struggles
Real pain
Real spiritual warfare.

Or among husbands and wives
Parents and children
Back and forth to school and work
Grab some breakfast
What was your name again?
Trips to the Mall
New neighbors, jobs, the daily grind of living

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people?

Or dare we hope that all men and women will be saved?

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the weepers, the hungry, the homeless, the peacemakers.

The beatitudes are all very well and good, but really, where are we supposed to find these people? Here?