How to Understand the Difficult Beatitudes

In 2009, after winning three Super Bowls and after marrying a supermodel Giselle, millionaire quarterback Tom Brady sat down for an interview on 60 Minutes. Gifted with intelligence, athleticism and good looks, the greatest quarterback of all time literally had everything the world says will make us happy and yet he was unfulfilled… He said, “There has to be more than this. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, "Hey man, this is what is." I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it's gotta be more than this. I mean this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I mean I've done it. I'm 27. And what else is there for me?”-Tom Brady.

Can you imagine the gall? How could Tom Brady, who has everything, still say 'there has to be more'? Wow. That says a lot about what the world says we need to be happy! Apparently riches, good looks, athleticism, fame, a supermodel wife, cars, yachts, houses are not able to fill the God-shaped hole within...in other words, they are NOT God. Finite goods are not the infinite God. 

Yet, who among us desires to be poor, powerless, persecuted or sad? It’s amazing, even shocking that Jesus would offer these up as a way to happiness. But he does (sort of)!

Most people would be turned off by these four prescriptions for happiness. Consequently, we tend to speed read our way through Matthew 5:1-10. As Catholics, we can never totally avoid the Beatitudes in the bible. They come up every year at the Novemeber 1, All Saints Day mass. The beatitudes are the designated Gospel for All Saints day because collectively they are a description of the iddentity of Jesus and by extension each of the Saints in as much as they conformed to Christ.

In the Catholicism series episode 2, 'Happy Are We: the Teachings of Jesus' Bishop Barron recovers an ancient key to unlock the surprising meaning of what he terms the 'confounding' teachings of Jesus.

In order to make the Beatitudes more digestible he splits them into two groups, the first four are labeled 'positive' and the second four are labeled 'negative'.

The positive beatitudes are a prescription for happiness by embracing holiness. In them, we are called to be merciful, pure of heart, thirsting for righteousness and a peacemaker. They are easier to understand and less paradoxical. The negative beatitudes on the other hand seem counterintuitive and therefore difficult to grasp. The key to unraveling their paradoxical knot so that it becomes intelligible is the word ‘detachment’. 

When we understand that we have an innate human desire for power, pleasure, prestige and possessions which may spiral out of control into addiction, then we can see the importance of detachment as a way to avoid over-attachment or addiction. Those four P-words were recovered by Bishop Barron and he credits Saint Thomas Aquinas for pointing to these four finite goods with built-in temptations.Instead of the original question, ‘Who among us desires to be poor, powerless, persecuted or sad?’, we can now ask a better question, ‘Who among us would like to be free of an addiction to power, prestige, possessions or pleasure?’.  

Thomas Aquinas said the beatitudes are best exemplified in Christ crucified, so that men will be happy only if they despise what Jesus despised on the cross and if they love what he loved. He loved doing the will of his Father. he despised worldy addiction to power, pleasure, prestige and possessions.