The Beatitudes: a revolutionary teaching. Jesus had watched and searched the type of righteousness called righteous in his day, and now joined issue with it. The Beatitudes become clearer when set against their opposites. The opposite of poor in spirit are the proud in spirit. The opposite of those who mourn are the light-hearted, always bent on pleasure. The opposite of the persecuted are the men who always ‘play it safe’ and compromise. They are not ‘principles’ but jets of light and love kindled against the darkness of the age. They reveal the secret of happiness. 

Poor in Spirit: it is not a blessing on the poor-spirited or the craven-hearted. The poor by contrast easily keep compassion, they remember their dependence, and so are blessed. The Mourners: Blessed are they that accept their own sorrow with resolve to learn, and to make the sorrow an oblation. Our instinct is to rebel against pain, or to try to evade it, or to forget it in work or pleasure. Also, blessed are they that voluntarily share their neighbour’s pain. They could sidestep it: “It is not my business; I have enough troubles of my own”. The Meek: They are not harsh, not self-assertive, not covetous, not trampling in brute force: they are humble in the strength of reverence. Others claim their rights, but the meek are concerned about their duties.

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness:  Righteousness means equity and humanity, the realm of the Christ-spirit. Jesus saw people hungering, but not for righteousness, which is justice held in love. The Merciful: Mercy lays claim on us whenever and wherever there is suffering. It pities and succours every creature, not man alone. It refrains from cruel sport as well as from cruel speech. Pure in Heart: “Heart” in the Bible means the whole personality. It involves mind and will, not only the emotions. Perhaps our deepest wish is to see God.

The Peacemakers: The central meaning of ‘peace’ is reconciliation with God. What is the work of peace? It is the task of reconciliation between groups and men at odds. It keeps centrally in view the holy love of God. It knows that there can be no real peace until men are reconciled with him. It abstains from provocation, moves with gentleness, and pleads in love. Peacemaking is a preventive task. His fundamental work is always to reconcile men with God. For as long as men are at odds with God, they are at odds with themselves and with their neighbours. 

Gen. 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Rom. 5:12-19; Mt. 4:1-11

The Transfiguration: The experience was God’s signature on the choice and commitment that Christ had made. The story itself shows that his mind was much occupied with thoughts of sacrifice and death. Jesus knew that eternal life is round about well-chosen death, that apparent failure can be truest gain, and that the Father was pleased in the commitment of the Son. Soon the vision faded, and he was left alone, but he had received light and power with which to meet encroaching darkness. 

The transfiguration is thus confirmation for our faith. The story nerved the early Church: we can almost feel the new strength that entered Peter as, according to the author of one of the general epistles, he

remembered the time when three men were “eyewitnesses of his majesty”. The story is our reminder that Jesus is Christ and Lord:  God has entered our world in him. Our nature therefore may be transfigured, after our own kind, in Christ, a fact which Paul splendidly proclaims: For “we ... are changed” as we gaze on Christ, “not the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). Prayer is the occasion - prayer and following Christ in his obedience to the strange ways of God. Our transfiguration as a profound emotion of course has its dangers, but when rightly used it is still the sign and seal of God. 

Escape from Life: Peter, James and John mistook “the dimensions” of the revelation: the “great day” had not yet come, even though they had received its assurance and foretaste. How often men have been caught in that misunderstanding!  How often they have forsaken the common task for a vain hope, forgetting that when God comes he would rather find us fulfilling life’s apparent round - praying if its is time to pray, working if it is time to work.

Jesus Only: In the temptation to escape from life the three found Jesus only, and he was sufficient guidance and friendship; for he did not ask that he might dwell on the mount, but made his through the valley-need to Jerusalem and death. In their fears they saw Jesus only; and that was right, for man’s dim sight cannot bear the supernal light, but needs “the gates of saving flesh and bone”. No man can see God and live, but we see Jesus. In their sins they learned to see Jesus only: only he, sent from God, can understand our waywardness, and keep us in the realism that sees the sinfulness of sin, and still forgives us in the depth of divine love. In the approach of death they learned to see Jesus only: he has “the words of eternal life.”