Cursed is the man who
trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the
Lord.
Raising His eyes towards His disciples Jesus said; Blessed are you who are poor, you who are hungry now, who weep now. Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude, and revile you, and spurn your name as evil’ on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice, your reward is be great in heaven.
Dear friends in Christ, Our
Lords words were for all time, but those final words are most closely expressive
of our present Christian experience.
First of all, we should appreciate
that Jesus curses no one, He nevertheless does most authoritatively declare
that whosoever trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart
turns away from the Lord, is cursed, has indeed cursed him(her)self. That is the great danger for all who, denying
Jesus as Lord, trust in the goodness they themselves, and many others like
them, are doing for sufferers every day.
There is no Satan they say, no evil force at work among men, the only
evil is the suffering they see and want to remedy, in the only ways they approve
of or understand.
Raising His eyes
towards His disciples Jesus said, blessed are you:
Poor, who look to God your loving Father and Jesus, your
Saviour and Redeemer, to help you work His will, bring-about His Goodness in
this world, by the grace of His most Holy Spirit, bestowed on you by Mother
Church’s sacraments in order that precisely such blessings may be bestowed on
our arid word, full of tempestuous words and ever-deeper, and secret, offence,
anger, and even hatred.
You who are hungry,
weep now, because you cannot delight
in the sinful pleasures that delight our world today, because the world’s evils
are ever-increasing through its wilful following of blind guides.
Blessed are you when
people hate you, exclude, and revile you, and spurn your name as evil’ on
account of the Son of Man.
Dear brothers and sisters
in Christ if you cannot delight in the world, if you will not allow yourself to
rejoice with the world, you are well on the way to being hated, excluded, and
reviled; for the world does not want any memories of better, disciplined, ways
of loving obedience for and with the One who is in all, above all, and through
all; the One who thus is with us and can love us in ways that are as numerous
as there are individuals capable of responding to such love.
All such delights in the One above all, are to be received only in and through Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour, the only-begotten and most beloved Son who came into our world because of His Divine Love for His Father, a love He wished to spread to all humankind for their individual human happiness and fulfilment; and for their divine fellowship as members of the Father’s long-loved, long-sought for, and fully to be embraced family, as His adoptive sons and daughters in Jesus, whose members they all are.
