Sunday Gospel, February 13, 2022

Jesus came down with the Twelve

and stood on a stretch of level ground

with a great crowd of his disciples

and a large number of the people

from all Judea and Jerusalem

and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.

And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for the kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are now hungry,

for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who are now weeping,

for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you,

and when they exclude and insult you,

and denounce your name as evil

on account of the Son of Man.

Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!

Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.

For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.

But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are filled now,

for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will grieve and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you,

for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”

Bishop Barron:

Friends, our Gospel for today is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, less well-known than Matthew’s but actually punchier, more to the point. It all hinges on that decisively important spiritual attitude of detachment—apatheia in the Greek fathers, indifferencia in Ignatius of Loyola. It means that I am unattached to worldly values that become a substitute for the ultimate good of God.

How bluntly Luke’s Jesus puts things. Look at Luke’s first Beatitude, a model for all: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.” What if we translated this as, “How lucky you are if you are not addicted to material things.” When we place material things in the center of our concerns, we find ourselves caught in an addictive pattern.

Because material goods don’t satisfy the hunger in my soul, I convince myself that I need more of them. So I strive and work to get more nice things—cars, homes, TVs, clothes—and then I find that those don’t satisfy me. So I strive and strive, and the rhythm continues.

Therefore, how lucky I would be if I were poor, unattached to material goods, finally indifferent to them.