In the Beatitudes, Jesus says two things to His people: that they are blessed and poor, and that they are blessed because they are poor. Being poor means we Christians find our joy in the gifts we receive daily from God—like life, Creation, and our brothers and sisters—and not in money or other material goods. This type of poverty urges us to share the goods we have according to the logic of God, which is gratuitousness.
The Lord, by freeing us from the slavery of self-centeredness, breaks our locks, dissolves our hardness, and opens up to us true happiness, which is often found where we do not expect it to be. Do I allow myself to be ‘inwardly unhinged’ by the paradox of the Beatitudes, or do I stay within the confines of my own ideas? May Our Lady, the first disciple of the Lord, help us live as open and joyful disciples. Angelus Message, February 13, 2022
