(Isaiah 30, Psalm 147, Matthew 9-10)
The Jesuit priest, Fr. John Powell, gave us a helpful way to consider the beatitudes. He called them the “be-attitudes.” This perspective is not etymological, but realist. That is, the root for beatitude has nothing to do with our word “attitude.” But in reality living the beatitudes makes us be better human beings.
Fr. Powell illustrated what he meant by “be attitudes” with a story like this. Everyday a man approached a newspaper vendor rudely demanding a paper. The vendor would always greet his customer cordially and bid him a nice day. Another person noticed this taking place and asked the news vendor why he didn’t respond to the discourteous customer with similar rudeness. “Because,” he said, “I do not want that nasty person to determine what kind of day I am going to have.” The vendor had a fine attitude for being – a be-attitude.
In the responsorial psalm today we repeated a beatitude. “Happy are all who long for the coming of the Lord,” we said. “Happy” here is another translation for “blessed” – the actual root meaning for beatitude. Those who wait on the Lord are “happy” or “blessed” because God always fulfills His promises. They follow the Lord’s will happily because they know that God will come to reward their efforts.
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