The Beatitudes are a hymn to happiness, to the paradoxical Christian happiness of those who mourn and are persecuted, the meek and the poor. For Christ does not say, "Blessed are the well-fed and honored," although even they, difficult as it is, can still enter the Kingdom of Heaven (see Matt 19:23). On the contrary, through all these commandments the Lord shows that true life is found in simplicity. And these are not merely wishes, but commandments that must be fulfilled.

A very logical question arises: how is this possible? About some commandments we can still say that at times we correspond to them, for example those about mourning, but with others we have serious trouble. Who can honestly say that he is meek, pure in heart, and poor in spirit? No one, in essence. It is simply beyond our strength: our faith does not reach the level set in these verses.

And yet the Lord knows what He is doing when He sets such a standard before us. The mechanism of our relationship with Him is also paradoxical: hardly any teacher would pass a student who tries a little, has learned a little, and has understood something, but cannot answer all the exam questions. But the Teacher Himself promises to deal with us in exactly this way: to lead us "from faith to faith" (Rom 1:17) - from the small grain we already have to the fullness that only He can give.

The blessings pronounced by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount are commonly called the Beatitudes in Christian tradition, and are compared with the commandments of the Decalogue. Yet Jesus Himself did not treat them as new commandments replacing the old ones. In fact, in form they do not resemble commandments at all, but rather the series of blessings and curses with which Deuteronomy ends, or the blessings by which the Torah instructs priests to bless the people. But these blessings, of course, acquire a special meaning: they make sense only if the Messiah has already come and the messianic Kingdom is near and about to arrive.

The mention of the poor and the humble in such a context is especially significant. Historically, this refers to members of a movement that had formed even before the exile around Isaiah of Jerusalem. They came to be called 'the poor,' although in the literal sense they usually were not beggars. Sometimes they were also called 'meek' or 'humble,' with the same meaning: these are people who completely refuse to rely in life on anyone or anything except God, and who await the coming of the messianic Kingdom, where they will receive reward and consolation for the difficult path of righteousness they tried to follow. Speaking of the blessedness of the poor and the meek, Jesus thereby makes it clear that the messianic Kingdom has already come or is about to come.

Just as natural is the mention of those who thirst for righteousness: for the image of 'the poor one' was inseparable from the image of the righteous person, and already in pre-exilic hymnography these words had become virtual synonyms. At the same time, before the exile, purity of heart and mercy began to be perceived as integral traits of the righteous person. In addition, already in the pre-exilic period the image of the righteous person becomes the image of one persecuted by the authorities or the powerful of this world. Jesus proclaims the blessedness of those persecuted for righteousness, that is, following the tradition already existing at that time, for faithfulness to the Torah. And He adds: blessed are those persecuted for My sake, thereby in fact pointing to Himself as the Messiah; for the image of the suffering Messiah was known to tradition after all, although in those days it had somewhat receded into the background, and those persecuted for the Messiah and the messianic Kingdom were, of course, also understood as persecuted for righteousness.

Thus Jesus, proclaiming the nearness of the coming Kingdom, at the same time answers the hopes of those who were awaiting the Messiah and His Kingdom. He lets them understand that the long-awaited day has come - although not in the way they had imagined.

We are beginning to read the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ. Christians have always considered this text one of the most important for a person's formation in faith; it is said that in the early Church it even served as a basis for catechesis, the preparation of a person for baptism. We will see further on that the moral demands of the Sermon on the Mount are so high that they expose every one of us. And it would be very easy to fall into despondency, but throughout all the following days let us remember what we read today. Christ begins with a promise and encouragement, promising blessedness on the path of following Him, that is, some highest degree of happiness. And all this is because this is the very path where He Himself goes before us and does not leave us.