NOTES for Mat 5:1-12
The most important sermon of Christ preserved by Matthew begins with the Beatitudes. And from the very beginning Jesus confronts His listeners with paradoxical formulations that are not easy for them to grasp. Throughout all the following centuries, puzzled questions about the Beatitudes have been raised more than once.
Meanwhile, the very construction of these commandments contains answers to the difficult questions that arise about them. Thus, if those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted, then the poor in spirit are blessed precisely because in the Kingdom of Heaven their poverty will be filled. The meek, pushed to the margins in the present cruel world, will inherit the earth, which means they will not be crushed by the strong and insolent.
It is clear that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied near the One who is Himself the bearer of the highest righteousness. But the fact that the merciful will receive mercy means not only that they will receive a reward for their works of mercy; it is also a statement that in our earthly world they are too often repaid with evil for good.
The pure in heart are to see God. Yet from the Old Testament we know that a person cannot see God and remain alive. What power there must be in purity of heart, if even the impossible becomes accessible to those endowed with it.
The last two categories mentioned in the Beatitudes, the peacemakers and those persecuted for righteousness, to whom the highest rewards are promised, can be considered separately. Still, one wants to unite them, not only following the parallelism characteristic of biblical poetry, but also because all the faithful are called to possess these qualities, like all the others listed among the Beatitudes. It is no accident that the promises both begin and end in the same way: with the promise of the Kingdom of Heaven.