The speech of the mountain
The speech of the mountain is an exhortation that Jesus addresses to his disciples and to a large crowd gathered on a mountain located to the north of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum, to listen to his Word.
With this discourse, Jesus highlights, analyzes, embellishes and completes the Ten Commandments with a content that must affect the totality of individuals, who by making these divine teachings their own can enter into communion with God.
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The Beatitudes
Jesus, after seeing that the crowds gathered around him, His people, first ascend the mountain and then explain, with the renewed words of His Gospel, how many and what will be the realities that will be seen once they reach this height, specifying that only here the Kingdom of Heaven will become concrete and tangible.
We must listen to Jesus who announces to his disciples what path they must follow to reach the Beatitudes: "Poverty in spirit, meekness, thirst for justice, mercy, purity of heart, will for peace, persecution suffered for justice". And it is a proclamation that invites happiness and that true joy that fills the soul and plunges it into an ocean of peace and tranquility.
With this important Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the will of man and explains that being in the state of poverty, suffering or purity is not sufficient to reach the Beatitudes; it is necessary without reserve, to desire and to love these conditions. In fact, it will not be the poor in spirit, the weeping, the meek, the pure in heart, the persecuted, the merciful to be blessed, but those who ardently and zealously become volunteers of poverty, suffering, purity, mercy, etc. Of them will be the Kingdom of Heaven.
For the Master, the object of doing is not important, but the spirit with which one works. Therefore, in the light of this divine teaching, the Christian must act enlightened by faith, hope, charity and the light that Jesus grants only to those who are in communion with him; while the man who becomes attached to the pleasures and desires of the flesh will always be guided by concupiscence.
The Beatitudes orient the Christian soul to detach itself from any temporal good, this separation originates an inner emptiness that must be filled by the sublime love of Jesus.
In fact, you can not go up with Jesus from the earth to the highest spiritual peaks of contemplation, if you are pervaded and subjected to carnal thoughts: what Jesus wants us to reach, through the path of the Beatitudes, is a place flooded with pure light, immersed in a sublime truth, where all the evil shadows dissolve, where everything is possible that can not be seen by those who remain chained to their lusts.
Jesus explains to us through the words of the Gospel how many and which are the realities that are seen from this height, specifies that the Kingdom of Heaven is manifest here.
The Prophet shouts: "Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord" (Is 35: 4). Let us run too, let us go up to the mountain because once we reach the top of hope, we will be able to see from above all those goods that Jesus shows to those who follow him on the summit. Let us abandon sin and find every illness, every disease, taking our weaknesses upon ourselves and charging our diseases.
Bliss is a good of ineffable and of inexpressable beauty. It is wisdom, power, true light and source of all goodness. It is the power that dominates everything. It is that which remains eternally unaffected. It is the endless complacency. It is an eternal joy.
The essence of bliss is so sublime that it overcomes the cognitive abilities of human thought: even if we could penetrate this knowledge through the Holy Spirit, it would then be impossible to communicate our own experience through human words.
In narrating the ascent of Jesus on the mountain, the Evangelist Matthew proposes a scheme already known in the Old Testament where: "We climb the mountain to meet God". And as Moses ascends the mountain to hear the voice of the Lord and receive the Tablets of the Law, Jesus ascends the same way on the mountain with his disciples to shape their hearts through the word of God. And in this place he teaches them to learn to think and see this new reality where, respecting the new prescriptions, one becomes a Blessed.
For Jesus the sense of bliss is "to enjoy God". It is to feel that God supports us, guides us and gives fullness to our life. It is necessary to reach Bliss to benefit from the presence of God who gives strength, consolation and stability in the life of man.
Yes, Jesus wants to give an answer to the yearning of the soul that desires to reach that happiness for which it was created. A project that God has designed for all men and that can be realized following the evangelical teachings of Jesus.
Over time the Beatitudes have found in the exegetes different explanations with a thousand nuances. In fact, every commentator has read and interpreted this page in his own way. The mystics prefer to give a spiritual interpretation, while others diminish these teachings as simple things to do.
In the words of Jesus, in spite of the differences, one understands hidden otherworldly promises that highlight a mysterious "Kingdom of Heaven", which represents the summit of happiness.
Nine are the Beatitudes:
- Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Blessed are the afflicted, for they will be comforted.
- Blessed are the meek, because they will inherit the Earth.
- Blessed are those who are hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
- Blessed are the merciful, for they will find mercy.
- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
- Blessed are the persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- Blessed are you when they will insult you, persecute you, lying, they will say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
(Mt 5,3-12)
A special invitation
If you want to come to this joy and acquire the virtues, listen to Jesus' invitation: "All you will ask faithfully in prayer, you will get it"
(Mt 18:20). In fact, without prayer, no spiritual journey is possible, nor can we follow the footsteps of Jesus our Savior.
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