The Beatitudes





MORNING PRAISE | November 01, 2019 | Solemnity of All Saints
The Beatitudes | Matthew 5: 1-12

PERSONAL REFLECTION
Reflecting on why I am here in Arvisu and the journey that led me here, I find it hard to discount how my love for nature trips and climbing mountains figure into my discernment. It is in climbing mountains that I have come to realize that money, fame, and creature comforts are not the sole sources of happiness. It is in immersing myself in the beauty of nature that I have come to see the beauty of God himself – a beauty that He so readily offers me despite my smallness and insignificance.

My favorite hiking trip would definitely be when I climbed Mt. Pulag back in May 2014. Being a newbie in mountain climbing who was desperately out of shape, the high altitude often left me out of breath and thirsty, and my ego was bruised too, as I had to hire the services of a porter to carry my things. My porter just happened to be a 13-year old girl whose full height reached up to my shoulders. 

We spent the night at the campsite along the trail and woke up before 4 o’clock in the morning to make it in time for the sunrise at the peak. It took a lot of mind control to battle the cold morning weather at that elevation. It was a struggle to get out of the tent to trek in the dark, ignore the fact that my face was starting to feel numb because of the cold, and drag my heavy body as it started sweating under layers and layers of clothes. We got to the peak just as the sun was starting to rise. And then finally there it was: a sea of white fluffy clouds illumined by the most gorgeous hues of yellows and oranges, just as the stars were starting to retire, taking with them the dark blues and blacks of the night that had been. The scene was more beautiful than what I expected, and as I stood there allowing myself to be embraced by the grandeur of God’s creation, I really felt Him and his boundless blessings in my life. My tears then started to quietly flow, as I tried to control myself from sobbing para mas intense (so that the feeling becomes more intense). How beautiful!

My immediate thought about today’s gospel about the beatitudes is that it takes hardship and sacrifice to be blessed by the Lord. Looking at how each of them was stated, we see a very clear pattern: that those who are suffering in one way or another, will be rewarded and blessed in one way or another. Which is why I couldn’t help but remember the hardships I went through just to witness the sea of clouds during that sunrise in Mt. Pulag: suffer and then get the reward.

Reflecting on this further, I couldn’t help but see the flaw in that way of thinking: because the reward – the sea of clouds, would always be there whether or not I decide to leave the campsite and trek to the peak. In the same way, God’s abundant grace and blessings are always being poured out to us to partake in. Our sufferings and sacrifices do NOT give rise to God’s blessings.  However, in the midst of adversity and sufferings, we so easily forget God’s generosity to us, and so the beatitudes remind us that through the ordeals that we go through, God’s blessings continues to flow and overflow.

And so I pray that I not lose sight of this realization; and that I always remember that God’s blessing and grace abounds, even in the midst of my sufferings, my pains, my transgressions, and my low sense of worth.

Amen.

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