[A Homily of Fr. Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O. for the 6th Sunday of the Year (C), Feb. 12, 1995: Mt 5:1-12]


Our Code of Behavior

So it is bad when all speak well of you? Is that what He is saying? It is wrong to be well spoken of? No, you miss the point. That's not what He meant. Being well spoken of is not the idea at all. Living well is. We seek to live well, not to be well spoken of. We do not seek to create an image. We do not cultivate a good public impression, public relation. First things first. To be well spoken of or poorly, to have a good press or a bad one is irrelevant. What sort of person are you? That's what matters.

And so Christ begrudges us a decent life, enough to eat, a time of laughter?

No, He didn't say that. He asks rather, what is the good life? And at what price do you eat well? Who grows your food, who picks it, who packs it, ships it, prepares it, sells it. You eat well. Do they? That's His question.

And what are you laughing at? What amuses you? What do you ridicule? What do you make fun of? Whom do you belittle? Who is the butt of your humor. Who pays for it? That's Christ's question. He does not fault your laughter. He only questions the point of it.

In other words: the Beatitudes, as we call them, from the first word of the Latin text, Beati, are a code of behavior that simply raises questions on your values.

He says it is no sin to be poor. But to be rich because you are evil and corrupt and crooked is a curse, not a blessing. It will not wear.

Millions go hungry, children most of all in a country as rich as ours. They are blessed because in comparison with the well-fed and the over-fed, the latter are cursed. Most dogs in our land eat better than many children. No one begrudges a dog a meal, least of all Christ, but something is wrong when dogs eat better than people.

Christ does not love tears and sorrow. He would not have His people a weeping people. But, He says, if you weep as Mine, know this for sure: one day the tears will cease and the weeping vanish, and you will know a joy you cannot imagine.

So, first things first. When you love God and fear Him, and seek to please Him, and live by the law of His Love, then things have a way of falling into line. You can keep your balance. You do not lose your good judgment. And then temporary evils are seen for what they are: temporary evils. There are worse things. To be driven out, to be cursed, shunned, denounced are bad enough, God knows, but not the worst. Not when your integrity is intact, your conscious clear. And you know in your heart, things will work out. So we can rejoice and be glad, and dance for joy, no matter what the appearances. And we have this from Christ. It is not some idea I dreamed up by way of Sunday rhetoric.

 Lincoln was poor -- in so many ways poor. What President had so humble a beginning? Just down the road. He was a big strong man, and he had a face of great character (although not much beauty), and a face of great sadness. Yet his whole face would light up when he spoke from the heart, as he usually did. His youthful love, Ann Rutledge, died young. He never had her. He lost a four year old boy, broke his heart. And another dearly loved son, Willie, in the White House. He is buried next to him in Springfield, Illinois.

He had bitter enemies in government, a nation that split over slavery despite his efforts to sustain the union. He fought a war that was marked mostly by incompetence and brought it to a happy conclusion. Few Presidents suffered more or reached his height of integrity. There's no question: he is the most Christlike of any who lived in the White House. It's not inappropriate that he died on Good Friday.

Like many tragic figures, he had a prevision of what was coming. And so no doubt gave his life for his people. Lincoln is speaking to his guests:

 "There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me," Lincoln began, his face visibly pale, as he recalled a recent dream. "Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping."

Mary Todd Lincoln and the others in the room listened in growing horror, as her husband went on to describe how he had left his bed in his dream and roamed the White House, searching everywhere for the source of the sobbing...

"I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along."

Puzzled and alarmed, Lincoln made his way to the East Room. What he saw there both surprised and shocked him..."Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral garb. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully."

The president approached the catafalque and stepped up to the guards... "'Who is dead in the White House?' I asked of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin!'"

Within a week, Lincoln was himself the victim of an assassin. His corpse dressed in funeral clothes. The coffin resting on a catafalque. The catafalque ringed by soldiers and sobbing mourners.

One wonders what it was like for him to live with such a vision. He was the first President to be assassinated. Today is his birthday. l 8 0 9.
 

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