The beatitudes that Jesus taught were not laws but graces that carried promises of exaltation, fulfillment, fruitfulness, or glory.  These attitudes and actions assure us access to the coming Kingdom.  They are possible because Jesus empowers us from within.  It is His living the beatitudes in us that make us the light of the world, attracting others to the Father by our good deeds.

Jesus is the new Moses who ascended the mountain to proclaim the law of the Kingdom.  However, He said He did not abolish the old law, but fulfilled it.  He fulfills the law and its meaning by interpreting it.  His interpreting principles, were the two great commandments—love of God and love of neighbor.  Love alone determined how all the laws precepts were to be applied.

Jesus not only speaks about fulfilling the law, He does it.  Jesus is the supremely happy man, who invites us to follow Him and share His happiness.  In the Old Testament God showed people of Israel that He wanted to save them from the evils that were destroying them.  Jesus was to accomplish this through His Passion, Death and Resurrection.  Now in the New Testament Jesus’s teaching of love and mercy are key for applying God’s law.  Without this key, peoples efforts to do God’s will become misguided and futile.

Jesus basically calls us to be happy.  He then shows us how to live our life in such a way as to accomplish true happiness—the eternal happiness in Heaven.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell