Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Tư tuần 23 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Tư tuần 23 Thường Niên
Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu nhiều lần đã gọi là "ơn phúc” (lành) cho các môn đệ của Ngài.  "Tám Mối Phúc Thật" là những lời hứa hẹn cho những Việc làm tốt, trong cùng một lúc đấy cũng là những lời hướng dẫn đạo đức. Mỗi "ơn phúc", được mô tả, có thể nói, các điều kiện thực tế của các môn đệ của Chúa Kitô: họ đều những người nghèo khó, những người đang đói khát, những người đang khóc than, vì họ bị ghét bỏ, bị bách hại ... Những mối phúc thật là những "tiêu chuẩn" thực tế cho ta sống, và cũng là những lởi chỉ dẫn cho chúng ta về thần học luân lý.
            Mặc dù phải đối đầu với biết thử thách, đe dọa, nhưng Chúa Giêsu đã dùng những sự khốn khó và thử thách để đem các môn đệ đến với hy vọng trong cuộc sống mới. Tám Mối Phúc Thật Chúa dậy các môn đệ hôm nay sẽ trở thành những lời hứa cho hạnh phúc đời sau khi con người chúng ta biết sống trong ánh sáng đến từ Chúa Cha. Đối với các môn đệ, hay chúng ta thì  "Tám Mối Phúc Thật" đúng là một nghịch lý: dựa trên các tiêu chuẩn của thế giới mà chúng ta đang sống trong xã hội naỳ cùng với sự đảo lộn khi chúng ta nhìn mọi thứ nơi những nấc thang giá trị của Thiên Chúa.  "Tám Mối Phúc Thật" là những lời hứa rực rỡ với những hình ảnh mới của thế giới và của người được Chúa Giêsu tấn tôn, và Ngài "chuyển đổi các giá trị" thực tại.
            Khi chúng con "chiêm ngắm" những Ân Sủng qua Chúa, Lạy Chúa, xin cho chúng con biết sống với tiêu chuẩn mới, Xin cho chúng con bắt đầu "cảm nhận được và thấy"  được một tương lai sáng sủa hơn trong nước Chúa mà biết sẵn sàng chấp nhận với niềm vui trong những sự hoạn nạn và thử thách mà Chúa đã và đang gởi tới cho chúng con.
 
Reflection: Wednesday 23^rd Ordinary Time
Today, Jesus repeatedly calls "blessed" to his disciples. The "Beatitudes" are words of promise that work at the same time as moral guidance. Each "beatitude" describes, so to speak, the realistic condition of the disciples of Christ: they are poor, they are hungry, they cry, they are hated, persecuted... The beatitudes are like practical "qualifications", but also like theological-moral indications.
            Despite the threatening situation in which Jesus considers his disciples, this situation becomes a promise when regarded in the light coming from the Father. For the disciple, the "Beatitudes" are a paradox: the standards of the world are turned upside down when you just look at things from God’s scale of values. The "Beatitudes" are promises resplendent with the new image of the world and of the man inaugurated by Jesus, His "transformation of values.”. When I "look" through you, O Lord, then, I live with new standards, I begin to "feel" something of what is yet to come (Heaven) and joy enters in my tribulation.
 
Wednesday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time 2023
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” Luke 6:24–26
Is it dangerous to be rich, to be filled, to laugh, and to have all speak well of you? According to Jesus, it appears so. Why would Jesus warn against these things? And before that, why would He pronounce it blessed to be poor, hungry, weeping and insulted? Essentially, Jesus was condemning four common sins—greed, gluttony, intemperance, and vainglory—and promoting their opposite virtues.
Poverty, in and of itself, is not sufficient for holiness. But in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus declares it blessed to be poor, literally. This goes further than Matthew’s Gospel which says it is blessed to be “poor in spirit.” To be poor in spirit is to be spiritually detached from the material things of this world so that you can be fully open to the riches of God. One common tendency among those with material wealth is to rationalize that even though they have many things, they are detached from them. Hopefully that is the case. However, in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, Jesus directly says, “Blessed are you who are poor” and “woe to you who are rich.” In this teaching, we discover a second blessing not found in Matthew’s version. In addition to spiritual detachment (poverty of spirit) being identified as a blessing, literal poverty is proclaimed as the easier way to achieve this spiritual detachment. Material wealth, though not a sin in and of itself, brings with it many temptations toward attachment, self-reliance, and self-indulgence. Thus, spiritually speaking, it is easier to be detached when one is poor, rather than when one is rich. This is a hard truth for both the poor and the rich to accept. The poor often want to be rich, thinking that if they were, they would share their wealth with others and remain detached. The rich often enjoy being rich and believe that they are more spiritually detached than they actually are.
Being “hungry” is also identified as a blessed state, whereas being “filled” is a dangerous state. When you are literally hungry, either from fasting or from lack of an abundance of food, it is easier to turn your hunger and thirst toward God so as to be filled by Him and to more easily trust in His providence. An abundance of food, especially fine food, tempts you with a gluttonous satisfaction that makes it difficult to hunger and thirst for God and His holy will in a complete way. Therefore, if you refrain from indulgence and experience hunger, you will be blessed to be free from gluttony and even the temptation toward it.
“Laughing” and “weeping” in this case are not referring to joy and despair. Rather, they are referring to those who are always seeking fun and an indulgent life. Many people live for fun, entertainment, and momentary pleasures. Weeping refers to those who have discovered that the fleeting pleasures of the world can never satisfy. Constant entertainment, therefore, brings with it a real temptation, whereas the loss of that form of fleeting pleasure helps eliminate that temptation.
Finally, Jesus declares it blessed to be hated, excluded, insulted, and denounced as evil on account of Him rather than being spoken well of by all. In this case, Jesus is referring to the praise that comes from things that mean nothing from an eternal perspective. When all speak well of us, praising qualities and accomplishments that are not true Christian virtues, we will be tempted to rely upon that praise for our satisfaction. But this form of satisfaction is nothing other than vainglory and never truly satisfies in the end. However, when one sees and praises the virtues of God within us, God is praised first and foremost, and we are blessed to share in God’s glory.
Reflect, today, upon whether you prefer to be rich, to indulge in the best of foods, to be constantly entertained and to be the envy of others, or whether you see the temptations this type of life brings. Reflect also upon the concrete spiritual blessings that come to those who are literally poor, hungry, temperate and humble. This is a very demanding teaching from Jesus. If it doesn’t sit well with you, then know that it is a sign that you still have various attachments in life. Reflect, especially, upon the beatitude that is most difficult to embrace, and make that beatitude the source of reflection and prayer. Doing so with honesty and openness will result in you being among those who are truly blessed in the eyes of God.
My blessed Lord, You were poor, hungry, temperate and humble to the perfect degree. For these reasons, You were filled with perfect virtue and were satisfied to the greatest degree. Please open my eyes to the deceptions of this world so that I can live with You a life of true holiness, experiencing the riches of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus, I trust in You!
 
Wednesday 23^rd Ordinary Time 2023
Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, I need your grace to believe you are here with me now, even if I don’t feel you. I know you are looking upon me with tremendous love, desiring to want to spend this time with me. I, too, want to love you by showing up just as I am. I give you this time, putting everything else aside to offer you my love, praise, and thanksgiving. How much I need your grace at this moment! I ask you to please send me your Holy Spirit to keep my heart still and at peace so I can hear without resistance what you want to tell me through this time of prayer. I ask you for the strength to respond with a generous heart. 
Encountering Christ:
The Kingdom of God: The Beatitudes express our human experience as followers of Christ and the cost of discipleship. They inform our choices under the law of Christ’s kingdom. As his disciples, we proclaim through our life and suffering the mysterious joy of being members of his kingdom. “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). To be poor of spirit, meek, righteous, and merciful identifies us as belonging to Christ’s kingdom despite sadness, violent opposition, social injustice, or whatever difficulty. Only with God’s grace and strength in our souls can we act in this way. This is how he established his everlasting kingdom. When my heart breaks because of the misery of so many today, I must not think that God has forgotten me. Instead, I thank God for how he is asking me to build his kingdom as his disciple. And I ask for the purity of heart, spiritual strength, and interior peace.
Conflicting Contrasts: It is a challenging and daunting proposition. Who wants to be poor, sad, conflicted, excluded, or demeaned? We try to do everything possible to avoid or minimize the chance of finding ourselves in such circumstances. Jesus is not asking us to flee or seek out discomforts, but instead, he wants us to realize that God always holds a brighter promise and eternal hope for what we endure. If we seek God first, he always calls us further. By way of apparent conflicting contrasts–poverty/riches, hunger/fullness, sorrow/laughter, and defamation/commendation–Jesus upturns the value we would typically consider desirable or pleasing. He is inviting us to embrace the truth that we cannot merely live to be happy in this life but must consider living in a way that ensures our eternal life because “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (Philippians 3:20-21).  
Cultivating Blessedness: To be “blessed” refers to the fullness of life and meaning that comes from living in union with God. Jesus repeats it eight times here at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. Although we can’t experience the complete fulfillment of all desire until we reach heaven, here on earth, the growing sense of spiritual happiness that comes from a friendship with Christ is what is meant by “blessed.” Let us not be Christians daunted by the “woes” of lamenting what we falsely took for granted or held onto. The Christian hope for eternity is not in what we can bring along with us but rather in the things we freely gave away, “even if only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42). Cultivating blessedness is to rejoice in what we have to suffer for love of Christ while generously sharing his goodness with those in need. Which beatitudes draw me into a deeper union with Our Lord? How am I seeking blessedness in accepting what he asks of me and sharing my gifts with others? 
Conversing with Christ: Thank you, Lord, for inviting me to share in building up your kingdom both here on earth and in heaven. Thank you for giving me the grace to see how I am to accept suffering, inconvenience, or discomfort with a purity of heart and meekness, allowing your mysterious kingdom to take shape in my heart. Thank you for giving true and lasting purpose to my life in all that I experience. So often, I resist, complain, or ignore these opportunities out of cowardice and lose perspective. Help me to be a true disciple of your kingdom, always looking toward heaven as I strive to bring others closer to you through humbly and peacefully enduring whatever you ask. O Lord, grant me a meek and humble heart like yours!  
Resolution: Lord, today, by your grace, I will pray for all who experience rejection, denunciation, or hostility, offering any inconvenience, especially for my Christian brothers and sisters who are persecuted for their faith.