Unforgettable are the words of Jesus, with which he expressed what prepares the coming of God’s kingdom. After all, the beatitude of Jesus praises the happy poor, because the kingdom of God belongs to them. For the poor and suffering, the first beatitude brings a source of hope. These people are mostly inaccessible to the values of the world and history, which they were either deprived of or did not have access to. The image of the poor is represented in the psalms: You protect a humble people from extinction and humiliate the eyes of the proud (Ps 18, 28). Blessed is he who remembers the poor man; in the day of calamity, the Lord will deliver him. The Lord will protect him, keep him alive, and make him happy on earth. (Ž 41, 2-3). Well, I am a wretch and a poor man; God, hurry to me. You are my help and my liberator, Lord, do not delay! (Ž 70, 6).
The term „poor ghost“ is also ambiguous in itself. Definitely not „poor in spirit! That is, people with intellectual weakness, because the Lord apparently did not come to call only fools and primitives to the kingdom of God – we see this from his preaching and in his first disciples. The poor in spirit are Christians who are humble before God; that is, they know they are poor, needy, small before the Lord, and therefore feel like beggars before God in every life situation, whether they are socially high or low, healthy or sick, learned or uneducated. The poor in spirit are Christians of a simple life view, that is, people who have achieved internal independence from property, honor, and power, whether they are socially significant or not, rich or poor, powerful or weak.
Saint John of the Cross says in the book Ascent to Mount Carmel that it is necessary to burn and cleanse oneself from everything created by the fire of love for God, so that all things are lost sight of, any pleasure arising from lust for any things. It is necessary to overcome the darkness of the night and come to light to see and mortify lust, such as curiosity and the desire for unnecessary things. For when a man takes pleasure in lust for any things, he remains in darkness and without anything. Therefore, as visual power is nourished and satisfied through light by objects that can be seen, which when the light goes out are not visible, and thus a person is satisfied and nourished by all things through desire, which he can try with his powers; when this lust is subdued, or somewhat mortified, one ceases to indulge in any things, and thus remains as far as lust is concerned, in the dark and without anything.
During this purification, an evil spirit that has power in a person’s soul is banished when a person clings to carnal and temporal things. When a person gets rid of all sensory objects, hobbies, and everything that can please the senses of sight, his soul remains even in this power of darkness, and without anything. And when he gets rid of the hobbies of all the pleasant smells that a person can enjoy with the sense of smell, no less remains even in this power of darkness and without anything. And when he denies himself the pleasures of all foods that can please the tongue, the soul of a person will remain equally dark and without anything. And finally, when a person is deadened in all the pleasures and satisfactions that the meaning of touch could reach, his soul will remain in the same way in this power of darkness, and without anything. So, about a person who would deny and reject his hobbies in anything and mortify his lust for them, we will be able to say that he is like at night, in the dark. And this is nothing but that he is emptied of all things and then ascends higher and remains alone in faith, without excluding love or other knowledge of reason, which is a thing that is not subject to sensory perception. In this way, the soul of man opens itself to God’s grace; God divides himself to man so covertly and intimately that, for him, this is union with God’s wisdom and bliss. The soul of man is not occupied or harmed by the things of this world when they do not consume it. In this beatitude, Christ speaks of the spiritual life and the new knowledge of God. God is the loving, wisest, and almighty Father to whom a creature can entrust itself with complete surrender. Christian piety, therefore, means above all a child’s personal relationship with the Father, personally understood trust, living intimate prayer, and life, by no means, only formal agreement to the message of heaven, with fear of the Almighty. Even in the Old Testament, God is sometimes called the Father. Still, he is always the Father of the nation as a whole, or the Father as the representative of the country, as the king of Israel – but never as the Father of man, individual. In the Old Testament, God is the relatively infinite Yahweh, before whom it is necessary to cover his face and take off his shoes, as Moses did. Christ does not speak of a social issue in this beatitude; among the disciples of the Lord, there were also rich people, such as Lazarus of Bethany, Joseph of Arimathea, rich women Mary Magdalene, John, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuz, Suzana, and many others, and the Savior did not ask them to give up their property. Only from the narrowest circle of disciples did the Lord ask them to free themselves from worries about property management and follow him with complete freedom (Lk 18, 22), and the Savior could rightly ask these at the end of his life whether they lacked something they needed to live and whether God’s providence took care of them (Lk 22, 35). He can also ask every bishop, priest, religious, and every believer why they take such careful care of their material security. Do they lack poverty of spirit? Do they lack faith in God’s care? Don’t they have little trust in God?
Hello. And Bye.