Pope Francis Wednesday Audience – Vatican City,
August 06, 2014 (Zenit.org)
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We are not used to repeating the Beatitudes.
Let us try to recall them and to imprint them, in our hearts.
T
he Beatitudes are the path that God indicates as an answer to the desire of happiness inherent in man, and perfects the Commandments of the Old Covenant. We are used to learning the Ten Commandments – you certainly all know them, you learned them in catechism – but we are not used to repeating the Beatitudes.Take the Gospel, the one you carry with you…Remember that you must always carry a small Gospel with you, in your pocket, bag, always; the one you have at home. Carry the Gospel; and, the Beatitudes are in the first chapters of Matthew – I believe in the 5th. And today, tomorrow read them at home. Will you do it?…Not to forget them, because it is the Law that Jesus gives us!
…Jesus also gives us the "protocol" on which we will be judged. We will be judged at the end of the world. And what will be the questions we will be asked there? What will be the questions? What is the protocol on which the Judge will judge us? It is the one we find in the 25th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel. Today, the task is to read the 5th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel, where the Beatitudes are, and to read Chapter 25 where the protocol is, the questions we will be asked on Judgment Day. We won't have titles, credits or privileges to put forward. The Lord will recognize us if, in turn, we recognized him in the poor, the hungry, the indigent and marginalized, in the suffering…This is one of the fundamental criteria to verify our Christian life, against which Jesus invites us to measure ourselves every day. I read the Beatitudes and I think how my Christian life should be, and then I do my examination of conscience with this Chapter 25 of Matthew. Every day: I did this,…It will do you good. They are simple things, but concrete.
