by Father John A. Hardon, S.J.
Beatitudes: The New Testament 'Decalogue'
In the history of
Christian Spirituality the Eight (8)
Beatitudes have been regularly associated with the Ten (10)
Commandments. Saints and Scholars have analyzed the Commandments
in contrast with the Beatitudes. By now there are many learned and useful writings on the
subject -- Volumes in fact.
To be noted is that Christ gave the Beatitudes to
His Own Disciples selectively. They in turn having received the
Beatitudes, were to teach them to others. This is exactly what Yahweh did on
Mount Sinai. He chose Moses, the Leader of the Chosen People, who in-turn was to give
the Tablets of the Law to the Jews.
Similarity Between the Commandments and the Beatitudes
First I would like to have us reflect on the Similarity between the
Commandments and the Beatitudes. As we know over the
Centuries, indeed, from the Dawn of Human History, God
has given what we call Revelation to the Human Race. There are
Two (2) Reasons -- to reveal to us Who He is, and to reveal to us
What He Wants (Wills). Both the
Commandments and the Beatitudes are Divine Revelations
of what God Wants (Wills).
Secondly both the Commandments and the
Beatitudes are Enunciated, indeed Enumerated. God
is the Great Mathematician. God counts things; all the
number-of-Numbers revealed in the Bible. Three (3) of this,
Seven (7) of that, Forty (40) of something else, and
Twelve (12) of something still else. And here, Ten (10) of
One and Eight (8) of the Other --
in other words, both the Commandments and the Beatitudes have a
Specific Number of Directives. That is crucial. Numbering things
distinguishes one-thing from another and the essence of clarity is distinctiveness. God wanted to be
clear, very-clear when He gave Moses the Decalogue.
Christ wanted to be very clear, and in fact so clear that He
began each Beatitude with well, with only One (1) Correct
Translation (Blessed are they who).
Third both the Commandments and the
Beatitudes are Specific. They are not Generic Directives
like do good and avoid evil. Thanks
Lord. What Good should I do - what Evil must I avoid?
God is never Generic.
Fourth both the Commandments and the
Beatitudes were given to the Chosen People. The Jews of the Old Testament and the Christians in the New Testament. Needless to
say neither all the Jews of the Old Testament, nor all the Christians of the New Testament, appreciate God's
Will, selectively choosing certain people. Thanks Lord, Thanks!
Fifth, both the Commandments and the
Beatitudes Synthesize the Essential Expectations by God
of the Two (2) Chosen People. And finally both the Commandments
and the Beatitudes are Imperatives. They are not
Ten (10) Suggestions or even Ten (10)
Options. They are Ten (10)
Commandments. No doubt we commonly speak of the Decalogue as the
Ten (10) Commandments and call the Eight (8)
Promises of Happiness the Beatitudes. But the
Beatitudes, no-less-than the Commandments, are Preceptive.
On whom? On the People-of-God, before Christ, and on the
People-of-God, after Christ. So much for the Similarity.
Now the Differences.
Differences Between the Commandments and the Beatitudes
In the Ten (10) Commandments it was Moses, the Prophet,
who received the Decalogue from Yahweh and remember the Thunder,
the Lightening, the Celestial Phenomena put-on by God to impress the Jewish People of what was happening
on the Mountain between Moses and Yahweh. The Beatitudes
however were given by no Prophet. They were given by God Himself Who became
Man. There was no Human Person as Intermediary. It was God Himself
Who gave us the Beatitudes. As Saint Paul says in the opening verses of his
Letter to the Hebrews. God in certain times and in diverse manners spoke in times past to the Fathers by
the Prophets. Last of all, in these days, He has spoken to us by His Son.
What a Difference, Christ Himself, the Incarnation of the
Beatitudes. He personally gave us the
Beatitudes and remember through those who in-turn, Believing and
Living the Beatitudes, would pass Them on to others.
Get those Two (2) words believing in and
living the Beatitudes. Nobody else is able to do it. You might
believe and you must put your Faith into practice and then
Ten-Thousand ears can be opened to listen to what you are saying, but not a Single (1)
Heart will be opened to live what you are telling them
unless you yourself believe and live
what you are preaching to others. And nobody cheats here.
We go on, remember, reflecting on the Differences. Moreover Christ
lived the Beatitudes. Unlike the precepts of the Old Testament which were directed
to Human Beings who could Sin, we can-not-say, we dare-not-say
that God Himself lived the Ten (10)
Commandments. It doesn't make sense. God can not
Sin. God became Man, then
He gave us the Beatitudes. It was what
He Himself was living, He Who could not
Sin. There is a profound sense in which we can say the Beatitudes
build-on the Commandments, the Beatitudes presume the
observance-of the Commandments.
We go on again, contrasting the Beatitudes with the Decalogue.
The Beatitudes were given to the Human Race which was about-to-be
Redeemed by the Passion and Death of
Christ. The Commandments were given Centuries before
the actual Redemption. Thus the Beatitudes built and build-on the
Treasury of Graces, which Christ had to win for the
Human Family by His Own Death on
Calvary. If I were to distinguish between what we call Theologically, Evangelical Precepts
and Evangelical Councils, I would say Evangelical Precepts are
the Ten (10) Commandments elevated indeed and
Sublimated by Christ Himself. But They are still the
Ten (10) Commandments binding under
Pain of Sin. Whereas the Beatitudes
belong Theologically speaking, to the Evangelical Councils. One of the great statements of the
Second Vatican Council was to define Religious Life as a lifetime commitment to living the Beatitudes.
We need that. In other words a Lifetime self-commitment under the impulse of Divine Grace to go
beyond what we are Commanded under Pain of Sin where the motive
is no longer as it should be, the Fear of God's
Punishments, but rather a Deep Love for the
God Who became Man out of Love for me;
Who lived the Beatitudes and
dare I say, and Died, because He
practiced the Beatitudes.
We continue. Remember we are reflecting on the Differences. The Beatitudes therefore are
Expectations that Christ could make to those Promises if you wish, who believe in
Him, for which the Human Race was not prepared when Moses first
received the Decalogue on Mount Sinai.
God is not unjust; and neither places Demands nor makes Expectations of people unless, and
should I add, until they have the means for living-up-to God's Demands and Expectations. In
the Old Testament at the time of Moses, the then Chosen People did not have the means of living-up-to, but
Centuries later God had to become Man
to provide the means of living-up-to what we now casually call the Beatitudes.
We're still on the Differences. The Beatitudes are specific Covenants, as you may call them,
between Christ and His Followers. He
promises Happiness on Eight (8) different Conditions; provided we
fulfill these Conditions, our Happiness is assured. Christianity is
all about Happiness. That's the New Covenant. Christ promises
Happiness, but not on these Worldly Terms. Thus we are comparing the
Commandments with the Beatitudes. The Happiness
promised in the Beatitudes is Supernatural in
Five (5) Ways. It's Happiness all right, but it is
Supernatural Happiness, Super Earthly Happiness, Superhuman
Happiness, Superhumanly Possible Happiness.
Supernatural Happiness Promised in the Beatitudes
(A Unity (1) of Body and Soul)
Supernatural Grace/Infused Virtues and Gifts of the Holy Spirit
The Supernatural Order is the Ensemble of Effects exceeding the Powers of the Created
Universe and Gratuitously produced directly by God for the purpose of raising the Rational Creature
above its Natural Sphere to a God-like Life and Destiny.
How First? It is Supernatural
(i.e. produced-by-God) and underline Supernatural Happiness
because it was revealed as Eight (8) Mysteries of our
Faith. Of course the Trinity is a
Mystery, of course the Incarnation is a strict Mystery.
Surely the Real Presence is a Mystery. They are
Mysteries for the Mind. Oh, but they are also
Mysteries for the Will – the Mind
believing that provided we fulfill our part of Christ's Covenant,
we will receive a Happiness that surpasses all Rational Comprehension.
It just does not make Aristotelian or Platonic sense to say Happy are they who mourn.
It doesn’t make sense humanly speaking, I have to use the language, it's nonsense.
We go on. The Happiness that Christ promises in the
Beatitudes is Supernatural because the
Beatitudes require Superhuman Light and Strength to observe. We can read the Beatitudes.
You can read it all and if you are a learned Theologian you can even explain them or write books about the
But you will never experience the Happiness unless you have had access-to that
Supernatural Light and Strength, in other words, Divine Grace.
And therefore the Beatitudes are just impossible without getting the
Grace in the Three (3) basic ways that we get Grace.
How do we get Grace?
By Praying for Grace,
by receiving the Sacraments,
and in many ways the hardest, by cooperating with Graces we've received.
I Pray for the Graces I need tomorrow, and I sure need them,
but God is giving me Graces today and I ignore them. Sorry my
dear, sorry, I was going to give you those Graces tomorrow provided you would cooperate with the
Graces I gave you today.
How then is the Happiness Supernatural, promised in the Beatitudes?
Because the Happiness they promise is not the Happiness
that comes either from Nature or is experienced in our Nature. There is an Ocean of Theology behind that statement. We have desires, and
desires from the most Sublime to the Lowest. And all happiness – my prior definition is the
Satisfaction of One's Desire. But the Beatitudes do not promise
the Satisfaction, to say the least, of all our Desires, indeed they do not even promise the Satisfaction of our Natural Desires, as
legitimate as they can be.
In other words, the Joy assured from living the Beatitudes
comes directly-from God and is to be experienced in the Soul,
indeed even to the Body, but in a Person who is animated by the
Grace of God.
We continue. The Happiness promised from the Beatitudes is
Supernatural because it will not be Fully-Satisfied here-on-Earth, but
only in Eternity.
And just-for-the-record, to live-out the Beatitudes does give us the promise of
Happiness already on Earth, but that Happiness here on Earth is
mainly the Happiness of Hope. The Happiness of the Confident Desire
that everything God promised, He will give us. To use a very homey
comparison. The joy that students, how well I know, have anticipating a Holiday. They are happy long-before the Holiday, just thinking,
dreaming, about what that Holiday will give them. But this is no dream.
Finally the Happiness assured us by the Beatitudes is
Supernatural because it is Conjoined with
Opposition and Persecution from a World that does not accept
Christ. Whatever else the Beatitudes should teach us, it is that
Two (2) Words, by Divine Revelation, belong together; and they are
Joy and Pain. That Pain and
Joy are not incompatible. I can experience the Pain, especially say of
Abandonment or Rejection or Open
Opposition from those who do not believe in Christ; and-yet, and-listen,
and Christ saved the hardest Beatitude for last:
Blessed are you when people persecute you, calumniate you, say all manner of evil against you for
My sake. And the Original Greek Version of Saint Matthew allows us to say, rejoice and
dance for joy because your reward in Heaven is great.
No Pain . . . . . .
No Guts . . . . . .
No Cross . . . . .
I'm not finished.
Law and Love
A Law and Love. If we were to give a name to the Decalogue in One (1)
Word it would be Law. If we were to give a name in One (1) Word to the
Beatitudes we could say Love. However we better be sure that these
Two (2), Law and Love are seen as not only not-incompatible, on the contrary, the One is an expression of the Other. What
the Beatitudes do, therefore, is to bring-out what is only implied in the
Ten (10) Commandments. What is it? That the Laws of God
are so many Manifestations of His Love. We commonly, but I would say incorrectly, think of a
Commandment as something we do not like to do, but ordered to obey under Penalty of Suffering
if we Disobey. I've seen it. A mother tells her boy to do something. He stands up,
"do I have to do it"? "Yes, Johnny" as I've
heard more-than-once from my mother, "you have to do it".
The Beatitudes, on the other hand, are so many Divine Assurances of
Happiness from a Loving God. Certainly we have to cooperate with
His Will. Yes, we must submit our Selfish Desires for what we-want, to
His All-Wise Demands corresponding to what we-really-need. But as Beatitudes, they are
not so much Demands or Commands as Loving Invitations from I repeat, a Loving
God. God gains nothing from our doing His Will,
nothing. All the gain is ours. To Love someone is to share what I have with the one I claim to
Love. In the Beatitudes, Christ
is giving us a share in His Own Divine Happiness, both here and hereafter. All we have to do is
follow His Example. Everyone wants to be happy – the universal desire of the human
Heart. Yet so many people are not only Unhappy, but
Sad, Discouraged, Despairing.
Shall we call them Civilized countries? There are countries that now legalize Suicide. And our nation
is pushing, shoving, and the one state being mainly used is Michigan, to legalize Suicide. Why?
So many people are Unhappy. As the Pagan Philosopher Seneca wrote, the
greatest freedom that man has is the freedom to take his own life.
Thanks Seneca, thanks.
Back to our subject. Everyone wants to be happy, yet so many people are
unhappy. It cannot be because they do not want Happiness. It can only be either because
they do not know how to be Truly Happy or they may know all-right, but they are unwilling to
pay-the-price. There is no greater lesson we can learn ourselves or teach others, none than the
lesson we have learned ourselves. The Happiness promised us by Christ
in the Beatitudes is the Joy of doing the
Will of God. This is the only True Joy here on Earth, as it is the only
True Promise of Perfect Joy in the World to come. If I were to
identify False Joy, the Joy promised us by the World, it is the happiness that comes from doing your
Own-Will. And conversely true, Joy taught by Christ and enshrined
in the Beatitudes comes only and in-the-measure that we are doing the Will
Comparison Recap (Similarities and Differences)
Ten Commandments -
Eight Beatitudes -
Given to the Chosen People -
Given to the Chosen People -
(You and me)
Given by God/Divine Revelation -
Given by God/Divine Revelation -
Characterized by Law -
(Basis of the Law of Moses and the Prophets)
Characterized by Love -
(Jesus 'lived' the Beatitudes)
Joy comes from doing the Will of God
Joy comes from doing the Will of God
Human Race was not prepared for the Beatitudes when
Moses first received the Decalogue on
Beatitudes are powered by the Treasures of Heavenly Grace
Merited by the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ
Directed to Human Beings, who could Sin -
Decalogue is the bare-minimum for Salvation.
Jesus, Who could not Sin, 'lived' the Beatitudes -
Beatitudes are the Ultimate means of Salvation.
Evangelical Precepts (Demands) -
Binding under the Pain of Sin
Evangelical Councils (Expectations) -
Self-imposed under the Impulse of Divine Grace
followers of Christ the
Beatitudes are not an option,
they are a Divinely Ordained
obligation. Having received the Grace of
the Supernatural Life in Baptism,
we have been given the strength to live the
Beatitudes and in Luke’s Gospel, quoting our
Woe to us, woe to us, if we do not live the Beatitudes.
Lord Jesus, you want us to have a foretaste of Heaven here on Earth.
Protect us from the folly of thinking we shall be happy in doing our own will.
Teach us to believe, really believe what You said,
'Abide in My Love. If you keep My Commandment you will abide in My Love
as I also have kept My Father's Commandments and abide in His Love.
These things I have spoken to you, that My Joy may be in you
and that your joy may be made full'.