These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7: 14)
A Heavenly Blueprint
On All Saints' Day we hear the blueprint for all saints. Anyone who lives the way Jesus describes under eight headings will become "blessed". To anyone who takes on Jesus' plan for living, summarized in eight points, Jesus promises that he will be entirely happy forever more.
"Saints" are not only those people whose names are listed in the calendar of saints; they are all those who have well and truly achieved the goal of life and who are therefore "eternally blessed" - or, to put it simply, those "who are in heaven". These people are, so we may hope, infinitely more numerous than all those whose names are set down in the list of saints.
There are certainly a large number. Do they include everyone? Do we all get to heaven? We are permitted to hope so. Jesus talks about a narrow door that everyone has to pass through who wants to achieve the ultimate goal of heavenly bliss. Today he shows us eight ways to get through the narrow gateway to eternal bliss: eight attitudes, situations in life, outlooks on life that are, so to speak, guaranteed by Jesus to be successful.
In saying this, he is not simply putting everything off to an uncertain future beyond death, which we can of course not examine, as none of us has yet been completely on "the other side". Jesus already calls all those people "blessed" who are following these eight paths. In doing so, he risks having his blueprint checked at any time.
And that is the critical point. For the way that at least half of these eight "rules for happiness" sound, hardly anyone would fancy taking on that kind of program. What is there blissful about being poor or sorrowing, persecuted, mocked, or despised? Those are the very things that no one voluntarily chooses. And Jesus does not dispute that all this means unhappiness and a great deal of pain. Yet he does not turn his gaze away from that pain. There are far more poor people on this earth than people who are well-off. The pain and tears and sorrow are immeasurable. And how many people are suffering through being despised or mocked, through all kinds of torments! To all these people, Jesus is not saying, "Tough luck! You weren't born on the sunny side of the street - you'll just have to grin and bear it!"
On the contrary, Jesus gives the most solemn assurance that all tears will be wiped away, that all misery will come to an end. In doing so, he makes use of a turn of phrase that can be understood only in terms of his Jewish mother tongue. Since the Jews, out of reverence, avoid wherever possible pronouncing the name of God, they prefer to use a circumlocution: "They will be comforted" means "God himself will comfort them." Or, "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven" means "God himself grants them his kingdom and takes them into his blessed fellowship."
Jesus assures the poor and suffering people in this world that God is on their side. They are not forgotten or rejected by him. That is why Jesus calls them "blessed".
Is that not simply putting everything off, even so? No, since Jesus is also saying that all those people who put themselves on the side of the suffering ones, along with God, are blessed. He says that those who are meek, who use no force, and the merciful who do not pass by someone else's suffering, those who make peace, and everyone who is wholeheartedly committed on behalf of justice between men - they are blessed. Jesus calls people with pure and upright hearts blessed because they are really close to God.
Such people make others happy; they comfort them and lighten their troubles. In and through them we can directly experience how God does not overlook any suffering. A little bit of heaven becomes present in this earthly "vale of tears". Is there any better blueprint for happiness?
Reprinted from:
Behold, God's Son!
Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Mark
By Christoph Cardinal Schönborn,
Archbishop of Vienna, Austria
Ignatius Press, 2007
www.ignatius.com