Poor and Happy

Jesus said, Blessed [happy] are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

What makes the poor in spirit blessed and happy?

First, the disciple who is poor in spirit sees everything—life, sunshine, lunch, family, everything—as a gift. We do not “earn” our lives, and our faith teaches us that everything we are and have comes as a gift from our Creator who journeys with us in our daily lives. 

Then, the poor in spirit are grateful for who we are and what we have. Our life, our place and time, our health, our sufferings are what God is giving us. The poor in spirit see all of it as enough (even as we ask the Lord for things we need).

The poor in spirit, enjoy All of God’s gifts. This joy is precisely Christ’s gift—I have told you this so that my joy may be in you. And enjoying what we are and what we have is the completion of gratitude.

So it happens in Christ that being poor in spirit is being blessed and happy, because theirs is already the kingdom of heaven.

Fr. Joe Tetlow, S.J.