Father Bob Irish
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This homily offers a profound reflection on the Beatitudes as a lived response to the Gospel. Drawing from personal experience, Scripture, and real-world encounters with suffering and compassion, Father invites listeners to examine what it truly means to be blessed.
Rather than abstract ideals, the Beatitudes are presented as a daily way of life—calling us to mercy, humility, forgiveness, and courageous faith in a broken world.
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This parish was my first assignment, and I was here from 92 to 94. The last time I was here was just as they were putting the scaffolding up for this beautiful piece of artwork you have here. So I commend all of you for what a wonderful job the artists did, and for all of you who helped make this a reality. You did a very fine job.
A story is told about a pastor who got up in the pulpit and apologized for a Band-Aid he had on his face. He said to the parishioners, “I was thinking about my homily while shaving my face, and I cut my face.” Afterwards, when all the Masses were done, the priest found a note in the collection plate that said, “Next time, Father, think about your face when you’re shaving and cut the homily.” Sorry, I didn’t cut my face. You get the homily.
In April of 1986, two gray-haired men greeted each other in Tokyo’s airport. Both men had tears in their eyes. One was an American and the other was Japanese. The last time they met was forty years earlier, in a cave in Okinawa. Sergeant Ponich had brought a small five-year-old Japanese boy who had been shot in the legs into the cave. He was washing the child’s wounds, trying to stop the bleeding.
Ishibashi was a sniper hiding in the cave. He came out of the dark corner, aimed his rifle at the sergeant, and prepared to fire point-blank. There was nothing the American could do. He simply continued tending to the child while the Japanese watched in amazement. Then the Japanese lowered his rifle. The sergeant stood up, took the child in his arms, bowed, and said the word “hospital” in Japanese. He left the cave and took the child to an American field hospital.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” When Jesus spoke the Beatitudes, he was talking to the crowds—everyday people like you and me. He was not giving some high-octane spiritual advice that only the highly sanctified could follow. He was giving us a prescription, saying that to be part of God’s family, we must respond to the challenges of the Beatitudes in our daily lives.
The Beatitudes propose a way of life. They invite us to identify with the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for justice. They challenge us to be compassionate, to be pure of heart, and to become peacemakers in our families, our relationships, and in society at large.
Even if this approach exposes us to ridicule or persecution, we must remember that every time we reach out to the needy, the sick, and the oppressed, we give them a foretaste of the promises of the Beatitudes here and now.
Have you ever forgiven someone and said, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s move on and begin again”? That is an example of “blessed are the merciful.”
Have you ever realized that you were helpless in a situation and had only God to rely on? That is “blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Have you ever been in a situation where the wrong thing looked extremely attractive and the right thing looked extremely difficult, and you asked God to help you do the right thing because you truly wanted to, but weren’t sure you could? That is “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness.”
Have you ever been deeply saddened by a loss, worked through it, and later realized it helped you grow and become a better person? That is “blessed are those who mourn.”
In my sixteen years working in health care as a hospice and hospital chaplain, I visited many patient homes, nursing facilities, and hospitals. I must admit, there were visits that shocked me. I encountered situations involving mental illness, women, and children living in extreme conditions—homes filled with hoarded items stacked nearly to the ceiling, where you could barely walk from room to room.
I also visited nursing facilities where two or three elderly people were crammed into one room, where the smell was so overpowering you had to cover your nose, and you could almost taste the stench.
So what do followers of Christ say to these people in our midst? Do we dare say, “Blessed are you”? Can we at least say, “Blessed are you because God loves you”? Because Christ has a special place in his heart for the oppressed and the forgotten. Blessed are you because, somehow, even if we do not know how, the blessings of God’s kingdom will be yours.
Blessed are you because God alone can fill your emptiness. Blessed are you because God pricks our conscience and reveals our own poverty before Him. Blessed are you because you live the crucified Christ that we so often try to avoid in our daily lives.
My friends, today’s Gospel invites us to ask ourselves: to what extent do we qualify to be called blessed by Jesus? Are we people Jesus would call merciful? Peacemakers? Poor in spirit? Do we ever stop to reflect on what it truly means to be Christian?
There are no easy answers. It would be easier to pretend the challenge does not exist. But perhaps there could be another Beatitude added: “Blessed are those who struggle with these issues, who endure criticism for acting on behalf of the Gospel.”
What is their reward? Perhaps the prophet Zephaniah gives us a clue: they will pasture and lie down, and no one shall disturb them—or in other words, make them afraid.
There was a long-running soap opera called One Life to Live. Today’s Gospel asks us a simple question: how are we living our one life? And is it the life we want to live in the name of the Lord?
May we live our lives poor in spirit and humble of heart, so that one day we too may rejoice and be glad, knowing that our reward in heaven will be great.