Our last day in the Holy Land ended with Mass on the Mount of the Beatitudes.
It was another outdoor Mass with the Sea of Galilee in the background, a setting described as beautiful by many pilgrims.
Fr Paul celebrated Mass which was offered as a votive Mass for peace, but Fr John Hemer gave us one last homily before we headed to the airport. He spoke about the Beatitudes in Luke's Gospel. He said "The Beatitudes are saying that whenever we are in a situation that they describe we have the chance to enact the Kingdom of God."
Fr John went on to explain that Luke is addressing the poor and disenfranchised. They feel constantly unable to meet the high standards of the Pharisees and the demands of God. At the time of Jesus, poverty was considered a sign of God's anger. Yet, here Christ says God loves you.
If you take the Beatitudes out of context, then they can be misunderstood to be saying its good to be poor. What Jesus is saying is that we all come to points in our life where we just don't make it, where we fall short. When we come to that moment it isn't an 'oh no' moment, rather it is a moment of blessing as we realise that we need God.
This basic concept works itself out in the different ways of the Beatitudes. They tell us that God works through brokenness, pain and suffering and not jut through success, wealth and happiness. The Beatitudes give us hope.
This was a great note on which to end our pilgrimage and all pilgrims felt it was a fitting end to a prayerful and moving week.
