When God Calls You Blessed (4th Sunday Ordinary Time - Year A)

 

4^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A

Homily: “When God Calls You Blessed”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus climbs a mountain, sits down, and begins to speak.

That detail matters.

In Scripture, mountains are where God meets His people—where heaven feels close, where hearts are laid bare.

And when Jesus speaks from this mountain, He does not shout.

He does not command.

He blesses.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
“Blessed are those who mourn.”
“Blessed are the meek.”

And if we are honest, many of us hear those words and quietly think, That doesn’t feel blessed.

Because we live in a world that tells us blessing looks like success, comfort, recognition, and control.

But Jesus looks at a crowd filled with the tired, the overlooked, the grieving, the struggling—and He calls them blessed.

Why?

Because Jesus is not describing what the world rewards.

He is revealing where God is closest.

The Beatitudes are not ideals for perfect people.

They are promises for wounded people.

To be poor in spirit means you have come to the end of pretending you can carry life on your own.

To mourn means you have loved deeply enough to be broken.

To be meek means you have learned that gentleness is stronger than anger.

To hunger and thirst for righteousness means your heart aches for things to be made right again.

Jesus is telling us that these moments—these painful, vulnerable places—are not where God abandons us.

They are where He meets us.

 

Let me tell you a story that might help us understand this message a little more clearly.

There was a father who came to Mass every Sunday with his teenage daughter.

They always sat in the same pew.

She leaned against him during the homily.

People noticed them because they were always together—but what they didn’t know was why.

Several years earlier, this father had lost his wife.

Cancer.

Quick.

Cruel.

No amount of prayer seemed to stop it.

After the funeral, his daughter stopped speaking much at home.

She would go to her room and close the door.

He didn’t know how to fix it—and that helplessness was its own grief.

One night, overwhelmed, he sat alone at the kitchen table and whispered, “Lord, I don’t know how to be both mother and father.

I don’t know how to heal her pain.

I don’t even know how to heal my own.”

The next Sunday, the Gospel was the Beatitudes.

As he listened, one line pierced him:
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

He said later, “I always thought blessing meant God would take the pain away.

That day I realized blessing meant God was staying with us in it.”

So he did something small—but holy.

Every Sunday after Communion, he would quietly reach over and hold his daughter’s hand.

No words. No fixing. Just presence.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

However, One Sunday, she squeezed his hand back and whispered,

“Dad… I think Mom would be proud of you.”

That moment did not erase their grief.

But it changed it.

Their mourning became a place where love still lived.

Brothers and sisters, that is the Kingdom Jesus is talking about.

The Beatitudes teach us that God does not wait for us to be strong before calling us blessed.

He meets us precisely where we are weak.

The world says, “Fix yourself, then come to God.”

Jesus says, “Come to Me—and I will make you whole.”

The Beatitudes are not steps to happiness.

They are a revelation of the heart of Christ.

Jesus is poor in spirit—He empties Himself completely.

Jesus mourns—He weeps over Jerusalem.

Jesus is meek—He does not defend Himself before Pilate.

Jesus hungers and thirsts—for our salvation.

Jesus is merciful—He forgives the sinner.

Jesus is pure of heart—His love never wavers.

Jesus is the peacemaker—His cross reconciles heaven and earth.

Jesus is persecuted—yet He remains faithful.

To live the Beatitudes is not to escape suffering—it is to allow God to transform it.

And so today, if you feel tired in your faith…

If you are grieving someone or something you have lost…

If you are struggling to forgive…

If you are quietly trying to do the right thing when no one sees…

Hear the words of Jesus spoken directly to you:

Blessed are you.

Not because life is easy.

Not because you have it all figured out.

But because God is near—and the Kingdom has already begun.

 

As we come to this altar, we bring our poverty of spirit, our mourning, our longing for peace.

And Jesus gives us not answers, but Himself.

May we leave today trusting that even in our brokenness, even in our tears, God is at work—and His blessing is already resting upon us.

Blessed are you.      For yours    is the Kingdom     of heaven.