The Beatitudes are important because they are the heart and soul of Jesus’s teachings. They are what make His teachings unique, and set Him apart from all other teachers, Rabbis, Imams or Gurus in the history of mankind. Yet, you hear precious little about the Beatitudes when you turn on the radio or television and listen to preachers and televangelists talk about Jesus. Why is this? Do they regard the Beatitudes of lesser importance than Armageddon, the ten commandments, or the rapture? Or is it possible they don’t understand the importance of the Beatitudes and their significance in the lives of Christians?

There are eight beatitudes (Matthew 5 : 1-10). These beatitudes are habits of the heart. Unlike the ten commandments, the beatitudes are not new laws to live up to, but a new way of living that completes the commandments, complete what you do in life. These new habits of the heart form the core of the gospel which ushers in the reign of God.

In the beatitudes, Jesus speaks the language of benediction where, for example, humility means more than pride (first beatitude), where mourning our own sins and who we once were means more than self importance (second beatitude), where meekness is more important than haughtiness (third beatitude), where generosity counts for more than success (fourth beatitude), where mercy tempers justice (fifth beatitude), where truthfulness puts the lie to deviousness ( sixth beatitude), where waging peace is superior to waging war (seventh beatitude), and where courage, in the face of persecution, overcomes complacency (eighth beatitude).

These wonderful attitudes of Christ urge us to look beyond appearances to find real spiritual substance within us by changing our hearts.

The cynic may say that only winners, not the meek as in the third beatitude, will inherit the earth. This assessment of life’s purpose is entirely wrong even if it is very common today. It stops at appearances and misses the real point in living. To be a good winner means achieving what you want out of life with meekness and integrity of spirit, not by lording it over others, or getting ahead in life at other people’s expense.

The eight beatitudes impart the proper attitudes in your dealings with one another. They are an invitation to strive to put on the spiritual attitudes of Christ that change the heart from within.

Jesus gave us these eight blessed attitudes so that we may conduct our lives in the proper spirit. Your attitude is important because it affects the WAY you do something. A bad attitude breaks a family, a church or a business, but a good attitude renews a family, a church or a business. That’s why the beatitudes are so important. They renew the WAY we act; they bless us and others by what we do because they spring from the right, interior attitude.

The wonderful thing is that the Holy Spirit gives us the power to adopt the right kind of attitudes in all that we do each day.

Cherish the Beatitudes of Jesus by the way you live.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy