During Mass in Sweden earlier this week, Pope Francis called the beatitudes the Christian’s “identity card” and added six new beatitudes to the list.
Aleteia is reporting on the homily given by Francis in Sweden’ Swedbank Stadium in Malmo on the Solemnity of All Saints, which he called “a celebration of holiness.”
Sanctity is not so much in great deeds and extraordinary events, he said, “but rather in daily fidelity to the demands of our baptism.”
“Yet if there is one thing typical of the saints,” the pope continued, “it is that they are genuinely happy. They found the secret of authentic happiness, which lies deep within the soul and has its source in the love of God.”
“That is why we call the saints blessed,” he explained. “The Beatitudes are their path, their goal towards the homeland.”
He then turned to the Gospel account of the eight Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12) which he called “the way of life that the Lord teaches us, so that we can follow in his footsteps.”
He continued: “The Beatitudes are in some sense the Christian’s ‘identity card’ because “they identify us as followers of Jesus,” he told the crowds. “We are called to be blessed, to be followers of Jesus, to confront the troubles and anxieties of our age with the spirit and love of Jesus. Thus we ought to be able to recognize and respond to new situations with fresh spiritual energy.”
Pope Francis went on to create six new beatitudes:
1. Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart.
2. Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized, and show them their closeness.
3. Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him.
4. Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home.
5. Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others.
6. Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.
“All these are messengers of God’s mercy and tenderness, and surely they will receive from him their merited reward,” he said.
He concluded by reminding the congregation that the Lord’s call to holiness is for all of us and must be received in a spirit of faith. “The saints spur us on by their lives and their intercession before God, and we ourselves need one another if we are to become saints. Help one another to become saints!”
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