Will the Beatitudes Make Me Miserable?
Why do the Beatitudes focus so much on poverty, sadness, hunger, and persecution?
If the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12) are about how to be happy, then why do so many of them speak about painful experiences—like poverty, sadness, hunger, and persecution? How are these reconcilable with being perfectly happy?
No one imagines heaven as a place where everyone is poor, sad, hungry, and persecuted. So if these Beatitudes are attempting to portray a picture of perfect happiness, it seems they aren’t doing a very good job. To call the Beatitudes counterintuitive is an understatement. In fact, some of them seem to be the antithesis of happiness. How can we explain this?
To begin, Jesus needs to speak in stark terms to free us from our false views about happiness. The Catholic author Flannery O’Connor once gave an illuminating explanation why so many of her works included such grotesque and violent elements:
When you can assume your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures (34).
Modern man is practically deaf and blind to fundamental moral realities, so she had to shout and startle. The people to whom Jesus addresses his Beatitudes are also among the nearly deaf and almost blind, so he has to startle us. Jesus knew that if he described happiness in terms that we could possibly interpret as allowing for us to cling to our love for this world, we would have twisted his words until we convinced ourselves that he was saying we could love everything this world has to offer and still love the Father.
Even though Jesus has told us that it is very difficult for the rich to be saved, still most Christians desire wealth. Imagine if Jesus had said, “So long as you love wealth in the right way, you can be saved.” Would there be anyone who took a vow of poverty based upon such a teaching? So Jesus states as clearly as possible that happiness does not consist in the goods this world has to offer; in fact, it somehow consists in the opposite of what this world has to offer.
In the search for happiness, we are like flies on a windowsill—trying to get out into the light, but unable because we keep bumping into the glass. The way out into the light is right behind us, but we have to go through the darkness to get there. If we follow our fallen instincts, we are condemned to seeking happiness in vain, and like the fly, we will simply die on the windowsill. But if we will follow Jesus through the darkness, through poverty and sadness, hunger, thirst, and persecution, we will find our way into the light.
Moreover, our human nature has been wounded deeply by original sin. One of the effects of this wound is that we are inclined to love lesser goods much more than greater goods. I like to give the example of a three-year-old child who is given a choice between a bowl of ice cream and a fully-paid-for college education. The three-year-old will choose the ice cream every time. Original sin makes us like that child with regard to happiness. We feel convinced that riches and bodily comforts and human esteem are the primary components of happiness. In fact, they are not essential causes of happiness, and we find sufficient evidence for this among the very rich: their lives tend to be more miserable than the lives of others. Happiness is an acquired taste, and we need to habituate ourselves to loving the better goods more than the lesser goods. All the while, to do this we must fight the inclinations of original sin.
Finally, we have to remember that the painful experiences Jesus describes are due to some lack in a created good that is passing away. These are goods we will have to lose anyway, so there is no sense in pretending we will be happy if we possess them. A “happiness” that has a time limit is no happiness at all. It is more a source of anxiety at the impending loss than a source of peace and joy. In contrast, the person who has interiorly renounced these goods, and seen them for what they truly are—mere signs of our Father’s love for us (and inadequate signs at that)—will have a lasting joy in God himself and the goods that shall not pass away. This sentiment is expressed well in a passage from the prophet Habakkuk:
For though the fig tree blossom not nor fruit be on the vines, though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment, though the flocks disappear from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God. God, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me to go upon the heights (3:17-19).
Habakkuk is expressing in summary form what ought to have been the attitude of God’s people during their entire journey from the land of Egypt to the Promised Land. During that journey, God was often giving his people the bare minimum of comfort: just enough food, water, and shelter. Often God brought them to the point of utter destitution and even starvation, yet at these times he miraculously gave them what they needed, and sometimes much more. But they wanted to have more comfort, more than just the manna and water from the rock, and were willing to pay the price of slavery to do it: “Would that we had meat for food! Oh, how well off we were in Egypt!” (Num. 11:18).
What God did for the Israelites in the desert, he does also for his chosen ones: he often brings us to the point where we cannot go on because of such a shortage of created goods, yet he constantly intervenes by miraculously providing just enough for us to go on. God does this so we can have a relationship of constant trust in him, lest we trust in the goods of this world instead. The greatest danger of having an abundance of created goods is that we cease to see our lives as completely dependent upon the care and providence of our heavenly Father.
It is true that in heaven, we will not experience any kind of pain, whether physical or spiritual. These evils of poverty, sadness, hunger, thirst, and persecution will no longer be our lot in heaven. This is why the Beatitudes speak of a reward in the future. Nevertheless, if we love God and the things of God as we ought, even in this life, we will consider the loss of these goods as insignificant in comparison to the joys for which we hope. And unless we learn to love God above all things, and all things for God’s sake, we shall never find true happiness. This is the message of the Beatitudes.
For more like this, check out Fr. Sebastian Walshe’s inspiring new book Heart of the Gospel: How the Beatitudes Show Us God’s Plan for Happiness, available for purchase in the Catholic Answers shop.