The Beatitudes – Blessed or Happy?
The Gospel reading for today (4th Sunday of ordinary time, year A) is the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:3-11). Some English translations use ‘Blessed’, others use ‘Happy’ for each beatitude. It started me thinking about translations and how all translations are both helpful and unhelpful in understanding a text.
Two words for ‘Bless’ in New Testament Greek.
‘eulogia’ translates the Hebrew ‘bārak’
means to bless or praise e.g. it is applied to meals, items, people, or God. It can mean to give thanks and includes to be
made a blessing. In 1 Cor 10:16 ‘The cup
of blessing that we bless (eulogoumen) uses this word.
So, this is an action of blessing, praise or thanks. Primarily
an action.
‘makarioi’ translates the Hebrew ‘ashrei’
which suggests a state of deep joy, happiness and contentment that is gift from
God. It is not an ephemeral feeling or event. It enables a person to live profoundly
happy, blessed, and walking in the way of God. It is an abiding state of being.
The Beatitudes in both Matthew and Luke’s gospels use makarioi. Matthew situates the Sermon on the Mount and
the Beatitudes within the context of Jesus’ preaching about the new inbreaking
of the Reign of God.
Greco-Roman Cultural understanding of makarioi
This is a common word in the Greco-Roman world. It is the state of the gods of Olympus who hold
all the privileges of divine power.
It was applied to people who have special privilege. You were happy if you had wealth,
status, advantageous marriage, status, culture (preferably Roman) and publicly
acknowledged achievements. It was fruit
of the honour-shame culture of the Greco-Roman world in which a person (a man,
usually) was honoured by his peers for his wealth, status and achievements. This was happiness.
This is what the hearers of Matthew’s Gospel would
understand by makarioi.
The Beatitudes
In proclaiming the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, the
persecuted, the peace-makers, the pure of heart, the merciful, the reviled and
those who thirst for righteousness as makarioi in the context of the
Reign of God, Jesus is turning the Greco-Roman meaning upside down.
The text is redolent of the Hebrew Scriptures describing God’s
reign and special care for people who are not the power-brokers of the world. Jesus is proclaiming that the Reign of God,
this new inbreaking of salvation history and God’s faithfulness has fruit in
profound happiness and joy for those who are despised – precisely because,
against all societal norms, they are God’s special care.
This state of happiness is not passive. Poverty, cruelty, persecution etc are and
always have been, evils which God condemns and the people of Israel are to
strive against. These are states from
which people must be rescued.
I think that the first Beatitude, ‘makarioi are the
poor in spirit’ gives a direction. The ‘poor
in spirit’ refers to the Hebrew ‘anawim’ and ‘ha-aretz’ (of which King David
was deemed to be one) are those who put the Reign of God before all else as the
source of all their actions, judgments and beliefs. They prefer the Reign of God to wealth,
status and honour. It requires humility,
detachment, care for others.
The Community of Faith
The Beatitudes as a characteristic of the faith community
will always be a measure of the ‘health’ of the community – whether it be the
community of the universal church, the parish, local organisations. It is also the measure of the commitment each
one of us makes to the Reign of God here and now in this society, in this
world. In this way we hasten the
fullness of the Reign of God.
Perhaps the Beatitudes invites us to widen our understanding
of who participates in the Reign of God.
Conclusion: The Beatitudes – Blessed or Happy
Both words have
limitations in translation.
In western contemporary society, ‘happy’ has connotations of
consumerism, finding the perfect partner/job/clothing etc. Our popular understanding comes closer to the
original Greco-Roman meaning.
The word ‘blessed/blessing’ has a variety of uses,
particularly outside religious circles.
However, ‘blessed’ does not convey the biblical sense of ‘makarioi’
which is a profound, abiding state of happiness no matter what life
throws at us and indicates our mission. It
is our firm ground that God has called us to the Reign of God and God is
faithful.
Because of the importance of the two different meanings, I
would probably opt for ‘happy’ – but with a footnote.
