The Third Luminous Mystery- The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God

The Third Luminous Mystery- The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God.

This Mystery is found in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, and may be recognized as the Sermon on the Mount.

Here we find the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit...blessed are they who mourn...blessed are the meek...

None of them sound very promising on the surface, do they? I don't want to mourn. I don't want to be persecuted. I guess being meek and merciful is OK. But, really? That isn't what gets you ahead is this world!

And that is the point. The Beatitudes make no sense on the surface.

My St Charles friends... take a look at the doors next time you go to Mass. The stained glass ones. There are eight of them.

Take a look at all the stained glass, for that matter. Fr. Ross was brilliant when he had the concept for them a dozen years ago. I still marvel at them! The cupola contains the days of Creation, the side windows are the Corporal works of Mercy. The bell tower is "Peace and Justice."

Look at them from the outside. I specifically want you to look at those doors, because each one is a Beatitude, and there is above each door a plaque telling you what it is.

But from the outside, they don't make sense. They are grey and dark and formless.

From the inside? Ah, from the INSIDE, you can see what is happening!

The Beatitudes are the same way. It is only from INSIDE the church that they have meaning, when the light of the Son ( see what I did there? ) is shining through, illuminating them.

Then we can see: the mourning shall be comforted, the meek shall inherit the earth, the peacemakers shall be called sons of God... the persecuted for God's sake will have a great reward in heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven will never make sense to those outside the Church, because the ways of the world are not the ways of God. But when we live the Beatitudes, his light shines through us and allows us to bring peace, and mercy and consolation and holiness to a world so desperately longing for them.

And that is the lesson of the Third Luminous Mystery.