20221101 Solemnity of All Saints Mt 5:1 - 12 "For all Unsung Saints"
Today, Solemnity of all saints, we remember all saints and determine ourselves to live following them. We especially celebrate those saints in Heaven who are not on our saint list. We can tell they deserve more respect from us because they did not restore their treasures in this world but in Heaven. That life is what I want to live, a humble and insignificant life.
Today's Gospel is one of the most challenging parts to understand. Two things are giving me a hard time understanding.
First, the Korean interpretation of the Bible is quite different from the English version. In English, verse 3 is "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." However, in Korean, verse 3 is "Be happy, people whose heart is poor. For the kingdom of Heaven is theirs." In English, it says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit", but in Korean, "Be happy, people whose heart is poor."
The original word in Greek is "Μακάριοι" which appears 26 times in the Bible, mostly translated to "Blessed" in English, but it was translated to "Be happy" in Korean. I still do not know why they chose "Be Happy" instead of " Blessed" in the Korean Bible.
Second, I feel difficult to understand what is "the poor in the spirit" in the English Bible and "people whose heart is poor" in the Korea bible. What on earth "the poor in the spirit" and "heart is poor" mean? Poor in spirit is not a phrase we use in everyday English conversation.
We usually interpret it as a state of humble mind or ungreediness, or spiritual poverty with a hunger for God." But I Feel like still I don’t understand The true meaning and am still studying to figure out the true meaning of the sermon of Jesus on the moutain. But I have a sneaky feeling that I might have experienced that.
Before joining this religious life, I strongly thought that the measure of a successful life is the number of people who come to their birthday party and funeral. Because my birthday is at the beginning of the final term exam, and my Christain name, "Richard", was not famous and not on most of the saint lists in the church, so nobody remembered or noticed my feast day unless I told them. So, I was disappointed every year. I wished as many people as possible could get together and celebrate my birthday and feast day, but that wish never came true most of the time.
But these days, I see myself changed a bit. Few people remember my feast day and have sent me greetings every year since my ordination three years ago. But now I have no interest in celebrating my birthday or feast day. I would rather want to spend that day without anyone noticing. I do not want to be in any special position or get people's attention. And I know I do not care how many people would come to my funeral. Instead, I am praying for me to be ready to die doing good things, even if nobody notices that or even if they misunderstand that I have died doing bad things. I now know the most important thing is not the relationship with other people but with God.
This change did not come to me at once. It came to me little by little with time. And this change leads me to think that I have to pray not only for the saints who are not on our saint list but also for all the souls who have died following the way of Jesus but could not have any chance to be a saint. I now have a mere feeling that I have understood the meaning of "the poor in the spirit" and "heart is poor".
I am unsure if I understood today's Gospel correctly, but I know that God will guide me to understand more with his time.
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