Episode Details

How blissful the destitute!“Blessed are you who are poor,” says Christ in the translation we have just heard. I would like to use a slightly different one:“How blissful the destitute!”The word for “blessed” or “blissful” (makarios) has been translated various ways including “happy”, “fortunate” or “prosperous”. But in my view “blissful” is the best because the original word had connotations of divine or heavenly bliss. Our word “blissful” captures this better than the alternatives.“Blissful” also speaks of a present state. Whatever Christ is speaking of is bliss – joy, happiness, heavenly light in this life now.But it is not long before we run into a problem: “How blissful the destitute!”Again, our translation mentions “the poor”. But “the destitute” captures it much better. For destitution is utter emptiness, devastation, ruin, loss.This is not a state of material poverty but the spiritual and existential reality of one who has realised his true standing in his relationship with God.So the question is: How do bliss and spiritual destitution go together? What is Christ talking about?The answer is that it is in the recognition of our radical need for, and dependence upon, God that we encounter bliss or blessedness. For it is in this recognition that the illusion of the world passes away and we come face-to-face which that which truly is.Let’s consider the different types of destitution that we must acknowledge:Firstly, the destitution of repentance. Sin, most simply, is the wandering of a soul far away from God. Like the Prodigal Son in the far away country. Repentance is the return of the soul to God.Why do we sin? On the deepest level it is because we believe that sin can bring us deeper satisfaction than God. Therefore, repentance is the overturning of this belief and the actions that go with it. It is motivated by desire to find true life, joy and happiness in the place where it can really be found.Be encouraged, therefore, friends, if you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, calling you to repentance. This is simply a calling back to God, to the source of all life and hope. Yield to this conviction, knowing that God will have mercy as a Father has compassion on his children, and that he desires for you to know him again.Secondly, we speak about the destitution of soul. This is the recognition that, without God, I have nothing.The great mystical theologian Meister Eckhart put it like this: we are all created by God and exist within God. All things are held in being by God and shine with his radiance. God has given us powers – the ability to live, to breathe, to sense, to act. But, somewhere along the line, we have forgotten that these powers come from God and that, at every moment, they are sustained by him. We are alienated from God not because God is separate from us. Indeed, God cannot be separate from us because he is present everywhere and is sustaining all things continually. Rather, we have forgotten him. We have strayed from him in our minds and in our souls. We imagine that our powers and abilities are all that we are without. We are like a reflection in a mirror that has forgotten its original image.Destitution of soul, then, is the recognition of this reality. It is the recognition that we so often look to the things of this world for ultimate life, joy and peace and that, yet, the world can give us none of these things apart from God.I think here of the discipline of fasting, that is, of not eating anything. In my experience, nothing brings about this realisation more quickly and efficiently than the attempt to fast. It is not only that the body feels hungry but that the soul begins to cry out: “I must have food or I will never be satisfied. There is no happiness for me in this life without it.”And this is true of so many other things also: we tell ourselves that, unless we have this or this or this, then we can never know contentment and peace. And, yet, were we ever to obtain those things, then the joy woul