NEWSLETTER INSERTS - ON THE BEATITUDES

‘We are apt to fall into the trap of thinking that we are self-sufficient, that we do not need God, that God is a concept that belongs to a more primitive people. Yet are we in our day wiser than our ancestors? We know more, can achieve more but are we better at understanding the true meaning and purpose of every human life? Do we live more in harmony and peace than bygone ages? The answer to these questions are clear enough. Maybe if we come to think of a world without God as sensible and self-sufficient then perhaps we are being as naive about religion as our forefathers were about the working of the universe, about science. Every age needs to be humble about what it does not know or has forgotten’.

Cardinal Basil Hume, From ‘To Be a Pilgrim’

‘God wants us to be happy but where does the source of this hope lie? it lies in a communion with God who lives in the depths of the soul of every person.’

Brother Roger Schutz

‘Happiness is not in us; nor is happiness outside of us. Happiness is in God alone and if we have found him then it is everywhere’.

Blaise Paschal

‘For he alone is the way that is worth following; the light that is worth lighting; the life that is worth living and the love that is worth loving’.

St Teresa of Calcutta

‘The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it’

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1718

‘We all want to live happily; in the whole human race there is no one who does not assent to this proposition, even before it is fully articulated’.

St Augustine.

‘How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you’.

St Augustine, Confessions, 10, 20, 29.

‘The Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole, the new people made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith’.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1719