Fr. Luke Macnamara: In today’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus is surrounded by a great crowd—not only from Judea and Jerusalem, but even from the coastal regions of Tyre and Sidon. These were Gentile territories. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus himself never steps outside Israel; that will only happen later in the Acts of the Apostles. But notice this: the nations are already coming to him. Their presence signals something new—something long foretold by the prophets—that the kingdom of God is breaking in, that the end times have begun.
Then Jesus turns, not to the crowd, but to his disciples. He fixes his eyes on them. The beatitudes are not general slogans; they are words spoken to those who already follow him, those who have chosen relationship with him. And what does he tell them? “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Notice the tense: not will be, but is. The kingdom is already here, present in Jesus himself.
The other beatitudes point to transformation: hunger turned to satisfaction, tears turned to joy, rejection turned to honour. But all of this begins with the presence of Christ. He himself is the kingdom among us.
St. Paul, writing to the Colossians, explains how this transformation takes root in us: by sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection. We have stripped off the old self with its ways of sin and death, and we have put on the new self, alive in the image of the Creator. In Christ, barriers of race, class, wealth, or status fall away. He brings unity and freedom wherever he is truly welcomed.
And so the challenge for us today is this: will we allow Christ to work through our poverty, our weakness, and our limitations? If we do, we will find ourselves blessed—not by escaping suffering, but by discovering his kingdom in the midst of it. And once Christ is alive in us, his presence cannot be hidden. It will shine out. It will transform others.
Let us pray, then, that Christ may so transform us that our very lives become a living homily—a proclamation of his resurrection, his kingdom, and his power to make all things new.