BE: ATTITUDE!
When my students need their student passes renewed, they have to go down to ICA to answer the following:
· Where are you from?
· Why are you in this country?
· How long do you intend to stay here?
Without proper identification, they wouldn’t be allowed in Singapore. Then they’ve got to show that they’ve actually been attending classes and living by the requirements of the school and the country. ICA’s pretty good at checking up on that. Good thing, too, because Singapore can be a magnet for all sorts of people wanting a student ID to come in and do things other than legitimate studying.
Heaven’s pretty good at checking up on that, as well. Without the proper ID, who’d know that we’re from God and of His eternal country? How do we explain to people what we’re doing on Earth, far away from our native land?
Identity is a big focus this week. The 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time calls us to honestly answer the same questions which ICA asks my students.
Sitting on that hill, Jesus spelled out the characteristics of His countrymen. He said we’d recognise them as poor in spirit, gentle, mournful, hungry and thirsty for what’s right, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted for their King and country – their native one, not this one.
Essentially, He identified them.
I have students who’ve become so entrenched in local customs and traditions that they’re practically Singaporean. They speak in the local patois, eat like locals, and have impressive first-hand knowledge of our local neighbourhoods, events, and socio-political climate. Their kids and spouses have equally adapted to their new life. They can tell you how to live and thrive here better than a lot of us who are actual Singaporeans. After a few years, some even start to think better in Singlish than their native languages. I can practically see parts of their own identities slowly being swallowed up by their enthusiastic adoption of everything in their host country. It’s more than just their head knowledge. It’s the attitude they take towards wanting to fit in here, to live here, to be a part of this country they like so much.
Not that that’s a problem, but wouldn’t it be sad if that happened to us? If we started to forget our roots and become so entrenched in the local customs and traditions of Earth that we start to think like non-believers, want the same things they do, embrace the way they live, and enthusiastically adopt a lifestyle and values that are foreign to our native country of heaven?
· Where are you from?
· Why are you in this country?
· How long do you intend to stay here?
We’re not from here.
We’re here to learn to love God the way He loves us so that we can be with Him eternally in our actual home – which answers the last question:
we don’t intend to stay here forever.
Although sometimes we forget, and live as if here is forever.
The Beatitudes aren’t the Ten Commandments. They’re not instructions for Christian living as much as they are characteristics of those who belong to God. We can spot another Singaporean anywhere in the world by the way they talk and act. We should just as easily be able to spot another person of the faith, anywhere in the world, by those traits Jesus listed.
Can others spot us the same way?
The ones He calls, St Paul says, are generally foolish, weak, common, and contemptible by the world’s standards. They don’t conform to ideologies of non-Christians but live quietly by the precepts of Christ and His Church. The world might consider them lacking in ambition, the commonsense to get ahead, always behind the rest in accumulating wealth and power. People with nothing, they might say.
I like the intro to the Entrance Antiphon of this weekend’s Mass:
‘Yes, we can celebrate today our nothingness in the eyes of the world, because God has looked on our humility and lowliness and given us the wisdom, virtue and holiness of Christ. As St Paul says, let us boast about the Lord.’
I got my class to watch The Hunger Games series the other day, when we had a movie night. We were talking about the gradual change in attitude of Effie Trinket over the course of the 4 movies. Escort to the tributes selected to compete in the Games, Effie at first embodies the Capitol’s attitude: oblivious to the suffering of the Districts – which had nothing, and were considered nothing – uncaring about the brutality of the Games; focused only on entertainment, appearance, and the upkeep of a rich, sumptuous life.
At the end, Effie acknowledges the unjust treatment of the vulnerable, and the self-centred, superficial lifestyle of the wealthy. “Attitude!”, she rebukes her charges at the beginning, when they don’t conform to ‘proper’ behaviour. In the end, she wants protagonist Katniss to build a meaningful life of peace and happiness.
How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven is the refrain of the Responsorial Psalm.
The Beatitudes contain eight declarations of supreme blessedness. In our text, the word happy is in place of the word blessed, derived as it is from makarios (Greek for blessed). In any language, they guide us to the right attitudes we should have while we temporarily occupy this world. If we can truly be these attitudes, we’ll have a meaningful life of peace and happiness, despite what the world throws at us. And if these attitudes are strong in others, we can recognise our fellow pilgrims on the journey to the kingdom of heaven.
Not all of us have to fight to the death, as did the Katniss’ fellow tributes, as did the holy men and women who’ve gone before us. But we constantly wage war within as we strive to hold on to the right attitudes as children of God.
In the final movie, Effie holds Katniss to the promise to ‘find the life of a victor’, and put behind her the world of the Capitol. So does St Paul urge us to seek the Lord, seek integrity and humility. Because in our nothingness, God, the King of this and all other worlds will crown us victors, if we only choose every day the attitude of the Beatitudes.
Do you know who you are now?
The happy faithful who follow Christ, who by His death and resurrection has already changed the odds to be ever in your favour!
May you remain blessed in spirit and happy always in the ways of the Lord.
Article by Joyce Norma, HFC Blog Contributor