It is always a good time to celebrate, but this year happens to be an exceptional year of celebration. Beloved Pope Francis declared this to be a year of Jubilee for the whole church and invited us to journey as Pilgrims of HOPE. Our congregation, the Dominican Sisters of Hope, is celebrating 30years as Hope with a call to navigate a future full of hope. And today we celebrate our Jubilarians who have lived 75, 70 ,60, and 50 years as Dominican religious women. Wow, with St. Paul we say, “I thank God for you and I am sure that God, who has begun this good work in you will carry it on until the day of Christ.”

Our Gospel began, “Jesus saw the crowds and went up the hill, where he sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them.” What prompted each of us to risk moving from being part of the observing crowd to sitting down nearer to Jesus and becoming a disciple? Not only do we think back to when we first said yes eager to be taught by him but how each day we continue to do the same and are changed by the time we spend with Jesus. His teaching is transformative, challenging and ongoing. What joy that commitment brings to God’s heart and what a witness it can be to others. The beatitudes bring a new perspective about what the Kingdom of God looks like and also what are the attitudes that form the hearts of those choosing to enter into that kingdom.

HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO ARE SPIRITUALLY POOR . Think back to those early days of our ‘yes’. What drew us to God and what enabled us to recognize our need and our spiritual poverty? And for that acknowledgement we get the Kingdom of heaven. God is never outdone in generosity and there is always more.

HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO’S GREATEST DESIRE IS TO DO WHAT GOD REQUIRES. GOD WILL SATISFY THEM FULLY. Over these many years we have spent our lives and energy responding to the call to be in mission. To preach in all kinds of settings: educational institutions, nursing in homes, hospitals, hospice care, parish work, prison ministry, walking with the homeless, cultivating the earth, caring for the bees, building housing, feeding and clothing others, caring for anyone in need and for one another and on and on. Today, when we might not be able or are called to do what we once did, we still enter into ministry by prayer, phone calls, notes, smiles, encouraging words, participating in zoom meetings, volunteering in various ways, listening to others and on and on. How today am I being called to enter joyfully into doing what God requires of me today?

HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO MOURN, ARE HUMBLE, MERCIFUL, AND PURE. Think of all the many people with whom we have sat, laughed, cried, listened to and mourned with in their best and worst moments. God is still calling us to be engaged with each other, our co-creators, charism bearers and everyone we meet. We stand humbly before our God and mourn our own loses of friends, family, people we have been close to, health, abilities. situations, etc., but we know that we are not alone and that we support each other. Looking back on the graces God has given in the past should encourage us to continue on into the future knowing that God is faithful and always present to supply the need. As we walk these beatitudes with others we receive them back in kind.

HAPPY ARE THOSE WHO WORK FOR PEACE. Today with wars waging around us, and that many immigrants, elderly, and marginalized, are being mistreated by others and by governments, that the earth is wounded and crying out as climate changes, etc being bearers of peace is not easy. How to work passionately but not angerly is a challenge. Peace is more than the absence of conflict. It includes fairness and justice for all. God will call us children of God, for responding and working to bring about the peace of the Kingdom of God.

Living the beatitudes calls us to renew that first love and zeal which drew us to our God and our Dominican vocation and to share it with enthusiasm and love in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. God continues to call us forth recognizing our spiritual poverty, our desire to do what God requires of us, to mourn, to stand humbly before God and others and to bring peace. To live in God’s Kingdom. Over time and experience we have grown and all has deepened, changed, and transformed us. Looking back should propel us into the future with hope recognizing the graces we’ve experienced and knowing they are never ending. We acknowledge that the call to mission is not finished and always needs to be renewed and cherished.

Let our celebration continue as we walk in Hope with our God and each other.