In summary the beatitudes are God’s blessing to those who choose to be disciples.

1. Blessed is the Poor in Spirit: What can you describe that looks like in the
kingdom of heaven, the presence of God?

This means giving blessings to those who are poor. In the presence of God, I believe this
would look like someone who is homeless or suffering financially. In the beatitudes it
explains Mathew tried to “tone down” the passage by using the wording Blessed is poor in
spirit. Whereas Luke says blessed are you who are poor.

2. Blessed is those who Mourn: What have been some of the most important
experiences of community in your life? Experiences of healing? Have they
been related to each other or not?

In my life the most important experience of community was my grandfather’s funeral not
that long ago. Family got to gather to mourn at the Whitby church. This was also the
biggest experience of healing as we all learned valuable lessons about life and about one
another.

3. Blessed is the Meek: Meekness or humility is about living under God's

house rules, not human rules. According to Sr. Joan Chittister, “Humility
is the foundation of our relationship with God, our connectedness to
others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the
Earth, and even our way of walking around the world, without arrogance,
without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain,
without self-centeredness.” What would it look like in Canada to live by
God's house rules so that all members of the household flourish?
In Canada, to live by Gods house rules it would look like following the law and morality to
a religious extent. In religion “Gods house rules” refer to, in summary, being kind,
accepting, loving, and faithful. The law in Canada abides by these to a brief extent, for
example, being kind, in law this would refer to verbal assault, harassment, etc. These are
things you could be charged and tried for. By following Gods house rules, you would be
abiding by these laws to a higher standard than what is in the law.

4. Blessed is those who Hunger and Thirst for Justice: The early Christian
church struggled with the question of newcomers to their group. Name
some current day struggles with newcomers in your school or home
communities.

For newcomers in schools, it can be very difficult. I myself have been the newcomer at
many different schools. There is a high pressure to make a good first impression so that
you are on the good side of classmates and teachers. Often newcomers do not feel
welcomed. For example, starting high school. When starting high school, the older
grades hate on you simple because you are in grade 9. You will continue to be hated for
this reason until you reach grade 10.

5. Blessed is the Merciful: It seems that we don't like to mix with others who
are different. That's hard work and it takes a lot to hear someone else's
story. We don't want to do the hard work. We don't want our lives to
change. Describe a time when someone heard your story, or you heard
someone else's story. What keeps us from doing this hard work? Why
don't we want our lives to change?

Last year I had a conversation with a religious friend of mine. This led to a sensitive
discussion about our beliefs in the pro-life pro-choice debate. I heard her reasonings and
she heard mine. She was very strong in being pro-life, until she heard my story and my
reasoning. From that day on her beliefs and views of that debate completely changed. To
this day she agrees that if it wasn’t for me, she would have never been open to a different
view. A lot of people choose not to have conversations like this to avoid fights are
disagreements, or simple because they are strong on their opinion and don’t want to
possibly hear something that could make them think differently.

6. Blessed is the Pure of Heart: Give examples of the purity codes of our
society, codes for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in our society
today. How might an attitude of compassion make a difference?

In society today there are mixed views and opinions on purity. In religion, purity means
intact virginity and dressing modestly. To the younger non-religious generation this is
being kind, respectful, and innocent in terms of types of sexual activity. In the older
generation of non-religious people this means to have little life experience. To each person
this could mean something completely different, and these are just statements that I have
heard from those in each generation/category. Acceptable vs nonacceptable behaviour
mainly strives on “the norm’”, which means what is the normal? For example, normal
would be wearing a tank top in public, that is normal and acceptable to society. But, 100
years ago, this would not. Compassion could play in these situations, but often for
compassion you need to have an understanding of the individual. You most likely would
feel compassion for a random person.

7. Blessed are the Peacemakers: “God does not desire God's creation or
creatures to be dominated by empires”, and “Jesus is the antidote to the
empire.” Reflect on these two statements in the context of what
dominating empire that Jesus might counter today?

“Dominating Empire” today would be considering the government. When reflecting the
statements to this day you could see them as meaning that people should not be under
ruling of the government, that Jesus should be the one to rule. If Jesus were here today, I
believe the domination empire he would encounter would be the individual governments
in the countries.

8. Blessed is those who are Persecuted for Justice's Sake: “We are the
persecutors in ways that we never understand because of our privileged
existence.” What do you think about this statement? Explain

I have two potential meanings for this statement. One is what I would relate the passage to.
The other is what I believe it means in terms of religion. I would relate this passage to we are
responsible for our own actions and what happens to us is by our own doing. In simple terms,
everything happens for a reason, karma is real, and life will eventually catch up to you. In
terms of religion, I believe this passage means humans destroy other creations simple off their
own existence. For example, Catholics believe God created the world, yet simple by existing,
humans (gods creations) are destroying the world.