Many years ago, in the late 1980s, I was administrator in Lake Placid until a new pastor was assigned. So, on one beautiful summer day, I decided to take advantage of Lake Placid and went to the top of the Olympic ski jump. From there, I looked around at the beautiful Adirondack mountain area. What a view! Without even trying, I felt that I was on top of the world. Everything looked different or, perhaps I should say, I looked at everything differently. I was face to face with the vastness of God’s creation: Mirror Lake, the trees, the various peaks, the traffic, people going about their affairs. Nothing about this reality changed. The only thing that changed was my seeing things from a totally different perspective. However, when I looked down the ski jump, I definitely came to a conclusion: being a ski jumper would not be on my bucket list!!

In today’s Gospel, we read the beatitudes, the “Blessed are….” But note carefully, before Jesus speaks these beatitudes he takes his disciples to the top of a mountain. Why? Well, just as going up the ski jump allowed me to see the world and myself differently, so, too, going up the mountain was Jesus’ opportunity to teach the disciples to see the world and themselves and others differently.

Jesus leads his disciples to the mountaintop and teaches the beatitudes, an entirely different point of view on suffering and discipleship than the worldly perspective. Blessed are the poor, the meek and the mournful. Blessed are the merciful, the clean-hearted and the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are insulted and persecuted. Suffering will not be the end for them, because they will be comforted, they will see God, they will be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven.

After hearing Jesus’ words, the disciples find measurement that following Jesus is worth the cost – that good will have the last word. We, too, can adopt this beatitude point of view and see our suffering and hardship as does Jesus. Saint Paul tells us that God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and the weak of the world to shame the strong. We do not have to be the wisest or the strongest person; we do not have to be “something” in the eyes of the world for we are everything in the eyes of the Lord.

The love and grace we receive in the Eucharist is a foretaste of the fullness of joy in Christ we will one day know. Suffering is real and discipleship is not without risk, but through his word and sacrament, we are within sight of the kingdom. When we pray and celebrate the Eucharist, we pray that we may know the beatitudes and that we may experience the blessings that can come only through living the beatitudes and seeing our lives and our world from the top of the mountain.