“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Mt 5,17) Jesus comes into the world to fulfill the law and the prophets and to give us an incarnate image of what God intends for human persons to be. God has placed a desire for happiness deep in our hearts and he has sent his Son Jesus to show us the way to happiness, fulfillment, blessedness and joy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: “The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.” (CCC 1718) Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Col 1,15) Jesus is the image of the One who can fulfill our desire for happiness or beatitude in this life. The disciples of Jesus “come to him” and he “teaches them” or shows them the way that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is the Way. (Jn 14,6) As he gives the disciples the teaching of the Beatitudes he is not only giving to the disciples a new law, in the manner of Moses, the law-giver of Sinai, he is also fulfilling the law in the manner in which he lives. Jesus is the one who is poor in spirit, mourning (as he weeps for Jerusalem cf. Lk 19,41-44), meek (for I am meek and humble of heart cf. Mt 11,29), hungering and thirsting for righteousness (my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work, cf Jn 4,34), merciful, clean of heart, the peacemaker and the persecuted. The beatitudes are a way of life that Jesus has lived before us and that will lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a place of blessedness and beatitude. It is a place where we will be comforted, inherit the land, be satisfied, be shown mercy, see God and be called children of God. In the Kingdom of Heaven we shall see God, share in his joy and enter into his rest. In Jesus we are able to see God (cf. Jn 1,18 and Jn 14,9), share in his joy (cf. Jn 15,11), and enter into this rest (cf. Mt 11,29) already in this life. He is the fulfillment of every promise. If we are searching for true happiness, favor, blessedness and joy then we must come to Jesus, stay with him, remain in him and even suffer with him as his disciples. Jesus himself is the Kingdom made present.

Mary is the first to recognize that the gift of Jesus is a gift of beatitude. In the Magnificat she proclaims that “all generations will call me blessed.” (Lk 1,48) She is blessed as poor in spirit, sorrowful in the Passion, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, clean of heart, the peacemaker. She is filled with the Holy Spirit and united to her son Jesus. As the first disciple of the Lord she has truly “found favor with God.” (Lk 1,30) Her entire life will be one of blessing and grace as she spends her life seeking and fulfilling God’s will with her eternal “fiat”.

Because of her Immaculate Heart, Mary receives the Kingdom and its blessedness seemingly without effort. For most people it is a struggle to live the life of the Beatitudes and to enter into the Kingdom. Jesus says, “The law and the prophets lasted until John; but from then on the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone who enters does so with violence.” (Lk 16,16) The disciple engages in a violent conquest of his own nature, a conquest over sin. He must fight against his own pride, self-sufficiency, disordered desires, and selfishness. He must conquer sin, be freed from the slavery to sin and live in the glorious freedom of the children of God. “In all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8,37-39) Through the grace of the cross of Christ, through the love of God and through the blessed life of the Beatitudes, which is the life of Christ, we are given a way to conquer sin and live in true freedom. By the way of poverty, meekness, purity of heart, desire for holiness, mercy and peace we place our trust in God and in his love for us and learn that his grace is sufficient for us (cf. 2 Cor 12,9) The Beatitudes do not necessarily give us something that we must “do” to make us happy but they give us something to “be” that will truly make us blessed. We must be like Jesus on whom God’s favor rests. In him, we too are God’s favored ones.