Create Your Own Beatitudes

Last Friday, I attended something called the Spiritual Spa at the Carondelet Center in St. Paul. I was hoping to get some time to just relax, draw, journal, whatever. I ended up getting some of that and so much more Before lunch, we, the Spiritual Spa participants, were invited to collect ourselves in a room for a directed meditation by a nun from the Center. She told us about her idea of dusting off the old Beatitudes in the Bible and making them her own.

She said that by reading the newspaper one day, she came up with the idea that she could write her own Beatitudes by going through the Sunday paper. She found it very telling about what she herself was needing to heal as she noticed those things that attracted her attention on the page. So she read her list:

“Blessed are those who are hungry, for they shall find all the nourishment they need”
“Blessed are those who are homeless, for they shall find shelter”

Then she asked us to take some time and do the same. No newspaper in hand, we were asked to just think about the things going on in the world and to focus on those things that grab our attention. And so I wrote:

“Blessed are those who are objectified, for they shall be known as the people of God”
“Blessed are those who are scared, for they shall no longer know fear”
Before, I knew it, I had written 1 ½ pages And then we were asked to look at the Beatitudes we had written and reflect on what they said about our own lives. What a gift Not only do I see the Beatitudes in a new way, a way that I can actually use, but I will never look at a newspaper the same way again.

How about you? What would you write for your own Beatitudes? What does it say about your own life? Might God be nudging you toward healing and grace in those very same places?