Matthew 5:1-3

New Catholic Bible

Footnotes

1. Matthew 5:1 The Sermon on the Mount is the first of five great discourses in this Gospel (chs. 5–7; 10; 13; 18; 24–25). The Lucan parallel is the “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:20-49), although some of the sayings in the “Sermon on the Mount” have parallels in other parts of Luke. Matthew’s Sermon contains beatitudes or declarations of blessedness (5:1-12), admonitions (5:13-20; 6:1-7, 23), and contrasts between Jesus’ moral teaching and Jewish legislative traditions (5:21-48).

   ¹ 
   Matthew here presents a catechism of Christian initiation and opposes it to the Jewish religious ideal. The ensemble of moral, social, religious, cultural, general, and collective requirements that holds good for the whole People of God was received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Jesus presents a new charter that he gives “on the Mount” (5:1) as if on a new Sinai. It does not take anything away from the Law but goes to the root of human conduct. Good intentions are not to replace act and obedience, but all that takes place in the heart and spirit of persons, their plans and their intentions, are already acts.

2. Matthew 5:1 The Beatitudes have been rightly termed “Eight Words for Eternity.” If we read them carefully, we will realize that the happiness proclaimed by Jesus is poles apart from what we habitually think, say, and do. In the first three Beatitudes are listed the faults that must be corrected if human beings are to be perfect—spiritual arrogance, pride, and desire for pleasure. In the next three Beatitudes are found the virtues that must regulate our relations with God, our neighbor, and ourselves—justice, mercy, and purity. In the last two Beatitudes, Christ urges his followers to be zealous in spreading the Gospel and peace, and he promises that they will be rewarded with honor and power in the kingdom of God for all that they have had to suffer for him.