MY MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS (an introduction to the Beatitudes)

I cannot find words to describe the reality I faced on this beautiful day of our Lord’s nativity. A day I’ve spent almost three decades of my life celebrating with relaxed anticipation for a new year, love permeating my soul, and even more recently, with future thoughts of embarking on a journey to start my own family with the most dedicated lady I knew in the world. Such was not the case this year. It was a day spent doing house chores, reading books, mediating on a new blog series and “mourning” for the perfection of those things which had become imperfect in my life and in the life of many around me. I remember dreaming of spending this day in a distant plateau enjoying the cold weather, with temperatures aspiring to those of winter in the temperate climates of the world, preparing a lovely Christmas dinner with love, incarnate in flesh and blood as the reality of a woman, strong and true, and with a smile that brightens up my day. It is one thing to have a dream yet another to make a plan to live out your dream and make it into a reality. I guess a man can only dare to dream. I had no family to laugh with, no food to feast on, and no lover to hug and dream with. It's easy to assume I had no Christmas.

As I looked back at those plans, a darkness, pitch black as night, began to fall on my soul. I seemed alone. Had I become lonely? Certainly not! The more the darkness found ways to penetrate into this new fortress of joy I had created for myself, the more I frustrated its efforts. I was alone but I definitely wasn’t lonely. I had come to an understanding that it would take more than the lack of people around me and a lack of material things such as food to take away my happiness. You see, Attitude is Everything, and we have a choice to have a positive or negative attitude. It is your responsibility to choose to take charge of your life or allow life to take charge of you. I can tell you from experience that self-doubt is Satan’s biggest tool used in destroying the destinies of many. Having the right attitude towards everything can help you overcome self-doubt, low self-esteem and even vices such as pride, envy and anger. Being disciplined on developing the right attitude would catapult you up and above all of the seven vices as you begin to radiate love that would serve as stitches which would fix the fabrics of human hearts torn apart by Satan and his minions.

If we assign a numerical value to each alphabet (1-26), ATTITUDE will equal 100%. It makes good sense to me that attitude is enough to be great in life. However, we Christians have been called to be more than great. We have been called to be heroic in our lives and in the different ways we spread God’s love, mercy and goodness around us. This is why our Lord gave us a sermon about the right attitudes we need to exhibit in the 5th chapter of St. Matthews Gospel. They are the blueprints for becoming super heroes in our communities, however large or small they may be. The eight proclamations are known as the BEATITUDES. The term beatitude comes from the Latin word beātitūdō which means “happiness”. Our Lord proclaimed that those who practiced any of the eight beatitudes were fortunate or, to put it better, He proclaimed them to be in a state of happiness or blessedness. It is better to understand the sermon of the mount as Christ affirming that these people are already blessed as opposed to the popular understanding that they would be blessed. With this mindset on understanding the realities that they already possess, I indulge you all to follow me on my journey through the Beatitudes and see how we can live out this heroic life of happiness that cannot be shaken by anything the world can throw at us. Remember that, as Christians, we have accepted a call to be Sons in the Son, Lights in the world and salts of the earth, and that call urges us to live heroic lives and build super attitudes that would make each of us a "Man of Steel" ( O! How I love that movie... Lol!) whose happiness, or blessedness, is unshakable.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in Advance!

If ATTITUDE will equal 100%, remain assured that living out the BEATITUDES will equal being 106%.