Blessed are the Merciful, for They will be shown Mercy

02-01-2026Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

The Bible is a story of two Covenants, the Old and the New Testaments. Each Covenant had its precepts and a process through which the precepts were handed down to the people who chose to be partners with God in a Covenant. In the Old Testament, Moses became the mediator through whom God gave the decalogue that codified the precepts of the Covenant, made God with the patriarchs, and renewed on Mount Sinai with the people of Israel who were on their way to the land promised them.

Exodus 19 and 20 recounts how, through Moses, God instructed the people to prepare themselves and gather around Mount Sinai from where God would address them. The people did as Moses directed and received the decalogue which became the guiding principles of their Covenant relationship with God.

In the New Testament, Jesus the new Lawgiver, of whom the Father had said at His baptism and later at His Transfiguration, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” needed to lay down the ordinary and yet necessary precepts of the New Covenant to the “righteous remnants” and the New Israel. Like the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus chose to meet with His people by the mountain and to speak from there. However, unlike in the Old Testament, Jesus completely avoided issuing codified laws that would contain moral prohibitions and opted rather to decree a litany of beatitudes, positive blessings that would be experienced by those who would choose to live in righteousness. The Beatitudes are an outright contradiction to what the world considers wise and just. While the world applauds self advocacy and pride in personal accomplishments, the Beatitudes highlight poverty in the spirit and meekness as worthy virtues that attract a state of blessedness. While human instincts crave punitive justice for offenses against another, the Beatitudes invite the Christian to be merciful in order to obtain the mercy of God. The Beatitudes are a window to what life in the Spirit with Christ ought to be. They off er us a life of love and happiness that is propelled by inner conversion and not by fear of consequences for breaking God’s law. Jesus shows us in the Beatitudes that blessedness, the good life, does not lie in achieving personal success, elevated status, or individual dreams and desires. Rather, the good life lies in humble and selfless service to others, and in striving to bring forth that which is good for others.

As co-heirs with Christ to the kingdom of grace in the New Covenant, may we strive to make our lives visible and living demonstrations of the blessedness of a life lived in humble and loving imitation of God’s goodness.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC