#9: ✨"How to be a human being" ✨: Sr. Joan Chittister with Fr. John Dear on “Jesus and the Beatitudes” (Part 3 of 3)
❓What does it really mean to be a peacemaker? To fight for justice? To get into “good trouble” for the sake of love? "How do we form a happy, holy world"?
In this powerful final conversation, Fr. John Dear and the unstoppable Sr. Joan Chittister explore the last Beatitudes—where Jesus calls us:
💠 Blessed are the peacemakers – How do we become fearless, nonviolent warriors for peace in a world addicted to war?
💠 Blessed are those persecuted for justice – What does it mean to stand for truth, even when it costs us everything, as Joan says to "get in trouble for justice or peace" ?
Sr. Joan challenges us to go beyond words and build a real movement—a “Beatitudes Movement” that brings people together in small communities of action, resistance, and deep faith. What if we reimagined the Church as a “new Church of the Beatitudes”—a community of justice-seekers, healers, and changemakers?
The Beatitudes aren’t just lessons—they tell us "how to be a human being". Joan shares that "to me, the Beatitudes are a hunk of pasta mix and my next loaf of bread". Are you hungry yet?
Tune in, be inspired, and take action. Joan encourages us to "find and build your own happiness group".
Sr. Joan Chittister is an internationally known lecturer and teacher, a columnist for The National Catholic Reporter, and the author of 60 books including The Time Is Now; Becoming Fully Human; Radical Spirit; Aspects of the Heart; The Gift of Years; and The Rule of Benedict. She has served as Benedictine prioress and Benedictine federation president, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women.
👉 Learn more about Sr. Joan Chittister: www.joanchittister.org
👉 Sign up for our newsletter and join the movement for nonviolence: www.beatitudescenter.org
#BeatitudesMovement #Peacemakers #GoodTrouble #NonviolentResistance #JesusTheRebel #SpiritualActivism #JusticeForAll
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deer, and this is a project
(00:21):
of www.beattitudecenter.org, where you can find many other podcasts and regular Zoom programs on
the nonviolence of Jesus and working for a more just, peaceful world. I'm happy today to be with
my friend, author, teacher, and lecturer, Sister Joan Chidister, and this is part three of our
(00:43):
three-episode conversation on Jesus and the Beatitudes. So, like the other sessions, let's
begin with a short little two-second prayer. So, I just invite you, friends, just to take a deep
breath wherever you are, and just to relax and center yourself again in the presence of the God
of peace who loves you personally and infinitely and everyone else too. And let's welcome Jesus
(01:11):
here into our hearts and our lives and ask for whatever graces we need to live out the Beatitudes
and follow Jesus and do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the blessings of life and love
and peace that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect on the Beatitudes of Jesus,
(01:36):
that we might follow him more faithfully and do your will and be your holy Beatitude people
who do our part to welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, universal justice,
and universal peace. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. So, as I said, it's my pleasure to welcome
(01:58):
back my friend Sister Joan Chidister, and we've been reflecting on the Beatitudes in Matthew
chapter 5, and this is the third of three episodes. And we left off last week, we had gone through,
I think, the first six Beatitudes up to Blessed are the Peacemakers. And I was just asking Joan,
when we left off the last time, that question about the Beatitude, blessed are those who hunger
(02:26):
and thirst for righteousness, for justice, they will be satisfied. And what, Joan, what do you
think it means to be satisfied? And I came to the conclusion in the Viktor Frankl sense that it means
you will find a deep meaning in your life if you give your life to working for justice for the
human race in such an unjust world. What do you think about that, Joan?
(02:50):
Well, I think all of that is absolutely correct, but I don't think it's enough of what's happening
here. I think if you look back over these first five Beatitudes, you'll discover a pretty heavy
awareness of personal gifts, personal character, personal awareness. And then all of a sudden,
(03:16):
we get to the fifth Beatitude on happy are those who hunger and thirst. I mean, God,
they can't get away from it. They just don't want to stop. They love it. They know that
righteousness is the only possible pathway to the future, to the present, to happiness. Otherwise,
(03:42):
we're all fighting somebody, grabbing something, stealing something, throwing something away. No.
At five, we begin to recognize, we step back and we say to ourselves, oh my God,
they mean this will be my life. This is supposed to be my life, my hunger and thirst for righteousness,
(04:05):
a city on a hill, a light for the people. And then I run right into the sixth Beatitude,
blessed are the pure of heart. They did it for the right reason. They didn't do it to get the
(04:27):
presidency of the board of the life makers someplace. And then they're not going to be
someplace. They are single-hearted. They know what this is about. This is about who we are,
how we live, what we do for the way other people can live. So we get to blessed are the single
(04:52):
hearted. I'm not doing it for more money. I'm not doing it because my father sent me. I'm not doing
it because I can get to be the president. No, I am true. I'm telling you the truth. I see now that
I am here on earth to enable this earth to grow well, to be well. Do you understand what I'm saying?
(05:18):
Yes, God created the world, but God left it for the rest of us to complete it. Our world is not
true until we are trustworthy to the whole notion that we will make it true. Our lives are now in
sync with what we say they believe and the ideals they claim. And you can see us doing them in
(05:47):
midnight in the basement if you want to, but that's where we are. These are the souls with bones.
They stand in behalf of the poor. They stand in behalf of the prophetic. They stand in behalf of
the marginal. So no voice in their place goes unheard. There is no truth untold. These people
(06:18):
keep the magnet of the electric line that starts in creation and the creator and is now locked into
me as a character, as a heart. And therefore we treat everyone as good and they see good everywhere.
(06:38):
Wonderful. So of course then, number seven, we are going to run right into it, aren't we?
We're bringing our best selves. We're bringing our best motives. We are hungering and thirsting. We
need justice here or this country is going to fall apart. Listen carefully to what I'm saying
(07:03):
at this time, at this moment in American history. If individuals of great heart are not reshaping
our own means of life, our own kinds of happiness, then who are we? Who are we? Because now you
(07:23):
see we need you. We need blessed are the peacemakers. Who are the first?
Well, thank you so much. So that leads us to the last few and I thought I could read them and then
invite you to reflect on them. So here we go. Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called
(07:46):
children of God, sons and daughters of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of
righteousness, for justice. Theirs is the reign of heaven. And blessed are you when they insult you
and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and
be glad your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets before you.
(08:13):
Blessed are the peacemakers, Joan. Spend a little time unpacking what that means for us. In a world
of permanent war. Well, it's at this point then that we become peacemakers. We understand who and
what peacemakers are. These are the people, the souls who will seek reconciliation first.
(08:37):
They'll say, look, we don't want to do it this way. We have so much need for that in this country
right now. Well, they don't just oppose war. They call its end. They save its sick. They make way
for a full society of happy and holy people. And they do not under any circumstance,
(09:07):
seek vengeance. When I get out of here, when I get that position, I'll see that she never gets
into an office again. They will never go to school in that school again. They see life as a family
for whom we are all responsible, every one of us, in helping that group rise. We work with people,
(09:35):
not against them. We do not judge. And that means that the attitudes that we embrace
are attitudes that make us happy for standing with the poor, for defending the oppressed,
for supporting righteousness, for being true to the best ideals within us,
(10:02):
and true to our humanity in all its forms. We have been given criteria directly from Jesus,
how to form a happy, holy world and live my own happy, holy world as well.
(10:24):
Thank you for thinking of this. Thank you for allowing yourself to rethink everything you ever
thought about it. And thank you for taking that first conscious step up the ladder of the
beatitude.
So, Joan, this amazing teaching here at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed
(10:55):
are the peacemakers, is such a beautiful way to envision our lives. And that's what I've done with
my life, isn't it? To say, okay, I want to try, like I said as a young person, I want to live the
beatitudes. I want to live the Sermon on the Mount. And over time, I realized, oh, I'm called to be a
peacemaker. I want to be a peacemaker. And it's so interesting. It doesn't say, you know, blessed
(11:20):
are those who like peace. I really like peace. No, we're going to make peace.
Me too, try to find peace.
Yeah, and construct peace and live in God's peace. Okay. And then he says, they will be called
the sons and daughters of God. So, I think this is Jesus saying your fundamental identity is to be a
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beloved daughter of God, a beloved son of God. And so, you go and make peace. But what's the most
important thing in this climactic beatitude, and I think this is the climax of the beatitudes, is
Jesus is basically saying, hey, God makes peace. God is a God of peace. And you are the sons and
(12:08):
daughters of God. So, you go into this world and you make peace. You don't make war. You don't
support war. You don't kill others. You don't waste your life building nuclear weapons. So, how
concretely can people be peacemakers? And what is your image of God here as a God of peace?
(12:29):
What does that mean for you, Joan Chidister?
We have to remember, John, that there's more war going on at family breakfast than we've ever seen
in our life. I mean, some our other, we ourselves have to sort out what we have been taught or
(12:51):
pretended to commit or to permit in our own lives. I mean, frankly, I think it would be great
if small groups, small churches would take these eight beatitudes and take one a month and then
come together and say what happened when they did it. I mean, yeah, this needs to be
(13:18):
made real, demystified, demonstrated. There. That's what he's saying. These are not,
I'm going to repeat it, these are not prayers of sublocation. These are understandings of the way
to live. That's important. We pay hospitals and
(13:43):
secular counselors all of our life. And we're right here.
Gandhi thought of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount more like an instruction manual,
like a how to be a human being book. Isn't that interesting? But Joan, tell me again,
because I think, is it the first time he's made a book about the beatitudes and the sermons?
(14:12):
He mentions God. He's saying God is not a God of war, but a God of peace. I think that's
fundamental problem among us is our image of God will bless our troops and bless our conflicts and
bless our side, as Bob Dylan says, with God on our side. What do you… So, in other words,
(14:38):
I'm trying to ask you, what is your image of God that the Beatitudes show?
Well, see, I've long ago, I mean, I just years ago realized that… It's funny, it came at
Easter one year. I was, I suppose, in my 30s at that time, was teaching already.
(15:06):
But I got hung up on Christmas and Easter because everywhere it turned, they said,
Hallelujah. And what's the… I'm tired right now. What's the Latin for God is with us?
(15:27):
Emmanuel.
Emmanuel.
Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel. He means it all the time.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Yeah. So it was, Hallelujah, Emmanuel, Hallelujah, Emmanuel. And I began to say,
it is Emmanuel. Emmanuel is here. And then all of a sudden I realized that that's exactly
(15:50):
what I was seeing. And I've never changed. I just, I don't worry. I really don't pray
psalms of the supplicant, supplication, almost not at all. I will pray for somebody who wants
being prayed for, but I don't. I don't do it that way. I do the psalms and the hundred psalms
(16:16):
of the people in total concentration on the mystical world, the psalmist who says,
yeah, this is life is like this. This is how it goes. Do the best you can. And so I have often,
(16:37):
not for years, you heard me. I said a few minutes ago, the attitudes to me are like
a hunk of pasta mix. It's my next loaf of bread that I'm going to make. I will shape it differently.
I will clear it. I will water it. I will find the yeast, what makes it grow. And so it's in those,
(17:07):
at those moments that I know Emmanuel is here. Absolutely.
That's great. Thank you. So then-
I think it might even be here this afternoon, John. You never know.
So the God of peace is with us. So, blessed are the peacemakers leads to blessed are those
persecuted for the sake of justice. The reign of God is theirs. Reflect with us on that.
(17:33):
Go ahead. The reign of God belongs to everyone already.
It has been given for them. But what is holding us back are the people who cannot find any life
whatsoever in the Beatitudes. When we begin to live this up, we will be able to live this life
(18:01):
in, to live this out, then that we will know the reign of God within us. We'll know it.
It's there. See, one of the reasons I, one of the reasons that I've done so much in spirituality
over the years is I began to realize having coming out of the Catholic school system,
(18:25):
etc. And they, whatever that, what was that book? The, that the, oh, you know,
the Catechism. Yes, right. The Catechism.
Yeah, that that's what we all grew up on, the Catechism. And when after Vatican II,
and I realized the immensity of what was being asked or allowed or, or given there,
(18:51):
I took a deep breath and said, does anybody else but me understand that the entire old church
is going to be a different church? And, and, and yet I began to realize ironically that the liturgy
itself was always talking about the new church, the new church, the new church, the new church.
(19:14):
And when I got those two things together, I said, no matter where anybody asks me to go,
I, whatever they ask me to do, I will not go unless I'm going for the development of their
spirituality. I will talk about spirituality. I'm not going to talk about theology and I am
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not going to talk about rules and laws and, and keepers of the, of the, of the, I guess,
the Catholic government or something of that nature. No, I wanted people to understand that
the God within is God and that that has to be faced and developed. And, and as that happens,
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we grow differently and our world grows differently. And we are not memorizing the rules
about how you set up the, the materials for someone who is in the bed next to you died.
I mean, we were all into, to gestures, every, everything, all the laws belong to somebody else
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belonged to somebody else, all the dresses and everything that went with them,
went everywhere except to God. So, I mean, I'm being as truthful as I can be to you now. I,
I can't give an answer before that.
Well, let me ask you about that, Joan, in light of this last Beatitude. So, we've been talking about
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really his call to humility, meekness, gentleness, and mercy, and then also hungering and thirsting
for justice and single-heartedness, and then making peace. And he says, well, you're going to be
persecuted. You're going to get in trouble for working for justice. In fact, you're going to get
(21:20):
insulted and all kinds of things are going to happen. Well, I want to ask you about that. And
then he says, rejoice and rejoice and be glad. Yeah, I've been in jail and I've been kicked out
of pretty much everything. Yeah. I mean, those little things, right. But so have you and reflect
on that. And, you know, I, I've learned you don't seek it, but I almost think like when you get in
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trouble for justice and peace, well, you're fulfilling the job description or you're living
correctly because Jesus got in a lot of trouble and they killed him. And you've gotten in a lot
of trouble, Joan. But hold that, hold that right there. Now, I do not believe that Jesus got up
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one morning and said, well, today's the day I'm going to go get killed. That is not a rendering
of the crucifixion for me. They had to find him. He'd gone into the woods. He was praying
at a prayer. It was midnight. He left the whole deal and they had to find him and they had to take
(22:27):
troops to find him. And they were, they were on the verge of killing him right there.
And, and that whole notion right at the top of that, he was praying for help,
give me strength, help me. He wasn't, he didn't say, yeah, it's time for me to be killed.
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He said, it's time. It's time for this thing to blow open. It's time for this thing to be understood.
And at that moment, then the, the, the, the spiritual heart drops everything except what is
is the great spiritual gift that has been given to this planet. It's life, life,
(23:16):
life for the beetle and life for the buffalo life. And our responsibility is to see, uh, and, and
you know, the, the, the Bible is very, very clear about the notion that we are responsible for what,
(23:38):
what, what is it? What's the word that's used, um, uh, about animals, uh, in scripture. It's in,
it's not inchoate and so it, I'm, I'm, I'm embarrassed. I mean, I know this word, like I
know my own name, but I'm, I'm not getting it right now. But it is the word that means animals
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too. It's all for you. You are responsible. This, I made this for you and you are to make it for
others. So, you know, the messages are so much clearer, but they're, they're, they're coming at
us out of a thousand years of control with very little awareness or development in the presence
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of Jesus and, and the creator. I live in the middle of the life of the creator every minute
of my life. I live in the healing of Jesus, uh, the son who is showing us the paths in his own life.
(24:59):
Here is the model. Here's where it goes. And so if you put the two of them down in front of you,
you wouldn't have two large pieces of paper. It's that. That's all there, everything else.
Somebody comes along, tries to make a buck, um, selling the right statues, not the bad ones.
(25:25):
But that's not where the center lies or grows. This, what you just opened this thing with
is the invitation to grow into, I'm telling you, the eight things to do. Don't tell me you don't
know what to do.
So, about this question then, um, that he's saying, well, you're going to be persecuted
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and insulted if you live this path, humility and hunger and thirst for justice and mercy,
and you're making peace.
Lucky you.
You're going to get in trouble and rejoice and be glad, because you're living for God. I don't know.
How do we rejoice and be glad when we're in trouble for working for a new world, a new church,
(26:16):
a new humanity of justice and peace?
Just the way we're doing it right now is the way.
And the number of people who would have thrown me out of the church 30 years ago, I'm sure,
has doubled by this time.
Oh, you're so lucky, Joan. You have a lot to rejoice and be glad at. Actually, in Luke's
(26:38):
verse, he says leap for joy, which you could translate as start dancing. We should be so
happy we're in trouble. And while I experienced that in El Salvador in the 80s, the Salvadoran
church under Romero, they had a joy that I've never experienced before. And they were in a
lot of trouble. They were getting killed. So reflect with us on, we've heard about grief,
(27:04):
and now he ends talking and encouraging us to be joyful as we live out these Beatitudes.
And even if we're in trouble for it. You've done that. I've seen you be joyful in the midst
of all kinds of stuff.
Absolutely. I'm never going to give it up. I don't collect all those jokes for nothing. Gosh,
(27:28):
Joan, of course. And you're supposed to make your own happiness. If you're doing it right,
it's going to come out right.
So Jesus says, you know, blessed are those persecuted for the sake of justice and insulted
because of me and so forth. Rejoice and be glad. And, you know, as I think on that,
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and you were talking about working for a new church and making justice and peace and showing
mercy and this whole new vision of life, and it's so exciting. I find people and myself can be
just so bitter and depressed and angry and despairing. And I would much rather be living
(28:11):
out the joy that Jesus talks about as a promise of the Beatitudes. And what do you think about
that? How can we live out that joy?
I mean, John, listen to me. I have no idea how many hundreds of presentations I've given.
My own sisters know all of that better. But this I do know because they told me. There is
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never a presentation that I make because we're weighted down on this, on this,
not just this country, but on this globe by so much selfishness, violence,
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violence, powerfulness. I mean, people don't even realize that they are giving everything they have
just to get up the next morning in their own houses and have a happy life. They're having,
they're having a lot of trouble. People come to their door and want to sell them a happy life.
(29:24):
They want to go to the hospital and want to show them a happy life. That's all fine. But
what I have said to other groups, I'm going to say to you, find and build your own group.
It's either in the family or out of the family, but somehow or other, like the one,
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one day some years ago, if all my sisters were here, they would tell me, all I know is that I
had a program up and I got this far. And the people I said, build your own happiness group.
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That's what we're supposed to be. That's what little parishes are supposed to be.
Little happiness groups, for heaven's sakes. So I said, get one. And when I hung up, I did it myself.
I went on, I knew there were a group of people on. I said, you should all be doing something
(30:38):
together now after we've done this. And then I said something like this, I'll tell you what,
come back next Wednesday, we'll have something for you. That's when Mary Lou and I created
monasteries of the heart to which 30,000 people still now connect.
It's fantastic. You're calling us to form little communities of peace and justice and joy and to
(31:06):
find happiness with one another in living the Beatitudes.
Yeah. And even like I don't always push the hard stuff. I don't always say, we've lost so many of
this, ignored that, refused to do this. I try to show where the light is shining between the trees.
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And I make sure my little five ounce parrot is with me because she doesn't like to be left alone.
And people are crying to her when we come. They'd all love to do a hugging. And she's not so sure.
She's a little scared. If her mom's there, it's okay. But she's not going to do too much of it.
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So we have fun over that kind of stuff. And then I know we have the energy left then to know that
in that joy, go into our site, go into the monasteries of the heart, you'll see all of the
activity that's going on. And who's doing it? They are. They are. Mary Lou and I and our sisters
(32:23):
put up the staging. And all of those people, they write to us, they call to us. They have found a
home and we love them to death. But you can't love 30,000 people one at a time. They are in,
(32:43):
they are forming their own groups. We've regenerated our obelisks, very mature religious
people who want to be closer to the monastery, closer to the sisters, closer to the liturgy,
closer to the works. And they come and they're happy. They have a good time. Now, our people
(33:09):
are igniting a fire around us, some of them sure. Sure. They don't understand it or they don't like
it. There are a lot of, I think, unhappy conservatives who want to destroy all this,
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but you're not going to destroy that kind of joy. So you have to be open to it, but you have to be
part of it. You make your own little group. That's great, June. And you connect to all the other
groups. That's great. And you get somebody like me and you to connect to them and they will go
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a mighty mountain very fast. We were shocked. So... We were absolutely shocked. I can't call it
a plan. It was just that we had some nice people on the line and they wanted to know more. So heck,
why don't we? That's great. So friends who are listening, Sister Joan is talking about her
(34:20):
project Monasteries of the Heart. It's a great website. And I've known Joan for 40 years and
she's talking about our mutual great friend, Mary Lou Kownacki, who did great work. And I've seen
a lot of this. I was going to ask you, Joan, now I don't know how else to put it. Like, I think
(34:40):
living the Beatitudes, of course, living the whole gospel, the point was...
Well, it's going to get you through the whole gospel.
Yeah, yeah. Jesus lives them out and shows how to do it. But theoretically, you were talking about
the new church. This is so silly to even say it. Shouldn't we be living in a church of the Beatitudes?
(35:02):
The church should reflect the Beatitudes. But you were saying maybe something even better,
which is, you know, like Latin America-based Christian communities, a Beatitude movement,
small groups of Beatitudes. And that's what Monasteries of the Heart and Pax Christi and
so many lovely groups around the country. But we're going to need that as the world gets worse.
(35:25):
Oh, yeah. Sure. To have small groups to keep our faith, hope, and joy alive and the strength to
live out the Beatitudes. Right? Is that what you're saying? But together we could reform the church
or disarm the church into more Beatitudes. Of course. It's getting reformed whether they
(35:47):
want it reformed or not. And one of these days, they're going to wake up and write a new letter
that says, this is what we want. And the letters will come back by the millions. We did that 45
years ago. That's great. Joan, do you have any last thoughts or suggestions to people about
(36:10):
following Jesus and living the Beatitudes as we wrap up our sessions together?
No, I want you to do that piece because this is your stage and they must know that.
So they have to know it. They have to know it because they connected and they wanted to connect
(36:34):
with you and what you're doing. So no, I did a lot today and I hope that it's been all right
for you and with you, but I could only do what I do.
It's terrific. I really thank you, Joan, for being with me and sharing all of this about the
Beatitudes. And I hope everyone will take it to heart.
(36:57):
Yeah, I told you. I was really excited that we were going to… I wasn't putting it on. I meant it.
So, once again, thank you so much, Sister Joan Chittister, my friend, for speaking with me today
and the other episodes on Jesus and the Beatitudes. And I want to thank everyone for listening to this
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podcast, the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. We're so blessed to spend time with
Joan Chittister on the Beatitudes. You can hear many more podcasts and find other upcoming Zoom
programs at BeatitudesCenter.org. You can check out Joan at jonechittister.org and Monasteriesoftheheart.org.
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And I hope you will join us in the future. And let me just end by saying may the God of peace
bless everyone. Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus and living out the Beatitudes,
and I'll see you all next time. Thanks so much.
Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deer, and this is a project
(00:21):
of www.beattitudecenter.org, where you can find many other podcasts and regular Zoom programs on
the nonviolence of Jesus and working for a more just, peaceful world. I'm happy today to be with
my friend, author, teacher, and lecturer, Sister Joan Chidister, and this is part three of our
(00:43):
three-episode conversation on Jesus and the Beatitudes. So, like the other sessions, let's
begin with a short little two-second prayer. So, I just invite you, friends, just to take a deep
breath wherever you are, and just to relax and center yourself again in the presence of the God
of peace who loves you personally and infinitely and everyone else too. And let's welcome Jesus
(01:11):
here into our hearts and our lives and ask for whatever graces we need to live out the Beatitudes
and follow Jesus and do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the blessings of life and love
and peace that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect on the Beatitudes of Jesus,
(01:36):
that we might follow him more faithfully and do your will and be your holy Beatitude people
who do our part to welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, universal justice,
and universal peace. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. So, as I said, it's my pleasure to welcome
(01:58):
back my friend Sister Joan Chidister, and we've been reflecting on the Beatitudes in Matthew
chapter 5, and this is the third of three episodes. And we left off last week, we had gone through,
I think, the first six Beatitudes up to Blessed are the Peacemakers. And I was just asking Joan,
when we left off the last time, that question about the Beatitude, blessed are those who hunger
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and thirst for righteousness, for justice, they will be satisfied. And what, Joan, what do you
think it means to be satisfied? And I came to the conclusion in the Viktor Frankl sense that it means
you will find a deep meaning in your life if you give your life to working for justice for the
human race in such an unjust world. What do you think about that, Joan?
(02:50):
Well, I think all of that is absolutely correct, but I don't think it's enough of what's happening
here. I think if you look back over these first five Beatitudes, you'll discover a pretty heavy
awareness of personal gifts, personal character, personal awareness. And then all of a sudden,
(03:16):
we get to the fifth Beatitude on happy are those who hunger and thirst. I mean, God,
they can't get away from it. They just don't want to stop. They love it. They know that
righteousness is the only possible pathway to the future, to the present, to happiness. Otherwise,
(03:42):
we're all fighting somebody, grabbing something, stealing something, throwing something away. No.
At five, we begin to recognize, we step back and we say to ourselves, oh my God,
they mean this will be my life. This is supposed to be my life, my hunger and thirst for righteousness,
(04:05):
a city on a hill, a light for the people. And then I run right into the sixth Beatitude,
blessed are the pure of heart. They did it for the right reason. They didn't do it to get the
(04:27):
presidency of the board of the life makers someplace. And then they're not going to be
someplace. They are single-hearted. They know what this is about. This is about who we are,
how we live, what we do for the way other people can live. So we get to blessed are the single
(04:52):
hearted. I'm not doing it for more money. I'm not doing it because my father sent me. I'm not doing
it because I can get to be the president. No, I am true. I'm telling you the truth. I see now that
I am here on earth to enable this earth to grow well, to be well. Do you understand what I'm saying?
(05:18):
Yes, God created the world, but God left it for the rest of us to complete it. Our world is not
true until we are trustworthy to the whole notion that we will make it true. Our lives are now in
sync with what we say they believe and the ideals they claim. And you can see us doing them in
(05:47):
midnight in the basement if you want to, but that's where we are. These are the souls with bones.
They stand in behalf of the poor. They stand in behalf of the prophetic. They stand in behalf of
the marginal. So no voice in their place goes unheard. There is no truth untold. These people
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keep the magnet of the electric line that starts in creation and the creator and is now locked into
me as a character, as a heart. And therefore we treat everyone as good and they see good everywhere.
(06:38):
Wonderful. So of course then, number seven, we are going to run right into it, aren't we?
We're bringing our best selves. We're bringing our best motives. We are hungering and thirsting. We
need justice here or this country is going to fall apart. Listen carefully to what I'm saying
(07:03):
at this time, at this moment in American history. If individuals of great heart are not reshaping
our own means of life, our own kinds of happiness, then who are we? Who are we? Because now you
(07:23):
see we need you. We need blessed are the peacemakers. Who are the first?
Well, thank you so much. So that leads us to the last few and I thought I could read them and then
invite you to reflect on them. So here we go. Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called
(07:46):
children of God, sons and daughters of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of
righteousness, for justice. Theirs is the reign of heaven. And blessed are you when they insult you
and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and
be glad your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets before you.
(08:13):
Blessed are the peacemakers, Joan. Spend a little time unpacking what that means for us. In a world
of permanent war. Well, it's at this point then that we become peacemakers. We understand who and
what peacemakers are. These are the people, the souls who will seek reconciliation first.
(08:37):
They'll say, look, we don't want to do it this way. We have so much need for that in this country
right now. Well, they don't just oppose war. They call its end. They save its sick. They make way
for a full society of happy and holy people. And they do not under any circumstance,
(09:07):
seek vengeance. When I get out of here, when I get that position, I'll see that she never gets
into an office again. They will never go to school in that school again. They see life as a family
for whom we are all responsible, every one of us, in helping that group rise. We work with people,
(09:35):
not against them. We do not judge. And that means that the attitudes that we embrace
are attitudes that make us happy for standing with the poor, for defending the oppressed,
for supporting righteousness, for being true to the best ideals within us,
(10:02):
and true to our humanity in all its forms. We have been given criteria directly from Jesus,
how to form a happy, holy world and live my own happy, holy world as well.
(10:24):
Thank you for thinking of this. Thank you for allowing yourself to rethink everything you ever
thought about it. And thank you for taking that first conscious step up the ladder of the
beatitude.
So, Joan, this amazing teaching here at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed
(10:55):
are the peacemakers, is such a beautiful way to envision our lives. And that's what I've done with
my life, isn't it? To say, okay, I want to try, like I said as a young person, I want to live the
beatitudes. I want to live the Sermon on the Mount. And over time, I realized, oh, I'm called to be a
peacemaker. I want to be a peacemaker. And it's so interesting. It doesn't say, you know, blessed
(11:20):
are those who like peace. I really like peace. No, we're going to make peace.
Me too, try to find peace.
Yeah, and construct peace and live in God's peace. Okay. And then he says, they will be called
the sons and daughters of God. So, I think this is Jesus saying your fundamental identity is to be a
(11:44):
beloved daughter of God, a beloved son of God. And so, you go and make peace. But what's the most
important thing in this climactic beatitude, and I think this is the climax of the beatitudes, is
Jesus is basically saying, hey, God makes peace. God is a God of peace. And you are the sons and
(12:08):
daughters of God. So, you go into this world and you make peace. You don't make war. You don't
support war. You don't kill others. You don't waste your life building nuclear weapons. So, how
concretely can people be peacemakers? And what is your image of God here as a God of peace?
(12:29):
What does that mean for you, Joan Chidister?
We have to remember, John, that there's more war going on at family breakfast than we've ever seen
in our life. I mean, some our other, we ourselves have to sort out what we have been taught or
(12:51):
pretended to commit or to permit in our own lives. I mean, frankly, I think it would be great
if small groups, small churches would take these eight beatitudes and take one a month and then
come together and say what happened when they did it. I mean, yeah, this needs to be
(13:18):
made real, demystified, demonstrated. There. That's what he's saying. These are not,
I'm going to repeat it, these are not prayers of sublocation. These are understandings of the way
to live. That's important. We pay hospitals and
(13:43):
secular counselors all of our life. And we're right here.
Gandhi thought of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount more like an instruction manual,
like a how to be a human being book. Isn't that interesting? But Joan, tell me again,
because I think, is it the first time he's made a book about the beatitudes and the sermons?
(14:12):
He mentions God. He's saying God is not a God of war, but a God of peace. I think that's
fundamental problem among us is our image of God will bless our troops and bless our conflicts and
bless our side, as Bob Dylan says, with God on our side. What do you… So, in other words,
(14:38):
I'm trying to ask you, what is your image of God that the Beatitudes show?
Well, see, I've long ago, I mean, I just years ago realized that… It's funny, it came at
Easter one year. I was, I suppose, in my 30s at that time, was teaching already.
(15:06):
But I got hung up on Christmas and Easter because everywhere it turned, they said,
Hallelujah. And what's the… I'm tired right now. What's the Latin for God is with us?
(15:27):
Emmanuel.
Emmanuel.
Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel.
Emmanuel. He means it all the time.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Yeah. So it was, Hallelujah, Emmanuel, Hallelujah, Emmanuel. And I began to say,
it is Emmanuel. Emmanuel is here. And then all of a sudden I realized that that's exactly
(15:50):
what I was seeing. And I've never changed. I just, I don't worry. I really don't pray
psalms of the supplicant, supplication, almost not at all. I will pray for somebody who wants
being prayed for, but I don't. I don't do it that way. I do the psalms and the hundred psalms
(16:16):
of the people in total concentration on the mystical world, the psalmist who says,
yeah, this is life is like this. This is how it goes. Do the best you can. And so I have often,
(16:37):
not for years, you heard me. I said a few minutes ago, the attitudes to me are like
a hunk of pasta mix. It's my next loaf of bread that I'm going to make. I will shape it differently.
I will clear it. I will water it. I will find the yeast, what makes it grow. And so it's in those,
(17:07):
at those moments that I know Emmanuel is here. Absolutely.
That's great. Thank you. So then-
I think it might even be here this afternoon, John. You never know.
So the God of peace is with us. So, blessed are the peacemakers leads to blessed are those
persecuted for the sake of justice. The reign of God is theirs. Reflect with us on that.
(17:33):
Go ahead. The reign of God belongs to everyone already.
It has been given for them. But what is holding us back are the people who cannot find any life
whatsoever in the Beatitudes. When we begin to live this up, we will be able to live this life
(18:01):
in, to live this out, then that we will know the reign of God within us. We'll know it.
It's there. See, one of the reasons I, one of the reasons that I've done so much in spirituality
over the years is I began to realize having coming out of the Catholic school system,
(18:25):
etc. And they, whatever that, what was that book? The, that the, oh, you know,
the Catechism. Yes, right. The Catechism.
Yeah, that that's what we all grew up on, the Catechism. And when after Vatican II,
and I realized the immensity of what was being asked or allowed or, or given there,
(18:51):
I took a deep breath and said, does anybody else but me understand that the entire old church
is going to be a different church? And, and, and yet I began to realize ironically that the liturgy
itself was always talking about the new church, the new church, the new church, the new church.
(19:14):
And when I got those two things together, I said, no matter where anybody asks me to go,
I, whatever they ask me to do, I will not go unless I'm going for the development of their
spirituality. I will talk about spirituality. I'm not going to talk about theology and I am
(19:39):
not going to talk about rules and laws and, and keepers of the, of the, of the, I guess,
the Catholic government or something of that nature. No, I wanted people to understand that
the God within is God and that that has to be faced and developed. And, and as that happens,
(20:06):
we grow differently and our world grows differently. And we are not memorizing the rules
about how you set up the, the materials for someone who is in the bed next to you died.
I mean, we were all into, to gestures, every, everything, all the laws belong to somebody else
(20:34):
belonged to somebody else, all the dresses and everything that went with them,
went everywhere except to God. So, I mean, I'm being as truthful as I can be to you now. I,
I can't give an answer before that.
Well, let me ask you about that, Joan, in light of this last Beatitude. So, we've been talking about
(20:59):
really his call to humility, meekness, gentleness, and mercy, and then also hungering and thirsting
for justice and single-heartedness, and then making peace. And he says, well, you're going to be
persecuted. You're going to get in trouble for working for justice. In fact, you're going to get
(21:20):
insulted and all kinds of things are going to happen. Well, I want to ask you about that. And
then he says, rejoice and rejoice and be glad. Yeah, I've been in jail and I've been kicked out
of pretty much everything. Yeah. I mean, those little things, right. But so have you and reflect
on that. And, you know, I, I've learned you don't seek it, but I almost think like when you get in
(21:44):
trouble for justice and peace, well, you're fulfilling the job description or you're living
correctly because Jesus got in a lot of trouble and they killed him. And you've gotten in a lot
of trouble, Joan. But hold that, hold that right there. Now, I do not believe that Jesus got up
(22:05):
one morning and said, well, today's the day I'm going to go get killed. That is not a rendering
of the crucifixion for me. They had to find him. He'd gone into the woods. He was praying
at a prayer. It was midnight. He left the whole deal and they had to find him and they had to take
(22:27):
troops to find him. And they were, they were on the verge of killing him right there.
And, and that whole notion right at the top of that, he was praying for help,
give me strength, help me. He wasn't, he didn't say, yeah, it's time for me to be killed.
(22:50):
He said, it's time. It's time for this thing to blow open. It's time for this thing to be understood.
And at that moment, then the, the, the, the spiritual heart drops everything except what is
is the great spiritual gift that has been given to this planet. It's life, life,
(23:16):
life for the beetle and life for the buffalo life. And our responsibility is to see, uh, and, and
you know, the, the, the Bible is very, very clear about the notion that we are responsible for what,
(23:38):
what, what is it? What's the word that's used, um, uh, about animals, uh, in scripture. It's in,
it's not inchoate and so it, I'm, I'm, I'm embarrassed. I mean, I know this word, like I
know my own name, but I'm, I'm not getting it right now. But it is the word that means animals
(24:04):
too. It's all for you. You are responsible. This, I made this for you and you are to make it for
others. So, you know, the messages are so much clearer, but they're, they're, they're coming at
us out of a thousand years of control with very little awareness or development in the presence
(24:35):
of Jesus and, and the creator. I live in the middle of the life of the creator every minute
of my life. I live in the healing of Jesus, uh, the son who is showing us the paths in his own life.
(24:59):
Here is the model. Here's where it goes. And so if you put the two of them down in front of you,
you wouldn't have two large pieces of paper. It's that. That's all there, everything else.
Somebody comes along, tries to make a buck, um, selling the right statues, not the bad ones.
(25:25):
But that's not where the center lies or grows. This, what you just opened this thing with
is the invitation to grow into, I'm telling you, the eight things to do. Don't tell me you don't
know what to do.
So, about this question then, um, that he's saying, well, you're going to be persecuted
(25:51):
and insulted if you live this path, humility and hunger and thirst for justice and mercy,
and you're making peace.
Lucky you.
You're going to get in trouble and rejoice and be glad, because you're living for God. I don't know.
How do we rejoice and be glad when we're in trouble for working for a new world, a new church,
(26:16):
a new humanity of justice and peace?
Just the way we're doing it right now is the way.
And the number of people who would have thrown me out of the church 30 years ago, I'm sure,
has doubled by this time.
Oh, you're so lucky, Joan. You have a lot to rejoice and be glad at. Actually, in Luke's
(26:38):
verse, he says leap for joy, which you could translate as start dancing. We should be so
happy we're in trouble. And while I experienced that in El Salvador in the 80s, the Salvadoran
church under Romero, they had a joy that I've never experienced before. And they were in a
lot of trouble. They were getting killed. So reflect with us on, we've heard about grief,
(27:04):
and now he ends talking and encouraging us to be joyful as we live out these Beatitudes.
And even if we're in trouble for it. You've done that. I've seen you be joyful in the midst
of all kinds of stuff.
Absolutely. I'm never going to give it up. I don't collect all those jokes for nothing. Gosh,
(27:28):
Joan, of course. And you're supposed to make your own happiness. If you're doing it right,
it's going to come out right.
So Jesus says, you know, blessed are those persecuted for the sake of justice and insulted
because of me and so forth. Rejoice and be glad. And, you know, as I think on that,
(27:49):
and you were talking about working for a new church and making justice and peace and showing
mercy and this whole new vision of life, and it's so exciting. I find people and myself can be
just so bitter and depressed and angry and despairing. And I would much rather be living
(28:11):
out the joy that Jesus talks about as a promise of the Beatitudes. And what do you think about
that? How can we live out that joy?
I mean, John, listen to me. I have no idea how many hundreds of presentations I've given.
My own sisters know all of that better. But this I do know because they told me. There is
(28:36):
never a presentation that I make because we're weighted down on this, on this,
not just this country, but on this globe by so much selfishness, violence,
(28:59):
violence, powerfulness. I mean, people don't even realize that they are giving everything they have
just to get up the next morning in their own houses and have a happy life. They're having,
they're having a lot of trouble. People come to their door and want to sell them a happy life.
(29:24):
They want to go to the hospital and want to show them a happy life. That's all fine. But
what I have said to other groups, I'm going to say to you, find and build your own group.
It's either in the family or out of the family, but somehow or other, like the one,
(29:51):
one day some years ago, if all my sisters were here, they would tell me, all I know is that I
had a program up and I got this far. And the people I said, build your own happiness group.
(30:15):
That's what we're supposed to be. That's what little parishes are supposed to be.
Little happiness groups, for heaven's sakes. So I said, get one. And when I hung up, I did it myself.
I went on, I knew there were a group of people on. I said, you should all be doing something
(30:38):
together now after we've done this. And then I said something like this, I'll tell you what,
come back next Wednesday, we'll have something for you. That's when Mary Lou and I created
monasteries of the heart to which 30,000 people still now connect.
It's fantastic. You're calling us to form little communities of peace and justice and joy and to
(31:06):
find happiness with one another in living the Beatitudes.
Yeah. And even like I don't always push the hard stuff. I don't always say, we've lost so many of
this, ignored that, refused to do this. I try to show where the light is shining between the trees.
(31:32):
And I make sure my little five ounce parrot is with me because she doesn't like to be left alone.
And people are crying to her when we come. They'd all love to do a hugging. And she's not so sure.
She's a little scared. If her mom's there, it's okay. But she's not going to do too much of it.
(31:55):
So we have fun over that kind of stuff. And then I know we have the energy left then to know that
in that joy, go into our site, go into the monasteries of the heart, you'll see all of the
activity that's going on. And who's doing it? They are. They are. Mary Lou and I and our sisters
(32:23):
put up the staging. And all of those people, they write to us, they call to us. They have found a
home and we love them to death. But you can't love 30,000 people one at a time. They are in,
(32:43):
they are forming their own groups. We've regenerated our obelisks, very mature religious
people who want to be closer to the monastery, closer to the sisters, closer to the liturgy,
closer to the works. And they come and they're happy. They have a good time. Now, our people
(33:09):
are igniting a fire around us, some of them sure. Sure. They don't understand it or they don't like
it. There are a lot of, I think, unhappy conservatives who want to destroy all this,
(33:31):
but you're not going to destroy that kind of joy. So you have to be open to it, but you have to be
part of it. You make your own little group. That's great, June. And you connect to all the other
groups. That's great. And you get somebody like me and you to connect to them and they will go
(33:54):
a mighty mountain very fast. We were shocked. So... We were absolutely shocked. I can't call it
a plan. It was just that we had some nice people on the line and they wanted to know more. So heck,
why don't we? That's great. So friends who are listening, Sister Joan is talking about her
(34:20):
project Monasteries of the Heart. It's a great website. And I've known Joan for 40 years and
she's talking about our mutual great friend, Mary Lou Kownacki, who did great work. And I've seen
a lot of this. I was going to ask you, Joan, now I don't know how else to put it. Like, I think
(34:40):
living the Beatitudes, of course, living the whole gospel, the point was...
Well, it's going to get you through the whole gospel.
Yeah, yeah. Jesus lives them out and shows how to do it. But theoretically, you were talking about
the new church. This is so silly to even say it. Shouldn't we be living in a church of the Beatitudes?
(35:02):
The church should reflect the Beatitudes. But you were saying maybe something even better,
which is, you know, like Latin America-based Christian communities, a Beatitude movement,
small groups of Beatitudes. And that's what Monasteries of the Heart and Pax Christi and
so many lovely groups around the country. But we're going to need that as the world gets worse.
(35:25):
Oh, yeah. Sure. To have small groups to keep our faith, hope, and joy alive and the strength to
live out the Beatitudes. Right? Is that what you're saying? But together we could reform the church
or disarm the church into more Beatitudes. Of course. It's getting reformed whether they
(35:47):
want it reformed or not. And one of these days, they're going to wake up and write a new letter
that says, this is what we want. And the letters will come back by the millions. We did that 45
years ago. That's great. Joan, do you have any last thoughts or suggestions to people about
(36:10):
following Jesus and living the Beatitudes as we wrap up our sessions together?
No, I want you to do that piece because this is your stage and they must know that.
So they have to know it. They have to know it because they connected and they wanted to connect
(36:34):
with you and what you're doing. So no, I did a lot today and I hope that it's been all right
for you and with you, but I could only do what I do.
It's terrific. I really thank you, Joan, for being with me and sharing all of this about the
Beatitudes. And I hope everyone will take it to heart.
(36:57):
Yeah, I told you. I was really excited that we were going to… I wasn't putting it on. I meant it.
So, once again, thank you so much, Sister Joan Chittister, my friend, for speaking with me today
and the other episodes on Jesus and the Beatitudes. And I want to thank everyone for listening to this
(37:18):
podcast, the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. We're so blessed to spend time with
Joan Chittister on the Beatitudes. You can hear many more podcasts and find other upcoming Zoom
programs at BeatitudesCenter.org. You can check out Joan at jonechittister.org and Monasteriesoftheheart.org.
(37:39):
And I hope you will join us in the future. And let me just end by saying may the God of peace
bless everyone. Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus and living out the Beatitudes,
and I'll see you all next time. Thanks so much.
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