The Most Astonishing Item in the Sermon on the Mount, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

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Fra Angelico, Convent of San Marco (1445)

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, May 10, 2022

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

We all associate the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, but these occupy just ten verses, whereas the whole sermon as recounted in Matthew’s Gospel is more than ten times that length. It occupies 111 verses spanning three chapters (5-7). We would all admit, I think, that Our Lord’s message throughout is deeply spiritual; it was certainly something very different from what His audience was used to hearing. But in rereading it this week, three verses struck me as the most impressive of all.

Of course, we all have special moments when reading Scripture, when some aspect of the text strikes us in a new way that produces what for us, in that moment, is an important spiritual insight. That’s one reason it is so important to read and reread the Bible, through which the Holy Spirit enters into our hearts in fresh ways, enabling us in a flash to see something more about God and about our relationship with Him, and about our relationship with others in and through Jesus Christ. …