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Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking

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with my friend, author, teacher, and lecturer, Sister Joan Chidister. This podcast is a project

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of www.beattitudecenter.org, where you can find many other podcasts and regular Zoom

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programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence and working for a more just, more

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peaceful world. So I'd like to begin with a little prayer. So I invite everyone listening

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to just to take a deep breath wherever you are and to relax and to center yourself again

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and enter into the presence of the God of peace who loves you infinitely, personally,

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and everyone everywhere. And let's welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and ask

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for whatever graces and blessings we need to follow him more faithfully and do God's

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will. God of peace, thank you for all the blessings of life and love and peace that

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you give us. Be with us now as we reflect on the life and teachings and the beatitudes

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of Jesus, that we might follow him more faithfully and do your will and do our part to help end

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war and poverty, racism and sexism, violence, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction,

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that we might welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, and universal

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peace here on earth in Jesus name. Amen. It's my great pleasure to welcome today my friend

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Sister Joan Chidister to reflect together on Jesus and the beatitudes. As many listeners

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know, Sister Joan is an internationally known lecturer and teacher, a columnist for the

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National Catholic Reporter, and the author of some 60 books, including The Time Is Now,

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Becoming Fully Human, Radical Spirit, The Gift of Years, and The Rule of Benedict. She

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has served as Benedictine Prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie and Benedictine

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Federation President, the President of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, and

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co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women. And I urge everyone to check out her

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website joneschidister.org. So welcome this morning, Sister Joan. I'm so happy you're

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here.

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Oh, you are the little brother of my life, John. I've always hoped with the hope that

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they would give the two of us the time just to share the ideas that we've picked up, both

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of us crossing the country and deepening the Catholic heart.

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Oh, we get to do it now.

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And you have done that, John. You know more people in the church than the church knows.

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And as long as they know you, they're going to be happy and be loved.

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Thank you.

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So thank you for allowing me to be part of this.

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It's a blessing.

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With you.

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It is a blessing. It is. It's going to be a blessing.

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Let's dive right in. We're in 2025, Joan. And after all we've been through with the

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church, the country, and the world throughout our lives in so many ways, people would think

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that the world is worse than ever with permanent warfare, the threat of nuclear war, catastrophic

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climate change, poverty beyond comprehension, but corporate greed worse than ever, and now

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growing fascism and racism. And Jesus lived in a similar world of empire and war and injustice.

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And He stood up and spoke out and empowered oppressed people and built a grassroots movement.

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And Matthew's gospel puts all his teachings together on love, compassion, and peace and

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nonviolence into one big, I call it his campaign platform speech, the Sermon on the Mount,

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which begins with the Beatitudes. And I thought it would be really fun and great and helpful

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to spend our precious time together, maybe over a couple of episodes talking about Jesus

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and the Beatitudes, to help realign ourselves and our listeners for the times we're in,

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to renew our discipleship to Jesus, and to be empowered like His friends to live out

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these teachings. So I'll let you begin, Joan, by telling me any thoughts you have today

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about Jesus and the context in which He was offering His Sermon on the Mount.

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I don't believe, John, that we can deal with this topic without seeing it from that point

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of view. So I'm going to start talking to our friends about what this isn't, because

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I believe it's been too much understood and therefore too much ignored. We call it the

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eight Beatitudes of life. Frankly, it's a better, it would be much more quickly understood

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if we called it what it is, the eight attitudes toward life that you and I, if we develop

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them, can bring our own happiness from them. In other words, this is the way Jesus told

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them that they could be happy as they went through this new revelation of His to them.

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They would be happy in all of this with its stress and its deterrence and its terrible,

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bad politics as bad as we do. And we understand now that the things are so entangled that

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each of us are touched by them. You can say, I don't do politics. Yes, you do. All you

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do is you don't do it, which is doing it. So I want to look together again, something

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that's meant a great deal to me personally, and that I believe should be the foundation,

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the first step to the memory within us of the presence of God. So there's a second caveat

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here too. I want you to know, I can hardly believe this. I got up this morning and I

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said to myself, I have always wanted to be able to do the Beatitudes when something was

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enveloping us in a newly deterred past. And I suddenly realized that we are sitting, weeping

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over California and all of our friends and everything that's gone. And yet it is in that

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very image in our mind, not the image of ice cream and steak, the image of what happens

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when everything around you collapses. How do you manage to see any time left? So let's

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look a bit. We have the general subject of trying to fulfill our lives. We use the word

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fulfillment through life from our youngest child to our oldest family. But that's not

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what we need. Fulfillment is not the end to our lives. What we need is enduring personal

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happiness. And it is in these eight attitudes, in these eight Beatitudes that Jesus tells

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the disciples, listen to these, live like this, and you will always be happy. And if

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the people who are listening right now, if some of them, wherever they are, are feeling

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a little less happy than they want to be, that they feel they must be, I want to guarantee

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to you that more of your happiness will be what we do, you and I, with the eight attitudes

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toward life given to us, not by any good psychologist, but by Jesus and the disciples who were in

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the midst of at least as much social debacle as we are right now. So what do we have to

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know? The first thing is that Beatitudes are not prayers. Nobody says the Beatitudes. You

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don't tuck the child in and say, now, don't forget to say the Beatitudes tonight. Beatitudes

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are not prayers of supplication. Dear Jesus, please make the sun come out tomorrow so the

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picnic isn't ruined by the rain. The Beatitudes are not prayers of supplication. They are

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not even gifts that we ask for from God. What are they? They are the realities of our lives.

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They are the reality of your life. They are the reality of everything we wish we could

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get out of right now. So Jesus, remember, is now about to begin the very serious development

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of the disciples. And Jesus tells his disciples about the real world. He's just come back

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from the desert. He's been pursued by the devil himself. When he gets out of the desert

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and finally believes at the retreat, he understood everything now. He knows who he is now, who

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his God is waiting to see his face in him. When he comes back from the desert and all

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of that, he sees then that John has been arrested. John's been taken off the streets. And what

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does Jesus do? He runs away. He goes to Galilee. He's not stupid. He knows if he goes to Nazareth,

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that's a big city, he'll be seen very soon. They'll pick him up quickly. But what he does

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is he goes around the Great Lake and the 10 or 12 little pods of people there. And he

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stays in that area for a good long time, trying to support those people, trying to give them

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another view of the world as these beatitudes give us. Even he knows when he leaves the

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outer side of Nazareth that everybody is stressed. The farmers are stressed. The people are afraid.

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The taxes are destroyed. And Jesus says, pay attention, pay attention to what's going on.

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Those are the very segments you have to live well if you yourself are about to become holy.

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So we call them blessed. They are not the blessed beatitudes. They're the blessed beatitudes.

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Blessed means you're lucky. You're getting it. You're growing. Blessed means the holy,

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the divine. So when we are talking about the beatitudes, we're talking about the very things

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that Jesus says, if we live them, we will live a happy life. The first then of the beatitudes

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now we can get into them. We know where they're coming from, what they're here for, that they

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are not a retreat, they are not a set of rosaries. They are for you to listen to your life.

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Okay, great.

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We're not going to talk to you about any other.

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Thank you. Before I thought I'd read them, and before I do, I want to ask you one more

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question about this context. And I'm not sure you'll agree, but this is what I've learned

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on my journey. Forty years ago, I lived in the war zone of El Salvador, and Ayah Korea,

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who was assassinated, the Jesuit president of the university, I met him the day I arrived,

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and he said to me, John, what we're dealing with here is the anti-reign, and meaning the

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anti-kingdom of God. It was shocking. I never recovered from that, because literally bombs

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were falling. And then a couple of years later, one night, my friend and teacher, Daniel Berrigan,

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said, John, what we're dealing with in the world is the anti-gospel. The empire, the

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culture is…

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Yeah.

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And then that led me, I wrote a book on the beatitudes called The Beatitudes of Peace,

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and I began by saying, and this is what I'm just asking your opinion on, that what we

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hear every day, what I've heard my whole life from the government, the Pentagon, the

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war makers, Wall Street, every nation in the world is the anti-Sermon on the Mount. Not

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love your enemies, but kill your enemies. And not the beatitudes, but the anti-beatitudes.

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And let me tell you the anti-beatitudes, and tell me what you think. This is what the world

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says. Blessed are the rich. Blessed are you if you never mourn. Blessed are the violent.

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Blessed are you if you hunger and thirst for injustice. Blessed are you if you show no

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mercy. Blessed are the impure of heart. You know, as long as you look good, who cares

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what's going on inside? Blessed are the war makers. And blessed are you if you're never

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persecuted, you're never in trouble because you spoke out for justice or stood up with

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the nonviolent Jesus. What do you think of that take on it, the world?

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Well, that's absolutely. I mean, this is the only thing we have to somehow or other draw

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the beatitudes against. Where else would you go? Everything looks good. So that's a beatitude,

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right? And everything that I want is good, and that's my beatitude, right? No. The beatitude

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is when you realize that what you are facing outside yourself has not been fully prepared

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even in you. And so you have to you have got to consider, I like that, the anti-beatitude.

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Fine. Turn it. What will be there then when we turn it? Because that's what I'm going

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to do now. I'm going to turn every single one of these.

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You know, so as I read them now, I'm thinking to myself and your word turn it. St. Francis,

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you remember the quote of St. Francis of Assisi, he said, well, the only way to follow Jesus

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is, you know, and to live out the gospel because Jesus turns everything upside down is you

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have to stand on your head for the rest of your life. Isn't that wonderful? And that's

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what I hear. I mean, the first sentence in the Sermon on the Mount. So I'll read them.

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And you know, maybe you could share on the first one for now, first or second ones. So

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here we go. Matthew chapter 5 verse 1, I'll read them all.

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When he saw the crowds, Jesus went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples

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came to him, and he began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs

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is the reign of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed

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are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for

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justice, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

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Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for

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they will be called sons and daughters of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for

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the sake of justice. Theirs is the reign of heaven. And blessed are you when they insult

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you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

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Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the

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prophets before you. Powerful.

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Always. Always.

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So, go ahead, then. The blessed are the poor in spirit, the reign of God is theirs.

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All right. Let's look at this, not so much from the front, but from the back. If we look

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at the first attitude, that's exactly blessed are the poor in spirit, the ones that are

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not lusting for more power, more things, more status. Why? Because when you have to have

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all that, it's like a sandpaper of the soul. You'll never get enough. You will always be

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irritated by what you don't have. But if you don't have that lust, if you compress that

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lust, then you get out of your life the happiness that is within you to give. We have to understand

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what others do not have but need and what we have but do not need. We need to see, then,

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that wanting more, getting more, hoarding more, trying more, it's not where the full

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road to happiness really is. So we have to ask ourselves a question. Do we ever stop

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and think of those things? Because today I'm going to give you a test and I'm going to

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ask the people who are listening, close your eyes. I'll ask your question one at a time

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and I want you to stay with your eyes closed and honestly ask it. This is called the Heilbroner

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test. He was an economist and an historian of great stature in the states itself. Heilbroners

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question goes like this. What would it take for the average American to live the lifestyle

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of the poor of the world? So let's see, you and I. We'll take a walk through your house.

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Go to your house, close your eyes, go to your house, see your house. Now, first, then, I

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want you to go through the rooms and of your home, take everything in it out of it, everything.

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Leave it. You now have five empty rooms if you're doing this right. Two, leave a few

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blankets around if you want, maybe an old table, a wooden chair. There could even be

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some bureaus that couldn't be moved and they held the clothes. Look in those, get rid of

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those too. You're allowed to keep one article from each, but shoes can be had by the house

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leader only. That's first, go to your home, take everything in it out of it. Don't cheat.

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You have an empty house now. Now take all the appliances out of the kitchen, the toaster,

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get rid of it, the fry pan you won't need, the stove, pull out the lines, the coffee

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maker, the fresh eggs, the dried beans, a few potatoes, take after them the meat, the

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canned goods, the crackers, the candy. There's nothing on every shelf now, on any shelf now,

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any drawer, on the floor. It's all been gone. Now go down the hall a bit, shut off the water

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in the bathroom. Now remember what you have behind you, all the empty rooms, all the material

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gone, shut off the water in the bathroom. Now go across the hall or down to the basement

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and turn off the electricity too. Just drag the lines, snap them, you won't need them.

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And now take away the house. There's a mover outside. They've put all the boxes in the

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back already and now they have the ramp up to the back end for the house. What you have

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left you will have to eliminate, your phone, the newspapers, oh yeah, the fire department,

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the hospitals that you might need, the paved roads that make it easier at least even to

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walk and the children's schools. And at that point we want all of you to tell us if this

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is you, how will you work harder and improve your life? Because that's what we say to every

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other immigrant who comes across the river carrying nothing or soaking it unusable. Yeah,

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but how are you going to work harder and improve your life up here? Those are the graces of

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the Florida fires right now. They're asking us, the average American, what will you do

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now? You see, we have an internal question that the Beatitudes leave with us and that

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question is, what is my theology of life? What am I living for? What am I giving away?

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What am I building up for others? What am I teaching them? What am I helping them through?

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Because this leads us immediately then to the second Beatitude, blessed are those that

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mourn. That does not mean mourn the casket. It means mourn for the plight of those who

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are living those inhuman lives to which we just compared our own. They can't make it

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if we don't help them make it or they will never be able to raise the quality of life

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for us all. We must be sure here that we do not allow our own lives to be wasted away

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in that terrible collection of the unnecessary, if we can continue to neglect to be concerned

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about the effect of our own actions on the lives of others. Bad enough when it's the

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government action. What about my life on my theology of life to the people who live next

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door to me, to the people I moved away from because they did live next door to me? Or

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like the wages we gave them for doing manual labor or service, would you have paid your

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neighbor next door that money? And you see, if they don't get just money, they can't

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paint their houses or care for their children or plant flowers in their own backyard. And

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then when we do that, we want them to move, which of course makes us unhappy to have to

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explain that to somebody, isn't it? If we even have the decency to be unhappy to try

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to explain that on our first babysitter. That takes us, of course, to the third attitude.

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Well, let's stop there for a second, okay? How about that? And can I just ask a question

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about the first two? Would that be all right?

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Sure, sure.

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So, this is all so powerful. So, thinking about this, and I hear you, these are the

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phrases that I've been taught over my life about these first two beatitudes that, well,

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the first is for us a call toward, the Jesuits called it downward mobility. And that's Jesus

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and global solidarity with the poorest of the poor in the world. And that's what we're

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trying to do. And Jesus does it, and by the way, in the end, on the cross, He's totally

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poor in spirit, and into your hands I commend my spirit. And that's the journey we're all

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going to make. So, that's one thing. I also remember a great friend who spent his whole

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life with the poor talking about the first beatitude, and he said, you know, this, he

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was saying to the homeless people and poor people that we were working with, hey, this

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isn't just when you die. You very poor people, you already have the reign of God. We don't.

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And he was kind of saying, hey, let's all try to befriend very poor and oppressed people,

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and maybe they'll share with us what they already have. I loved that, and I wonder what

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you thought about it. And in terms of mourning, so, I, in my reflections on this, I think

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later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going to say, look, for this long haul life

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of discipleship, of love, compassion, and peacemaking, avoid these things, fear, anxiety,

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worry, even anger. It's not going to help you. But in the Beatitudes, He's going to say,

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here are two emotions that you need, grief, mourning, and later He'll talk about joy at

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the very end, grief and joy. And I saw that in my friends like Daniel Berrigan and Desmond Tutu.

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So, then I heard a retreat 40 years ago, Dan said, his first sentence on the weekend retreat was,

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peacemaking begins with mourning. Peacemaking begins with grief because of what our country

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is doing around the world with our unjust economics, but also in warfare. And, you know,

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then I, and last year I remember when I was working at Ground Zero, September 11th and all of that,

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as the coordinator of the chaplains, everybody was grieving and mourning. And it led to

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compassion like I never saw before in New York City, so much so that George W. Bush went on the

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TV two weeks later, I wonder if you remember this, and said, hey, everybody, stop grieving and

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mourning and go shopping and everything will be alright. Like, we're not, we don't grieve,

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Bittman- Well, I think that they're laid out so well on the attitudes itself. I mean,

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we don't mourn in this country. And Jesus saying grief is the way to compassion and love.

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Any thoughts on those ideas?

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when you say to people what you really need is some poverty of spirit, meaning that you are not

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collecting everything that this globe has to offer. That is, you, that it means you must live

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another way. You're not here to get everything that this place has produced. You get what you

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need, you get it well. And then number two, you look at the people who can't even begin

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to get what they need. And that means you have to help somehow. You have to be in that chain of help.

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If it's charity, that's wonderful. If you are cost, I mean, if you are commonly committed to

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a charity that is changing this world, then my dear friend, you really know what more mourning

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must bring about in us. That morning is our resurrection. We get to see what we have never

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bothered to look at before, which brings us, of course, and number three, which is another,

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it throws the American mind right off the globe.

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Tom- Maybe that's a good point to stop and take a break, and then we'll launch into the next episode.

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So, I'm going to…

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Okay, that's exactly what I did.

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Good. So, I'm going to, for our listeners, I thank you so much. And this is going to conclude

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the first episode. I'm hoping maybe we have three of these with our friend and teacher, Sister Joan

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Chiddister. So, I thank you all so much for being here. Thank you, Sister Joan, for this first

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installment. And you can hear more podcasts and other upcoming Zoom programs at www.beattitudecenter.org.

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And so, join me next week for part two of my conversation with Sister Joan on Jesus and the

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Beatitudes. And in the end, I say for today, may the God of peace bless everyone. Keep on

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following the nonviolent Jesus, and see you next time. Thanks, Joan.