The Beatitudes and the law of love

Adrien Candiard, «La Grazia è  un incontro» [Grace Is An Encounter], Lev 2024

Adrien Candiard is a Dominican father, and superior of a convent in Cairo. He is well known beyond the Alps for his transition from politics to religious life. In his short essay, which is a comparison with the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) on a basic question that we have often heard asked: “If God loves us gratuitously, why does he ask us to keep commandments that, in practice, are often beyond our reach?”  Instead of giving precise answers, the author invites us to change perspective and in the short chapters he finds in the Beatitudes a more detailed answer to the question of the rich young man, who asked how to obtain eternal life. In essence, happiness is to possess the Kingdom of God. The author invites each one of us, through a sapiential analysis of the text, to let ourselves be loved and to welcome the Kingdom that is already given to us. Moreover, not to be the best at keeping the law but to continually adapt ourselves to the direction indicated, because the Law of Christ marks the heart but does not replace it; to be perfect like the Father, rejecting evil and sin, learning to look at the world with his own benevolent gaze.

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