As St Paul writes in his letter to the Church this week, "Consider your own call...not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth."  Yet we have all been called to discipleship by God, who knows all of our weaknesses shortcomings and still calls us to do His Work anyway because it is through our flaws that His Perfect Love can be shown in the world.

To underscore this point, the Gospel this Sunday gives us the Beatitudes - a set of eight powerful statements focused on love, humility, and compassion taught by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount.

Picking up on the Old Testament's teachings on what constitutes a righteous and godly individual, the Beatitudes give us the New Testament's description of a disciple transformed by a personal relationship with God.  Such a transformation begins deep in the heart, with the acknowledgement of the disciple's own brokenness, sinfulness, and need for God; it then spreads outward as the disciple learns to recognize the needs of the world and the importance of meeting those needs with actions that imitate Jesus' mercy, peace, and gentleness.

Have you allowed this transformation to take place in your own heart and to continue growing outwards by following Jesus in wholehearted discipleship?  Or has complacency kept you standing still at the side of the road while Christ is passing by?