The Sermon on the Mountain was introduced in last Sunday’s Gospel reading by a kind of preamble enumerating the beatitudes attributed to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. Luke also enumerates beatitudes attributed to Jesus, but only four.

This Sunday’s Gospel reading begins a series of five Sundays of selections from Matthew’s composition called the Sermon on the Mountain. The Sermon on the Mountain is the first of five major sermons the author of Matthew’s Gospel constructs from current traditions about Jesus in the mid-eighties of the first century. Why five?

We, Too, Sing America: The Catholic Church and the Museum of African American History and Culture January 15, 2017 published as an essay written in commemoration of the 88th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 15, 1929 — April 4, 1968