Mr Vegas
By Kwame Weekes
“When I wake up in the morning and I lay my head to rest, every day of my life I am blessed!” The renowned Jamaican superstar, Clifford Smith, more commonly known as Mr Vegas, released this song on the cusp of his announcement of his intentions to leave the music industry to spend more time with God and his children. This article does not intend to comment on the previous songs sung by this artiste nor does it seek to speak on the perceived character of the same. The purpose of this article is to compare the lyrics of the song I Am Blessed with the Beatitudes and the Catholic understanding of being “blessed”.
Mr Vegas relates in his song how he sees himself as being blessed. The fact that he makes money “straight” and loves the opposite sex “straight” and was born of a heterosexual father is among his reasons in his first verse. He also sings about the fact that the plans of his “haters” to steal his glory are always thwarted by God who constantly watches over him. Vegas goes on to show that it was God who kept him through the 10 years of his life in the music industry and he bigs up his friends who have accompanied him on the journey, while reassuring them that they should not worry because he is indeed blessed. Mr Vegas’ song was a hit, in my opinion, because it spoke to many people who could relate to the opposition they receive in life but still want to thank God for seeing them thus far. Mr Vegas is indeed blessed. But does he know how blessed he really is?
“I am blessed and highly favoured!” is the response that can be found on many Christian’s lips when asked about their well being and it is usually said with some “Trini” flavour in its tone. Given that many times this response is just a cop-out to answering the question truthfully, the everyday understanding of being blessed is equal to the acquisition of certain “good things” in life. When a person buys a new car; or gets a good job; or a student wins a scholarship to go abroad to study; these things are perceived as blessings and by all means they are. However the question in my mind has always been “Does that mean that everyone else is not blessed?”
The Beatitudes in the Gospel, in different translations, uses the word “happy” instead of “blessed”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness” in the human heart. They show what the purpose of life is – to achieve ultimate happiness. Well duh! But most of us have no clue what this ultimate happiness is, because when we look at the beatitudes and then look at the things that our culture values as most essential to our happiness, we see many differences.
In my journey toward God, I came to learn that if the Gospel is to be true, then it must be true for all human beings. When I looked at the world’s vision of happiness, it did not offer happiness to everyone but only to a select few who were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. If money were the source of happiness, accompanied with power and sexual liberation, then not everyone would be able to achieve this happiness because not all people are able to acquire money et al. So the gospel of the world did not make sense to me. Here, Jesus offers happiness, a blessedness that is timeless. It does not require any amount of advantages whatsoever, making it available to all. This is blessing!
So in our quest for happiness and blessedness, we have countless examples of people who have tried the world’s proposals and showed it to be faulty. On the other hand, Catholics have a group of great Saints who lived these beatitudes to the point of attaining happiness that did not depend on their external circumstances but on their inner relationship with God and themselves. One can now see how St Stephen, the first martyr for the Church, could have smiled while being stoned to death for being Christian. This is a “blessedness” that the world cannot offer and the human person cannot invent. I pray that all of us would accept the challenge of the Beatitudes, Mr Vegas included.
VISION 