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7th Sunday in Ordinary time Leviticus Ch.19 1 Corinthians Ch.3 Matthew Ch. 5:38-48 Be Holy, because I, the Lord am holy. 1. As 8-year-old Philip listened to these words, he took it as a personal challenge. He would imitate a saint
and become holy. He did not want to be like St. Francis or St. Anthony. He wanted an unusual saint. He chose St. Simon Stylites because he lived on top of a pillar for thirty-odd years. Philip took a chair and
climbed on it in the middle of the kitchen. He told his mother he was going to be a saint and be holy. You better go somewhere else or something hot will on you and you will be burnt not holy. So he went to his
father’s study. His father soon chased him away. He went into the corridor and stood on the chair. His sister, who was in a hurry, came rushing out, knocked him over and left the house. Philip returned to his
room, with the words, “It is impossible to be holy in this household.”
2. The reading from Leviticus gives the invitation and reason for being holy. The Lord God calls us to be holy. This call goes back to the very first chapter of Genesis. God created man and woman in God’s own image and likeness. God did not create junk. God created something wonderful, you and me. So we have an inbuilt tendency to be good, to be holy. As the song says, we are holy “doing what comes naturally.” However God has given us a free will. We can choose to do good, we can choose to do the opposite. But by nature we can only choose Good. 3. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th century theologian tells us that even when we sin, even when we make the wrong choice, even when we do evil. It must have some semblance, some appearance of good.
4. But the call to be holy is to know what is good and to know what is evil. Then we choose the good and reject the evil. Holiness is to recognize the deception, the veneer of evil and avoid it. Paul gives us an added reason for our question of holiness in the second reading. He says we are created in God’s image. We are temples of God. We are Sacred Space. Hence we have to keep holy, clean and spotless. Here God can make a dwelling place in our hearts. We can use the “lesser for greater argument” If we would keep our houses and homes neat and tidy for human visitors who will visit us today and are gone tomorrow, how much more should we be holy and sacred for a God who wants to make a permanent residence in our hearts? 5. Jesus gives us a floor plan for the holiness of this “temple” In the first place there cannot be room for revenge. My neighbour and I are both Temples of God. We are Sacred Space. Hence I cannot destroy or desecrate another. In the second place: the positive side of this “not seeking revenge” –is to reach out in forgiveness. We are made “divine” and should be holy, but we are human and have the ability to fail, to sin, to hurt. So to keep and help each other to be holy, we forgive the failures and shortcomings of others. We live in the hope that they will overlook our faults and failures. In the third place, Jesus proposes to us is an open heart, a call and invitation to be generous. This generosity goes to the extent that we empty ourselves for the sake of others, so that we can be filled with the richness and fragrance of God. I have experienced this in my own life. The more I have given to others, the more I have received – sometimes a 100 fold. It has given me goose bumps when I immediately receive 10 times and even 100 times as much as I have given. The fourth and final step that Jesus gives us in the Gospel is to be loving. Actually if we are not vengeful, if we are forgiving, if we are generous, we will find that loving, being kind, caring comes very easily. The net result is that we become more and more God-like, we are on the road to perfection, we are at the junction of holiness. God bless you all.
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