• Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
  Reading 1  Lv 19:1-2, 17-18

  Responsorial Psalm  Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13

  Reading 2  1 Cor 3:16-23
  Alleluia, alleluia.
  Whoever keeps the word of Christ,
  the love of God is truly perfected in him.
   Alleluia, alleluia.

  Gospel  Mt 5:38-48

In today’s first reading (Lv 19: 1-2, 17-18), the Lord says to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” In today’s Gospel (Mt 5:38-48), over a thousand years later, Jesus tells the Israelites something very similar: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”  …and ends up crucified.
 
What happened?
 
Because Adam sinned, God’s love reached out with his most divine gesture of Revelation: the offer of the covenant of faith with his people. When they deserted that faith, the covenant became the covenant of the Law.  The Law governed every aspect of the life of the Israelites. Through the Law Israel established for herself a unique place in history as God’s Chosen People.
 
“Be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy”. Holiness, for the Israelites of Moses’ time meant keeping themselves in a state of legal purity, or ritual sanctity, as a sign of their intimate union with the Lord. The Law was intended to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. But by the time of Christ the Law had become the jealously guarded possession of an elite class, giving its special initiates a position of dominance over the people.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, for instance, became reduced to a human, tribal attitude extending only to those who were related by bonds of family, clan or social and religious status, in other words “you’re neighbor”.  The rest, were “strangers” who were of no concern. Holiness had become symbolic and external having no effect on the inner disposition. This unnatural emphasis on outer compliance had so hardened the Chosen People, that when at last the Messiah, whom they had been taught to expect arrived, they denied him and they murdered him.

 
This Messiah, Jesus Christ, taught “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Fundamentally his objective was to restore the faith of Israel. But he was aiming at something far more: to advance holiness to the level of perfection. He called upon all to unite outer behavior to inner convictions. The kingdom would have come to full blossom for Israel had it been embraced. But his command “Be perfect” required inner transformation, radical conversion to a love far beyond simple obedience. From the beginning in Galilee to his final days in Jerusalem his message was willfully misunderstood and bitterly opposed at every turn.
 
When Jesus said: “Love your enemies and pray for them.” he meant there are no “strangers”.  The perfection Jesus speaks of is something beyond the holiness intended originally by God when he spoke to Moses a thousand years earlier; it is the perfection of holiness. Here we see an explicit example of how Jesus came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. Jesus never faltered in his message, in spite of growing and vicious opposition. In the same way the Father remained perfectly faithful to his promise of salvation in the face of the repeated acts of unfaithfulness of his Chosen People.
 
Now salvation was to be realized differently: no longer through the meeting of gospel with faith.  Now the will of the Father for mankind’s salvation would be accomplished not through the faith of his Chosen People. Rather it would be accomplished through the ultimate sacrifice of the Messiah they had rejected, his Son.
 
Betrayed to the chief priests and the Scribes, crucified and Risen, Jesus victoriously ushered in the Kingdom for all mankind.  But let us remember that his kingdom is still on its way. It is not tied to any certain historical hour. Any hour may be its hour.  Anyone may usher it in. It presses for entrance on the heart of each of us. God leaves the decision of our salvation with us.  It is a daunting thought, but it is true: God has placed himself in our hands.
 
In today’s second reading St Paul reminds us (1 Cor 3: 16-23): “…the temple of God, which you are, is holy.” Let us fervently strive with the help of our Lord and Savior to perfect in our lives the holiness which he has won for us.