THE PROPOSED IDEAL: BE HOLY

VII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18

“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” This is the ideal proposed to all of us. We are called to holiness, since God who made us in his image, is holy. Being holy means that we should not distort God’s image with a kind of behaviour that brings dishonour to God. We may say that God’s word implies more than the proposal of an ideal; it is an order, a commandment. And this holiness is the reason for all other commandments. We should do nothing that brings harm to others. In our relationship with others, there is no place for hatred, violence and vengeance. We should not “bear a grudge against” others, but “You must love your neighbour as yourself”. The commandment of love - the so called golden rule - has its foundation on God’s holiness. We are very much mistaken if we think of holy things as being the things that mediate God’s holiness to us. The book of Leviticus makes it clear that God’s holiness must have a bearing upon our behaviour towards others. It is in our relationship with others that we may reveal the presence of God’s holiness in our lives.

In the gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains what being holy means. He said: “be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). And in the manner of the Leviticus, Jesus explains that this perfection leads to a relationship with others based on love. To violence, we must not answer with violence. Instead, to hatred, we must answer with love: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. Only by doing that we show that we are God’s children. God’s merciful love must reveal itself on the way we relate to others. Being children of God, we must be a presence of peace and reconciliation.

Certainly to be holy or to be perfect according to God’s measure seems to be a wishful desire, impossible to fulfil. Indeed, how can human beings be perfect as God is perfect? Where can that perfection come from? In the second reading, Paul gives the answer: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). He is the one who makes us holy. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us who transforms us from within, so that little by little we become more and more like Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God.