HOMILY FOR THE SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A
READINGS:
Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18
1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
THEME:
HOLINESS : THE GOAL OF CHRISTIAN CALLING
Beloved in Christ, today Mother Church invites us to reflect on our relationship with God and our neighbour, bearing in mind the obligation to be holy or perfect like our heavenly Father. This obligation inspires and motivates our response to the call of Jesus Christ.
However, we are always faced with the question of how can we be equal
to God. The answer is provided by Aramaic language spoken by Jesus
Christ. In it the word “perfect” carries the idea of completeness – be
complete as your holy father is complete. Therefore just as God loves
completely, without boundaries, we’re also obliged to live same –
without conditions or restrictions.
But sadly, loving one’s neighbour as one loves one’s self has been limited all too often by our narrowing of the scope of the word neighbour. Thus some people use Leviticus 19:18 to say we are to love
those who love us in return and Psalm 140:9-11 to mean hatred for our
enemies.
We are not to justify our vendetta against others by saying “I was just doing what he did to me.” Or I was only giving him a taste of his own medicine. Don’t use law as an excuse for your acts of revenge.
Beloved, to attain holiness or perfection, our desire should not be to
keep score but to love and forgive. In fact, we are not to get even
but to do good even to those who wrong us. (cf Proverbs 25:21)
Again, there should be something unusual or unique about the way we do
the things we do. We should not do what everybody is doing. (Cf Matthew
5:46-47)
Perfection then is not doing everything perfectly but in loving others as we love God himself and holiness then is living for God in every
aspect of our lives.
Our tendency to sin must never deter us from striving to be more like
Christ(Cf Matthew 5:44-45). And our neighbour should not fulfill any
condition to win our love, for we also have done nothing to earn the
love of Christ.
This was culled from
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