Homily for the 7th Sunday in ordinary time year A

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.
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