The universal call to holiness calls us to love universally!

By REV. ANTHONY LIGATO- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

In each of readings for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, we are encouraged to be holy as our God is holy, for to be holy is the greatest reflection of the presence of God in our lives. The First Reading from Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18 says: “Be holy for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” The Book of Leviticus calls us to order our lives according to God’s precepts.
Those precepts can be found in the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) and particularly the command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The call to holiness by God requires a response to love as God loves. How does God love us? God loves us unconditionally. This unconditional love is not for a select few in our lives rather it is universal in scope. The universal call to salvation calls us to holiness. The universal call to holiness calls us to love one another universally.

The universal call to holiness calls us to recognize that we are to be the dwelling place of God. And for God to be able to dwell within us, we must be holy and righteous in his sight. Paul called the Church in Corinth to a life of holiness through the use of the image of the Temple of God. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor.3:16-23) Paul tells us that to be holy then means to be godly and to be godly means we have no room in our hearts to be angry, vengeful or unforgiving. Paul was calling the Church in Corinth to holiness, for they were angry at each other when they should have been loving toward one another.

They were seeking vengeance when they should have been practicing mercy. They were unforgiving when they should have been generous and turned the other cheek. This is an important message for us as the Church today. Where do we harbor distrust for one another as communities of faith because our ideas of Church may be in conflict with one another? How have we allowed that distrust to be expressed in anger and unforgiveness? Paul is speaking to us in the Church today. He reminds us through Scripture: “the Temple of God, which you are, is holy.” (1 Cor.17) How then do we live out God’s universal call to holiness?

We look to Our Lord Jesus Christ for the example of a life of holiness. Jesus instructs us through his Sermon on the Mount: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We can’t achieve perfection on our own, but if we allow ourselves to be the dwelling place of God’s holiness, we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. How does God express that state of perfection, through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? So then, to be perfect as our heavenly Father, means to love as God loves, to be merciful as our God is merciful, to forgive as our God forgives. This is spoken by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:38-48. The Sermon on the Mount finds its fullest expression of holiness in the cross on Mount Calvary. This is where God gives us the ability to be holy. It is up to us to decide to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, to love unconditionally as Our heavenly Father loves. To be as merciful as Our heavenly Father is merciful. To forgive as Our heavenly Father forgives.

As we prepare to enter into the season of Lent this coming Ash Wednesday, let us reflect on these readings which call us to a life of holiness. A short examination of conscience will help us embrace more fully the universal call to holiness. Have we answered the universal call to holiness by unconditionally loving our neighbor? Have we shared the universal call to holiness with others by offering a message that proclaims God’s universal call to salvation? A final reflection in preparation for Lent can be found in the Psalm for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: “The Lord is kind and merciful. He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills.” (Psalm 103:3-4) Have we been as kind and merciful as our God, have we been willing to pardon the iniquities of others and heal them of their ills? Merciful and gracious is our God and to be merciful and gracious is how the universal call to holiness is lived out in our lives.