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February 19, 2017For the past four weeks, our sacred scripture has focused our attention on the 5th Chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. With the help of family, friends, and most importantly our heavenly Father, we are encouraged to unpack and follow the lessons which are embedded in them.
Matthew begins this four-part series with the beatitudes –and has Zephaniah exhorting the people to humble themselves and turn to the Lord and seek his justice in utter humility.
Today we are holy because God created us in his image and likeness. All of our readings focus our attention on love and the virtue of holiness
Every Sunday we gather as a community of believers to celebrate the Paschal Mystery: the passion, death & resurrection of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. By virtue of our birth and baptism, we have become united with this community and have formed “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”
We are holy because God created us in his image and likeness. It is a free gift given to us by our good and gracious God. “Is 62:12 tells us that we shall be called a Holy People, the redeemed of the Lord.”
It isn’t intended to be a gift that is only safeguarded and cherished. Rather, it should be viewed as grace transformed into action. The gift of holiness provides us with the grace to persevere in difficult times by helping us remain firm in faith, strong in hope, and steadfast in love. We are God’s beloved. When we are harmed in any way, we must look beyond the “I don’t get mad, I get even attitude’ and search for ways to diffuse the situation by performing acts of love rather than seeking retribution, revenge, and retaliation.
Faith, piety, love, and trust in God are hallmarks of a holy people. Being holy is not dependent upon achieving perfection. However, it is dependent upon faithfulness and obedience to God.
When we acknowledge in our heart of hearts that God’s favor rests on his people, we will always choose life over death, love over hatred, freedom over enslavement, and hope over despair.
However, as we have seen recently, we can seriously harm the body of Christ when we engage in activities that only benefit ourselves – such as abusing our positions of authority, or further our own interests at the expense of others, or inflicting physical or mental abuse, or becoming overly zealous and believing that we alone hear the voice of God.
Our call to holiness requires us to continually pray and seek divine direction, to love God and neighbor, and in all things, to place our trust in our heavenly Father.
Christianity is a religion that is rooted in love and planted in our hearts. When Our Lord’s feet were placed on the path that led to Calvary, his humanity feared it, but his divinity knew that there was no other way.
He carried his cross out of obedience to the Father. When he fell, he got back up because he trusted in his heavenly father’s plan for salvation. When he offered up his life, it was again out of obedience to the Father.
God has an infinite capacity to love. His love transforms lives. His love restores hope. In offering up his life, he passed through the cross to the resurrection and took our sins with him. They no longer exist. As a resurrected people we are now living on the other side of the cross – the resurrection side - where there is no longer any pain, or suffering, or tears.
When we find that our feet are on a path which is heavily burdened, fear not, for the Lord is walking with you. He is holding your right hand. If at any time you don’t see him walking beside you, know that it’s during those times that he’s actually carrying you!
