7th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feb. 20, 2011
Lev 19: 1-2, 17-18
1 Cor 3: 16-23
Matt 5: 38-48
The homily here was given in 2 forms, 1 to the Boy Scouts and Scouters at NYLT program, 1 to the Ursuline nuns. The first version was for the nuns. The Scout version follows (it was too long--timed by 1 lad at 17+ minutes, counting the ad-libs)
Homily for the
Homily for the
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev 19: 1-2).
It’s unusual that a single theme is clearly present in all 3 of our Scripture readings on a Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today is one of those rare Sundays.*
That single theme today is holiness—specifically, God’s invitation, his call, his command that we be holy. We are to be holy, the readings tell us, because we belong to God; we’re related to God: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” “You are the temple of God, which is holy. You belong to Christ, and Christ to God” (1 Cor 3:16-17,23). “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).
These words are addressed to the entire community of Israel, to the entire body of Christians at Corinth, to all the disciples gathered around Jesus on the hillside (in Matthew we’re still reading from the Sermon on the Mount). These are the words to which we responded when we were initiated in the Christian community, counted among the people of Jesus. We renew this commitment at each Eucharist: to transform our lives in holiness as the body and blood of Christ transform our flesh and blood into “the temple of God,” as Paul says.
It’s unusual that a single theme is clearly present in all 3 of our Scripture readings on a Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today is one of those rare Sundays.*
That single theme today is holiness—specifically, God’s invitation, his call, his command that we be holy. We are to be holy, the readings tell us, because we belong to God; we’re related to God: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” “You are the temple of God, which is holy. You belong to Christ, and Christ to God” (1 Cor 3:16-17,23). “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).
Sermon on the Mount by Gustave Dore'
These words are addressed to the entire community of Israel, to the entire body of Christians at Corinth, to all the disciples gathered around Jesus on the hillside (in Matthew we’re still reading from the Sermon on the Mount). These are the words to which we responded when we were initiated in the Christian community, counted among the people of Jesus. We renew this commitment at each Eucharist: to transform our lives in holiness as the body and blood of Christ transform our flesh and blood into “the temple of God,” as Paul says.
When Jesus commands us to “be perfect” on the model of our “heavenly Father,” he’s not voicing the expectation of ontological or moral perfection, which are beyond the reach of anyone but God.
There’s one other instance in the gospels, in Matthew in fact, where Jesus calls someone to “perfection.” That’s the rich young man who asks he “lacks” (19:20) in his pursuit of “eternal life” (19:16). Jesus challenges him, if he wishes to be “perfect” (19:21), to sell all he possesses, give the money to the poor, and come with him as a disciple. That’s exactly what St. Anthony, the founder of monasticism in the 3d century, did when he heard this passage read in church. The call is not to an unattainable moral perfection but to complete commitment in discipleship. If you want to give a complete response to God’s commands, leave everything and everyone that might distract you from a single-minded pursuit of God, and come with Jesus, do as Jesus teaches.
In Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands his disciples not to “be perfect” but to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:36). Mercy is a key quality of the Lord our God. In today’s readings, it’s a quality linked to that holiness commanded of us: “You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people” (Lev 19:17,18). Note the limitation expressed in Moses’ Law: “your people,” “your fellow citizen,” your Israelite brothers and sisters—only. In other parts of the Law, there’s a slight extension, to “the alien [non-Israelite] who dwells among you.” But there’s nothing universal in this OT command of mercy and forgiveness.
Jesus, however, commands us to go further than the proportionate justice allowed by the Law (no more than “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” [Lev 24:20]). No vengeance at all, no retaliation, Jesus says. Rather, patience, service, prayer, even love for our enemies. Whereas in the OT God is expected to smite his enemies (wicked Israelites and foreign enemies of Israel), Jesus points out that our heavenly Father actually gives even to the wicked and to the Gentiles the blessings of sunlight and rainfall—and Christians thus must love everyone, pray for everyone: That’s complete discipleship. That’s divine mercy.
We in religious life are committed to striving for perfection. That striving includes seeking, aiming at even moral perfection. The nuns and monks of old—Anthony in the desert, Benedict in his cave—referred to this striving as conversion of life, a constant movement from any manner of vice and selfishness toward every virtue and the surrender of our own desires in the spirit of losing one’s life in order to save it.
In terms of today’s readings, of imitating God’s holiness, such perfection calls us toward overcoming resentments, the aggravations and dislikes so inevitable when people live together in community. It calls us to be more patient on the streets and highways, for example, with the mistakes and the lack of consideration of other drivers—the ones who cut you off or who treat traffic signals as “suggestions.” Such perfection or completeness in our discipleship calls us to avoid any kind of factionalism, cliquishness, playing of favorites in the community, but to honor and listen to and take care of everyone. It calls us to serve others readily, without keeping track of whether someone owes us a favor or we owe them. Such perfection or completeness in our discipleship calls us, on an individual basis, to suffer evil rather than to overreact to evil or the perception of impending evil, much less to nurse a grudge and plot how to get even. It calls us to examine public policies, such as how readily we receive foreigners into our society and how we punish wrongdoers. Is there an element of vengeance in our sentencing laws, as there very often is in the spoken comments we hear and read after a crime or a trial? (I seriously doubt that Christian charity requires us to make society as a whole “turn the other cheek” and “offer no resistance to one who is evil” [Matt 5:39]. There’s no call to pacifism here except insofar as I alone am the one suffering the evil. Rather, charity requires us to come to the assistance of others who are suffering oppression; it requires civil society to protect life, limb, and property.) Such perfection or completeness in our discipleship calls us to pray for those who hurt us, whether individually—for our sisters in community whom we may not be especially fond of, for some superior in our past; or societally—for drug lords and slum lords and terrorists and egocentric politicians and dishonest businessmen.There’s no limit on whom Jesus loves and whom he died for. “So be perfect,” just as Jesus, the perfect image of your heavenly Father, is perfect. “Be holy,” for your God is a holy God, and you are his temple.
* [On-line version only!] If you need a reminder: Our lectionary for Ordinary Time is structured so that we have a semi-continuous reading of one of the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew this year—and an OT reading that’s related to it thematically. It seems that the link for today intended by the designers of the lectionary is how we are to treat our neighbor, and who that neighbor is. The NT readings are semi-continuous readings from the letters of Paul, James, or Peter without any intended reference to the particular Gospel reading. So presently we’re reading from 1 Corinthians. And there isn’t anything directly to do with neighbors in today’s passage.
Homily given to
National Youth Leadership Training (BSA), Putnam Valley
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev 19: 1-2).
It’s unusual that a single theme is clearly present in all 3 of our Scripture readings on a Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today is one of those rare Sundays. That single theme is holiness—specifically, God’s invitation, God’s call, God’s command that we be holy.
We are to be holy, the readings tell us, because we belong to God; we’re related to God: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” “You are the temple of God, which is holy. You belong to Christ, and Christ to God” (1 Cor 3:16-17,23). “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).
These words are addressed to the entire community of Israel, to the entire body of Christians at Corinth, to all the disciples gathered around Jesus on the hillside (in Matthew we’ve been reading from the Sermon on the Mount for 4 weeks now, and we’ll be doing so for 2 more weeks).
“Be holy” and “You are the temple of God” are words to which we responded when we were initiated in the Christian community by Baptism and Confirmation, when we were counted among the people of Jesus. This is the commitment we renew at each Eucharist—the 3d sacrament of Christian initiation (those 3 sacraments that initiate us into the life of Jesus Christ): the commitment to transform our lives in holiness, as the body and blood of Christ transform our flesh and blood into “the temple of God,” as Paul says.
When Jesus commands us to “be perfect” on the model of our “heavenly Father,” he’s not voicing the expectation of moral perfection, which no one can attain in this life.
There one other instance in the gospels where Jesus calls someone to “perfection.” A rich young man comes to him and asks what he “lacks” (Matt 19:20) in his pursuit of “eternal life” (19:16). Jesus challenges him, if he wishes to be “perfect” (19:21), to sell all he possesses, give the money to the poor, and come with him as a disciple. The call is to complete commitment in discipleship, not to an unattainable moral perfection. If you want to give a complete response to God’s commands, leave everything and everyone that might distract you from a single-minded pursuit of God, and come with Jesus, do as Jesus teaches. That’s what holiness consists of.
In the 19th century in the big industrial city of Turin (where the winter Olympics were held in 2006), St. John Bosco spent his life teaching boys to make their way in life as “good Christians and honest citizens,” as he put it. To be a good Christian is to be a good disciple of Jesus, and that’s holiness. He founded a youth center and a hospice, and later many schools, for them. The first youth center and hospice for young students and apprentices was called the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales.
In 1855 one of the boys at St. John Bosco’s Oratory was Dominic Savio. St. John Bosco—“Don Bosco” he’s popularly called, using the Italian term for a priest—tells Dominic’s life-story. He writes: “Dominic had been at the Oratory about six months when he heard a sermon on the easy way of becoming a saint. The priest [it was Don Bosco himself] stressed three points which deeply impressed the lad’s soul: it is God’s will that we all become saints; it is not hard to become a saint; there is a great reward in heaven for those who become saints. The talk fell like a glowing spark on Dominic’s heart, setting it afire with intense love of God.”
A few days later, Don Bosco writes, he had a conversation with Dominic, who told him: “I feel a yearning, a need, of becoming a saint! I never knew I could sanctify myself so easily, but now that I know I can be happy and holy too, I most willingly want it! I must become a saint! Tell what to do.”
Dominic was 13 years old at this time.
And Don Bosco’s advice was “first of all, a steady, moderate cheerfulness. I advised him not to weaken in his duties of study and prayer, and I suggested that he never skip recreation.”
So the 1st thing to do if you want to be holy, is to cheerful, not sad and grouchy. St. Francis de Sales is supposed to have said that a sad saint is a sorry saint. The 2d thing is to do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it—whether that’s play or study or work or prayer. That’s excellent advice not only for a teenager like Dominic Savio but for grown-ups too.
Don Bosco always advised his boys that we have to do penance to follow
Jesus. Jesus, after all, told us that to follow him we have to carry a cross, as he did. Dominic Savio decided that he should do some severe penances, as some grown-up saints used to do. For instance, Dominic decided that on some days he should fast on bread and water, and that he should put pebbles and wood chips in his bed so that he wouldn’t get too comfortable. When Don Bosco found out about these things, he forbade it. Then Dominic tried sleeping in winter with only a light-weight blanket. Turin gets bitterly cold in winter—it’s in the foothills of the Alps—and Don Bosco was extremely poor, so the house couldn’t afford a lot of firewood or coal to heat the dormitory. Don Bosco was a little upset with Dominic, who in turn was disturbed. “Our Lord says that unless I do penance I can’t get to heaven, and you won’t let me do any.”
So what did Don Bosco say to that? “The penance our Lord asks of you is obedience. Obey and you’ll be doing enough.” When that didn’t satisfy Dominic, Don Bosco added: “Do the penance of patiently bearing with injuries, pain, cold, tiredness, wind, rain, all the discomforts which God may send you. Offer all you have to suffer to God, and it will turn into virtue.”
Who finds it easy to be obedient? Who finds it easy to put up with injury, with a long, cold, and snowy winter, with a hot, humid summer? Lots of penance comes our way, doesn’t it? We don’t have to do anything unusual, strange, or weird—just live every day as God sends it to us, with a cheerful spirit and continuing to do what we have to do.
Dominic Savio did his best to follow Don Bosco advice, and also to be an effective, positive leader among his schoolmates, just as your aim is to be effective, positive leaders. But he wasn’t in very good health most of his life, and he died shortly before his 15th birthday. Today, tho, we call him “St. Dominic Savio, the teenage saint.”
Today’s readings do tell us one more thing that we have to do, and for most people it’s hard—it’s a penance. “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people” (Lev 19:17,18). “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). It’s human nature to want to get even with people, to retaliate. We want to do it in school; people do it in their families. It leads to road rage on the highways—someone cuts you off, you give him the finger, you try to cut him off, it escalates—there have been accidents and there have been shootings from road rage. Gangs fight each other not only over turf but over real or perceived injuries to their members. You “dis” someone on the street, and what happens? How many times, after some terrible crime do you hear the family of the victim say of the accused perpetrator, “I want to see him rot in hell,” or “I want him to fry.” Tribes and nations go to war, unending war, because no one will forgive, no one will forget. They did something to my family, my tribe, my people, and they’re going to pay; we’re going to wipe them out. A lot of what went on in the Balkans in the ’90s and a lot of what’s been going on in the Middle East for years and years can be explained that way. A lot of what goes on in most wars can be.
But those who follow Jesus must put aside vengeance, getting even. We must actually treat everyone with respect, including people we don’t like. We must actually pray for people who offend us, for people who aren’t very nice. All of us have the opportunity to practice what Jesus commands, what Jesus himself did.
There’s no limit on whom Jesus loves and whom he died for. “So be perfect,” just as Jesus, the perfect image of your heavenly Father, is perfect. “Be holy,” for your God is a holy God, and you are his temple.
It’s unusual that a single theme is clearly present in all 3 of our Scripture readings on a Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today is one of those rare Sundays. That single theme is holiness—specifically, God’s invitation, God’s call, God’s command that we be holy.
We are to be holy, the readings tell us, because we belong to God; we’re related to God: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” “You are the temple of God, which is holy. You belong to Christ, and Christ to God” (1 Cor 3:16-17,23). “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).
These words are addressed to the entire community of Israel, to the entire body of Christians at Corinth, to all the disciples gathered around Jesus on the hillside (in Matthew we’ve been reading from the Sermon on the Mount for 4 weeks now, and we’ll be doing so for 2 more weeks).
“Be holy” and “You are the temple of God” are words to which we responded when we were initiated in the Christian community by Baptism and Confirmation, when we were counted among the people of Jesus. This is the commitment we renew at each Eucharist—the 3d sacrament of Christian initiation (those 3 sacraments that initiate us into the life of Jesus Christ): the commitment to transform our lives in holiness, as the body and blood of Christ transform our flesh and blood into “the temple of God,” as Paul says.
When Jesus commands us to “be perfect” on the model of our “heavenly Father,” he’s not voicing the expectation of moral perfection, which no one can attain in this life.
There one other instance in the gospels where Jesus calls someone to “perfection.” A rich young man comes to him and asks what he “lacks” (Matt 19:20) in his pursuit of “eternal life” (19:16). Jesus challenges him, if he wishes to be “perfect” (19:21), to sell all he possesses, give the money to the poor, and come with him as a disciple. The call is to complete commitment in discipleship, not to an unattainable moral perfection. If you want to give a complete response to God’s commands, leave everything and everyone that might distract you from a single-minded pursuit of God, and come with Jesus, do as Jesus teaches. That’s what holiness consists of.
In the 19th century in the big industrial city of Turin (where the winter Olympics were held in 2006), St. John Bosco spent his life teaching boys to make their way in life as “good Christians and honest citizens,” as he put it. To be a good Christian is to be a good disciple of Jesus, and that’s holiness. He founded a youth center and a hospice, and later many schools, for them. The first youth center and hospice for young students and apprentices was called the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales.
In 1855 one of the boys at St. John Bosco’s Oratory was Dominic Savio. St. John Bosco—“Don Bosco” he’s popularly called, using the Italian term for a priest—tells Dominic’s life-story. He writes: “Dominic had been at the Oratory about six months when he heard a sermon on the easy way of becoming a saint. The priest [it was Don Bosco himself] stressed three points which deeply impressed the lad’s soul: it is God’s will that we all become saints; it is not hard to become a saint; there is a great reward in heaven for those who become saints. The talk fell like a glowing spark on Dominic’s heart, setting it afire with intense love of God.”
A few days later, Don Bosco writes, he had a conversation with Dominic, who told him: “I feel a yearning, a need, of becoming a saint! I never knew I could sanctify myself so easily, but now that I know I can be happy and holy too, I most willingly want it! I must become a saint! Tell what to do.”
Dominic was 13 years old at this time.
And Don Bosco’s advice was “first of all, a steady, moderate cheerfulness. I advised him not to weaken in his duties of study and prayer, and I suggested that he never skip recreation.”
So the 1st thing to do if you want to be holy, is to cheerful, not sad and grouchy. St. Francis de Sales is supposed to have said that a sad saint is a sorry saint. The 2d thing is to do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it—whether that’s play or study or work or prayer. That’s excellent advice not only for a teenager like Dominic Savio but for grown-ups too.
Don Bosco always advised his boys that we have to do penance to follow
Jesus. Jesus, after all, told us that to follow him we have to carry a cross, as he did. Dominic Savio decided that he should do some severe penances, as some grown-up saints used to do. For instance, Dominic decided that on some days he should fast on bread and water, and that he should put pebbles and wood chips in his bed so that he wouldn’t get too comfortable. When Don Bosco found out about these things, he forbade it. Then Dominic tried sleeping in winter with only a light-weight blanket. Turin gets bitterly cold in winter—it’s in the foothills of the Alps—and Don Bosco was extremely poor, so the house couldn’t afford a lot of firewood or coal to heat the dormitory. Don Bosco was a little upset with Dominic, who in turn was disturbed. “Our Lord says that unless I do penance I can’t get to heaven, and you won’t let me do any.”So what did Don Bosco say to that? “The penance our Lord asks of you is obedience. Obey and you’ll be doing enough.” When that didn’t satisfy Dominic, Don Bosco added: “Do the penance of patiently bearing with injuries, pain, cold, tiredness, wind, rain, all the discomforts which God may send you. Offer all you have to suffer to God, and it will turn into virtue.”
Who finds it easy to be obedient? Who finds it easy to put up with injury, with a long, cold, and snowy winter, with a hot, humid summer? Lots of penance comes our way, doesn’t it? We don’t have to do anything unusual, strange, or weird—just live every day as God sends it to us, with a cheerful spirit and continuing to do what we have to do.
Dominic Savio did his best to follow Don Bosco advice, and also to be an effective, positive leader among his schoolmates, just as your aim is to be effective, positive leaders. But he wasn’t in very good health most of his life, and he died shortly before his 15th birthday. Today, tho, we call him “St. Dominic Savio, the teenage saint.”
Today’s readings do tell us one more thing that we have to do, and for most people it’s hard—it’s a penance. “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people” (Lev 19:17,18). “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). It’s human nature to want to get even with people, to retaliate. We want to do it in school; people do it in their families. It leads to road rage on the highways—someone cuts you off, you give him the finger, you try to cut him off, it escalates—there have been accidents and there have been shootings from road rage. Gangs fight each other not only over turf but over real or perceived injuries to their members. You “dis” someone on the street, and what happens? How many times, after some terrible crime do you hear the family of the victim say of the accused perpetrator, “I want to see him rot in hell,” or “I want him to fry.” Tribes and nations go to war, unending war, because no one will forgive, no one will forget. They did something to my family, my tribe, my people, and they’re going to pay; we’re going to wipe them out. A lot of what went on in the Balkans in the ’90s and a lot of what’s been going on in the Middle East for years and years can be explained that way. A lot of what goes on in most wars can be.
But those who follow Jesus must put aside vengeance, getting even. We must actually treat everyone with respect, including people we don’t like. We must actually pray for people who offend us, for people who aren’t very nice. All of us have the opportunity to practice what Jesus commands, what Jesus himself did.
There’s no limit on whom Jesus loves and whom he died for. “So be perfect,” just as Jesus, the perfect image of your heavenly Father, is perfect. “Be holy,” for your God is a holy God, and you are his temple.
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