7th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feb. 23, 2020
Lev 19: 1-2, 17-181 Cor 3: 16-23
Matt 5: 38-48
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle
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Moses
(Library of Congress)
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“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).
This verse, v. 1 of Lev 19, introduces a
detailed section of laws, part of Israel’s moral and ritual code, including
elements of what we call the 10 Commandments and some rules concerning care for
other members of the community, each particular injunction concluding with “I
am the Lord.” Observance of these laws
is an expression of Israel’s holiness, of their close relationship with the
Lord God. In our abbreviated passage
today, these laws are summed up in “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. I am the Lord” (19:18).
The responsorial psalm (103:1-4,8,10,12-13)
immediately follows with a confession of the Lord’s mercy. The psalmist knows he has sinned, and so do
we know we have. Our sins might be
directly against God, e.g., by abusing his holy name, by failing to honor him
with prayer, or by presuming on his willingness to pardon us. More often, probably, our sins are against
our neighbor. I don’t need to suggest
examples because we know them too well from both our own failures and our
experiences of being sinned against. But
the reading from Leviticus does make a suggestion or 2.
Whatever our sins, against God or against
neighbor, they separate us from God’s holiness.
St. Paul warns the church at Corinth about this. God’s Holy Spirit makes us temples of God (I,
3:16), but sin destroys the temple and earns God’s destructive wrath
(3:17). Paul encourages his disciples,
therefore, to embrace the wisdom of God, which they’ve learned from Christ thru
Paul or Apollos or Cephas, i.e., Peter (3:18-23).
Jesus teaches us divine wisdom, and as Paul
writes, it’s assuredly not “the wisdom of this world” (3:19). Jesus counsels us to suffer evil—at a
personal level—and to give generously (Matt 5:39-42), to love our enemies and
pray for our persecutors (5:44)—to imitate our heavenly Father by wishing good
to all and striving to do good to all (5:45-48). All of this runs counter to the wisdom of the
world, which urges us to do unto others before they do unto us, and to retaliate
when they have done unto us. Where this
leaves the world you can see by observing the cycle of violence and vengeance
in the Middle East. But it’s just as
destructive at the personal level.
When Jesus tells us, “Be perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48), he’s echoing Leviticus with different
words; he’s telling us to be holy because God our Father is holy. Leviticus commands us not to bear hatred in
our hearts for a brother or sister—meaning a fellow Israelite (19:17). As we know, Jesus has expanded the meaning of
“brother and sister” to include all the children of God, all who have been made
in the divine image and likeness.
To suffer evil inflicted upon us—“turn the
other cheek” is Jesus’ metaphor, and accepting an unjust legal judgment
(5:39-40)—is very hard. And we must note
that this is personal, not communal; we’re obliged to defend the rights of the
oppressed, the weak, and the defenseless among our brothers and sisters. In fact, Pope Francis has just reaffirmed
that obligation by recognizing the martyrdom in El Salvador of Fr. Rutilio
Grande and 2 peasants assassinated with him in 1977 for teaching “peasants to
read using the Bible, [and helping] rural workers to organize so they could
speak against a rich and powerful minority that paid them meager salaries and
confront the social maladies that befell them because they were poor.”[1] This recognition of martyrdom means that Fr.
Grande and his companions will be beatified in the near future. They were imitating the Father’s holiness
thru their “compassion on his children,” as Ps 103 says (v. 13). They were trying to let the rain of the
Father’s goodness fall on the poor as well as the rich. They were practicing Jesus’ teaching to “give
to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to
borrow” (Matt 5:42), i.e., one who’s in need. Many believe that Fr. Rutilio’s life and death
inspired Abp. Oscar Romero to come out strongly in defense of El Salvador’s
poor and oppressed.
As for us, when we find it hard to forgive,
we have 2 avenues to follow that are consistent with Jesus’ words. 1st, we can—and must—ask the Lord to open our
hearts, to soften our hearts, so that we may eventually come to forgiveness,
even if we can’t do so at this moment.
So we acknowledge our need for divine assistance, “that … we may carry
out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to” God (Collect). We desire a more complete conversion to the Lord
Jesus, to become better likenesses of him.
Unless we bear his likeness in our soul, it’ll be hard for us to gain
admittance to the kingdom of heaven as children of God.
2d, we can—and must—pray for those who’ve
offended us or who are our enemies, either personally (we’re all tempted to
hold grudges against someone) or on some larger scale (think politicians pushing
repugnant policies, sexual predators, right-wing fanatics, terrorists, those
who persecute religious or ethnic minorities, etc.). Don’t we desire that our enemies undergo a
change of heart, a conversion?
May God bless us all with his grace.
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