The Seventh Sunday of the Year
Lev 19:1-2 & 17-18; 1 Cor 3:16-23; Mt 5: 38-45 (Year A)
‘Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” In the Book of Leviticus, Moses proclaimed the call to holiness as the foundation of Israel’s moral code. We cannot doubt the holiness of God, but we do perhaps struggle to understand how sinful humanity could possibly emulate the holiness of God himself.
In a similar context, after a series of challenging demands, Jesus summoned his disciples “to be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Once again, while we cannot doubt the Father’s perfection, we cannot, from the evidence our own daily struggles, imagine sharing such perfection.
