By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
February 23, 2020: 7th Sunday in Ordinary time
Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
What makes one a Christian? Take a pause and answer this question within your hearts!
Is it Baptism?
Yes, of course, but only if it were received with a personal choice and every promise given at the proper moment is lived to the full everyday of one’s life. The mere rite does not make you a Christian automatically.
Is it being enrolled in a parish?
Yes, but only if the belonging to the parish makes one feel one with the Universal Body of Christ, the Church. The mere fact that you belong to a geographical jurisdiction of a Catholic parish does not make you deserve that name Christian.
That which makes our Baptism efficacious, our belonging to a parish meaningful, and makes us truly Christians is our realisation of our identity, as people of God – a realisation that has to be manifested in our personal holiness and in our holiness as a community of believers.
In the Apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis reminds us that it is not merely a wish of the Lord, but an expressed invitation to holiness – the Lord has been calling humanity right from the time of Abraham, to “walk with God and be blameless”. The Word this Sunday, invites us to understand and accept this call to holiness, an universal call that the Lord gives to each and every one of God’s children.
Holiness is not a super-human quality. It is definitely not alien to being human. Because it can be seen at our very origin. God made us in God’s own image and likeness says Genesis (1:27). So, holiness is our original nature, not sinfulness; Holiness is the core of our being, not sinfulness. Sin and sinfulness have come to mar and obstruct our original nature. This is why to the chosen people, God says through Moses, “Be holy, because I the Lord your God am Holy.” Because I am holy you can be holy too. Yes, dear brothers and sisters, we ought to be holy because we are FROM GOD.
The call to holiness is as old as humanity, as right at our origin, we were created with the potential to be holy, to grow holy and to remain holy. Yes, coming from God, holiness becomes our very nature. All that it takes is to be still and know God, be still and understand what God has made us as, be still and realise the real image within us and live it to the full. Be still and know that you are from God.
Holiness is a choice, a choice made not once for all, but at every moment, at every circumstance, at every crisis. It is a choice made for God, because we realise and gratefully acknowledge the choice that God has made for us. You did not choose me, I chose you, says the Lord (Jn 15:16). It is the Lord who has chosen us. It is not that we loved God but it is God who loved us first, reminds us St. John (1 Jn 4:9,19). God has chosen us and God has loved us abundantly! And our response is Holiness, because we belong to God, we are OF GOD.
The call to holiness has a path well laid out too, in our life. The situations we find ourselves in, the difficulties and temptations, the particular commitments and fatigue that we are entrusted with each day and the demanding circumstances that we have before us to deal with – these are the ways to holiness for each of us. It is right there we have to make our choice and say to ourselves, to the world around and to our Lord, that we belong to God, we are children of God.
Holiness is not an act, it is an attitude; it is not a set of actions but a habit; it is not merely an appearance but an internal becoming! holiness is a daily effort to become more and more like God. it is returning to the image and likeness of with which we were formed in the love of God. We need to grow in every way to be like our God, for it is God who has breathed God’s Spirit into us. That requires that in our words, thoughts, attitudes, acts and choices of daily life we are called to become LIKE GOD.
The call to holiness is not something that we have to do, it is something that we have to become, we have to grow into. As in the exhortation already mentioned, Gaudete et exsultate, Pope Francis would explain, it is not in the amount of things that you accomplish, nor in the number of sacrifices you offer to the Lord that you are saved, but in the measure you are able to unite yourself in heart, mind and soul to the Creator and translate the Creator’s will into your daily life – that is holiness.
Our Blessed Mother and the Saints are our models and Jesus is our Way. St. John traces that course for us when he says, ‘we will be like him because we will see him as he is” (1Jn 3:2). We are called not to be merely good people but God’s people. Every word and act of our’s has to reflect God’s presence to those around us.
We are People of God and our very identity is Holiness. If we miss out on holiness we lose everything. We are from God, we are of God and we are called to become like God because we are people of God. Because we are the temple where God chooses to dwell, we are the presence of God that the world so badly needs today!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.