In these Sundays of Ordinary Time coming after Christmas Time, we can hear so clearly the radical call of following the Lord Jesus Christ. Being a nice person is not what the Gospel is about. The Gospel is about following the Lord Jesus, becoming His disciple, spending our lives in serving Him and allowing ourselves to be formed by Him. Today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus invites us to be holy as God is holy.

An invitation from the Lord probably needs to be taken seriously. We humans often take our time responding to God, even when we have the best of will. A few saints seem to respond completely and immediately to the Lord. Most of us say yes to God and then take our time giving our whole self. We give in bit by bit. Perhaps that is why Jesus in today’s Gospel presents His teaching so starkly. He does not want us to misunderstand what it means to follow Him. We must be willing to give up everything.  We are called to be holy and called to be perfect. These are terms that can cause all kinds of scrupulosity and rigidness in some people, so we must make sure that we understand these words. Holiness is simply living for God in every aspect of our lives. Perfection is not in doing everything perfectly, but in loving others in God as we love God Himself. We shall never be without our imperfections at the level of doing, but in the level of loving, the more we let God’s love go through us to others, the more wonderful it is.  We are called to live as temples of the Lord, The First Letter to the Corinthians, from which we get today’s second reading, is really clear that all that is good in us comes from the Lord. If we are to be wise, it can only be as God is wise. If we are to boast, it can only be about what God has done in us, in others and in our world.

Let us give thanks to God today that we have been given the gift of faith. Let us ask that our faith may be lively and draw us deeper and deeper into the mysteries of God. Let us become radical in our living and gentle in our loving.