Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BOAKYE YEBOAH

CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF KUMASI, GHANA

LEVITICUS 19:2

            A call to holiness: is it a universal call or is it reserved to some selected few? Growing up as a little boy, I had this weird idea on holiness of life. I had my nursery and primary education in a religious school. We were under the guidance of some nuns. Because of their white habit and veil, I associated them to holiness of life and thought that no one can be holier than the nuns. As religious and kind as my mum was I thought her “holiness” did not come close to the nuns. That perception has since undergone major changes because not only is holiness opened to all people but I can boldly state that some lay people are far holier than some priests and religious and the reverse can also be the case. We have two sacraments of vocation: the sacrament of holy orders and the sacrament of holy matrimony. I would like to state boldly that it is not the sacrament of vocation that one shares in that makes him or her holy but his/her life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            Sainthood is not reserved for some selected Christians, because the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council with the document Lumen Gentium educate us that holiness is open to all and it is universal. Jesus is inviting us to a substantive spiritual growth that transforms one’s human weaknesses, heals his/her brokenness and restores one from the inside out. Once one accepts the invitation to follow Jesus as his disciple, he welcomes the person into himself to share an intimate union with him and thereby into an unfathomable fellowship with God the Father.

            Today’s first reading is one of my best biblical references on a call to holiness of life. The opening verse is so warm and lovely: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy…” How do you feel about this as a Christian? My dear friend, do you know something? Some of us are not much interested on the material quality of life or the quantity of possessions in life but rather our concern has to do more with “spiritual transcendence” – that is the quality of one’s spiritual life.

            As much as some people think that holiness of life is something distant or alien to man; we should rather see in holiness of life a “return to our originality.” We were taught in Sunday school that we were made in the very image and likeness of God and it was sin that made us lose our identity. And so, if the Lord is inviting us to holiness of life then it simply means we are being invited to our original identity. On this St. Thomas Aquinas said: “holiness is nothing else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders to God…”

            The first step towards holiness of life is the invitation from God and this, the church says it is universal. God does not invite some selected people but each day he invites you and me to himself.

            The second step is one’s willingness to respond to God’s call to holiness. As I stated last week, God has given us our free will and so though he wishes us to return to him in holiness, he does not want to force us to himself. St. Augustine will say, “God created us without us and he will not save us without us.” God has the power to make us holy and pure but he needs our cooperation.

            The third step towards holiness of life can be describe as one’s active cooperation. Holiness of life is not a lip service venture that is why Jesus said “it is not those who say Lord Lord, who will enter the kingdom of heaven but those who do the will of my Father.” As much as God has given us our free will, if we do not exercise that free will well we may be punished one day. St. Paul in the second reading has this to say: “Brothers and sisters: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.”

            In the Gospel passage, Jesus brings us to the awareness that for one to be holy is for the person to be others-centered. Here Jesus states that it is not those who love their loved ones who will be considered as doing something extraordinary because the tax collectors do likewise. Jesus rather calls on the holy person to be blessed with the attitude of loving his/her enemies. Permit me to quote the words of Jesus as given to us by St. Matthew. The inspired writer wrote: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

            As Christians holiness should be our goal and our main aim. The prosperity gospel and the miracle working driven evangelism have come to thwart the main aim of Christianity. We do not become Christians to become rich neither did we embrace the Christ-way in order to be healed of our diseases (these are just accidentals); we should note that to become a Christian is to be holy as Jesus Christ is holy. It is when one seeks a complete life of holiness that other things may be added and so Scripture says ‘seek first the kingdom of heaven and every other thing will be added unto thee.’ Did you become a Christian to seek Christ first or the other things first? OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP PRAY FOR US.