15 February 2016 - the least of these

[ Today's Readings ]

Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

Your call, LORD, is anything but arbitrary. You call us to be good because you are goodness itself. You call us to choose holiness. You do not force it on us because you yourself freely choose to love us and you want us to love in freedom. All other things that we know of in the order of creation, save the angels, are driven toward their destiny by the laws of nature or by instinct. But you call us to know and embrace the plan you have for us. 

In choosing to act justly and honestly toward our neighbors we are embracing your own love for them as our own. You have made them for yourself. We choose to act in ways that help and do not hinder that end.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the LORD.

Because you made them for yourself you take the good and the evil we do to them very personally.

He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me.’

You are so united to them that you feel all slights as if they are done to you.

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (see Acts 9:5).

You call us to embrace your own holiness. You call us to make our own the plan you have for creation. You call us, therefore, to embrace our neighbors good as are own. When we embrace it this way, we feel slights to our neighbor just as you do. Loving them becomes as necessary as loving ourselves. We are truly united to them in love.

Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

We sometimes think of the commandments as arbitrary. But nothing could be less true.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

The commandments, freely embraced, become a basis which unites us both to you, LORD, and to your people.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.

Here's a song to help us embrace the call to holiness:

"All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity" (see Lumen Gentium, paragraph 40, from Vatican II)