Sunday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Himself

Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy. You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart.

As we prepare to hear Jesus’ new teaching which he frames with, “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you....” we first hear the teaching of Leviticus: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.

Holiness is a foreign concept to modern life. It is a color we cannot see, a sound we cannot hear, a scent we cannot detect. Sometimes it takes repeated experience of tastes before we learn to recognize them. Some foods seem tasteless at first until we have eaten them several times. Sometimes we never even notice an odor until, forty years later, we return to a place and it still has that familiar scent. Suddenly a rush of long-lost memories and feelings fall upon us. Holiness is that subtle to our senses. It takes exposure and repeated acclimation to learn to enjoy its savor.

Even Catholic schooling sometimes fails to acclimate us to holiness, so demanding and incipient is the secular milieu in which we live. The disciplines of secular studies command our attention and the visceral urgency of popular standards overwhelm the delicate, imperceptible presence of holiness. What attraction can the Blessed Sacrament hold in comparison to the roar of a high school football game or the hormonal expectancy of hanging out at the mall? Can an hour of prayer distract a teen from tweeting, texting and face-booking? What history teacher will overlook failed assignments for the boy who attended confirmation class? Or which football coach will excuse his quarterback to attend his sister’s First Communion?

And there are the twin fears to cope with: the fear of holiness, and the fear of being accused of holiness. They are two different things.

1. Holiness, like the smoking roaring pillar of fire that led the Hebrews out of Egypt, is often too dreadful to approach. The people told Moses, “You go on up the mountain! We’ll stay here and listen to whatever you tell us about God.”  Approaching holiness – that mysterium tremendum et fascinans (a tremendous mystery, terrifying and fascinating) – we often fall back in fear.
2. Meanwhile your friends and neighbors chide you for pretending to be holier-than-thou. Can you resist that taunt when you know your sinful tendencies?

But the fascinating odor of sanctity clings like a subtle perfume; and eventually we learn to cultivate holiness. It comes with a greater respect for the unexplainable mysteries of life -- things like the sanctity of churches, shrines and cemeteries. We feel the presence of God in holy water, crucifixes and, especially, the Blessed Sacrament. We know that every human life is sacred, from the unborn child to the condemned criminal and will the death of no one.

Because you are holy, you shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. but already I am discouraged from pursuing holiness for I have hated more than a few people. Hate is a strong word in our English language; we hate to use it! But it’s as good a word as any for describing my fear, resentment, and lust for revenge.

Hearing that command and taking it to heart, with my newfound desire to be holy, I can only pray, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I am quite helpless with my hatred; it is like that demon which pestered Cain:

…sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master."

Only with the help of God can I master that urge; and holiness bids me to pray ceaselessly until I have forgotten why I am praying, until the fascination of God’s beauty has overwhelmed my urge to revenge. I don’t even remember why I was so upset. That can take minutes, days, months or years but prayer gives us the patience to wait for its satisfaction. As the man said, "Whatever it takes; as long as it takes...." 

In today’s gospel Jesus speaks with enormous authority, “You have heard it said…; but I say to you….” We cannot obey his command and cling to hate. If Justice demands revenge then God will have to see to that; it is a burden too heavy for my delicate frame of mind. As Deuteronomy 32:35 says and Hebrews 10:30 reminds us, “Revenge is mine, says the Lord.”

I have almost been destroyed by the lust for revenge but, like Job, “I know my vindicator lives.” (Job 19:25) and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust.

Saint Paul also speaks of God’s revenge in today’s reading from I Corinthians:

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 meanwhile I’ll hide in the sanctuary until the frenzy passes. I had rather one day in your house than a thousand elsewhere. (Psalm 84:10)