Monday of the First Week of Lent

Ice draped branch of fir tree

Lectionary: 224

“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
“You shall not steal.
You shall not lie or speak falsely to one another.

Today's first reading from the Book of Leviticus reinterprets the Ten Commandments of Exodus and Deuteronomy in the light of our call to holiness. The Lord has given us our religion with its rituals and moral guidelines because we must be holy as the Lord is holy. Failing that we are worthless, like salt that has lost it's savor. It's really that simple. 

The funny part is that everyone knows it except us. The world knows we speak for God. If they hate us when we speak in God's name, they also know where we're coming from; they know both our mission and our sins. How dare we speak of God's law to them when we don't keep it either? 

Sometimes people, discovering how sinful we are, decide to reform the Church by separating themselves from it. They will challenge us as outsiders. Until their humbug is discovered. And no one is surprised. 

Perhaps more often nowadays. young people, thinking they can certainly do better than their elders, decide to renounce the Covenant and the Law. They would fashion their own religion with their own principles, values, rituals, and sacred writings (of insipid banality). But, predictably, their children see the arbitrariness of that phony religion -- it has neither tradition nor foundation to support it -- and create another one even more absurd. 

I remember the reluctance I felt as a young Franciscan and priest to accept all the expectations of the Church. I would cuss and swear like everyone else (?); drink, smoke, and recreate with the same devil-may-care spirit of my peers. I would prove that I am just a normal person despite my vows and my sacred orders. But the congregation's expectations never went away, and I have finally had to repent in shame and remorse for the embarrassment I caused and the harm I did. 

But everyone has a past and God is merciful. I've often reassured people from my own experience, "If God does not forgive us, we're all in very deep trouble!"

And so we "put on the armor of God with righteousness as a breastplate and faith as our shield." And we recognize our hypocrisy. We accept as our own the writings of the Hebrew prophets who so relentlessly pointed out the sins of our Jewish ancestors; they speak to us. We are no better despite our faith in Mary's Son. Holiness is a cross; the world knows that, which is why they won't accept it. We embrace it with the Lord and follow his footsteps to Calvary and Easter.