Be Holy comes first: Homily for Monday, February 19, 2024

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Be holy. Everything that God asks us to do begins with what God asks us to be.

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Be Holy comes first

“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” With these words, God sets in place for us what it means to exist, the goal and the purpose of our lives.

Those of you of a certain generation might remember the Baltimore Catechism definition of why God made us. “To know, love, and serve God in this life and to live forever with him in the next.” It’s actually a great definition, quite frankly. In fact, much of the Baltimore Catechism was not so bad. It got a bad rap, but quite frankly, we remember things from that in ways that haven’t been replicated since, I would argue.

But that’s another conversation for another day. Why do I mention that? Because in both readings, both the first reading and the gospel, the temptation could be to look at what we need to do before we figure out who we are to be. Be holy. See, it can be easy in our lives, I think, sometimes to be busy about many things.

At least in my own life, as I feel increasingly drawn to a greater life of contemplation, I think sometimes the activity that has been so much a part of my life, well done with good intent and good purpose, was an escape. See, if I’m busy, if I’m doing things, if I’m reaching out, if I’m helping those in need, I’m also in control. I’m also the one that’s deciding who should be helped or why they should be helped or how they should be helped.

Rather than taking the chance, I would argue the risk, of placing myself in the presence of God and asking God to make me holy. That’s where every saint begins. Make me holy. And there are so many things that are important for this. And I would suggest that one of the things that really is the challenge of our current age right now is silence.

Why? Because there’s so much noise. There’s so much tragedy. There’s so much hardship. And it can be easy in the midst of all of this to lose sight of the love of God. Now, it’s right to ask in the midst of tragedy, as I suspect the community of Burnsville and Minnesota is asking today, why do these things happen?

But that’s not really what I’m talking about here. That’s a legitimate question. It’s a right question and it’s a good question. In fact, the word Israel means to wrestle with God. Okay, so there is this certain sense where we do wrestle with God sometimes and try to figure out why God wants us to do things, why God permits certain things, etc. Those are obviously very, very true and important things.

But it seems to me that at the start of Lent, we’re given this phrase, “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy,” which then gets sprinkled in throughout everything that we are supposed to do. So there’s a few rules and then there’s, “Oh, by the way, I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God.” We hear that kind of sprinkled through all these rules.

We are really called to do two things, to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The second commandment was actually listed in the reading we heard today. That’s the pathway to holiness. But it begins by taking the chance to place ourselves in the presence of God, in silence, not trying to hide but trying to be honest, so that we might come to know that despite our shortcomings and brokenness, the love of God for us is authentic and real.

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