24 March 2018

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

God calls Israel to be a holy people, a nation set apart. Israel is called to be holy because the Lord its God is holy (Cf. Lv 11, 19, 20). In his first letter, Peter likewise exhorts Christians to this same holiness that Christ shares with us ( 1 Pt 1:16). However, we ought to beware of the trap of thinking that we make ourselves holy, or that we simply “are” holy on our own, or even on our own terms. God alone is holy, and we Christians affirm in the ancient Gloria hymn, “you alone are holy, you alone are Lord, you alone are the most high, Jesus Christ.” Likewise, in Ezekiel 37, we hear that “it is I, the Lord, who make Israel holy.” We are only holy to the extent that say “yes” to the holiness of life that God offers us and live that life as our own (on this see http://www.magisspirituality.org/ignatian_reflection/16-11-01/).

Let us ask God for the grace of contemplating ever more that holiness of Israel that is made manifest to the whole world through the temple of Christ’s bodily presence among us (Cf. Jn 2:21; Ez 37:28). Since this holiness is no mere display, but it is truly given, let us beg that “we might no longer live for ourselves, but for him who gave his life for us” ( 2 Cor 5:15) so that “it may be no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us” ( Gal 2:20). Then, perhaps, we may be recognized as members of Christ’s body, for—not through ourselves, but by God’s grace—we will “be holy as God is holy.”