Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Tuesday of the 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle C - June 14, 2016

Tuesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2016      8:30am


Readings:   I Kings 21:17-29
                  Matthew 5:43-48

The very last words Jesus says in today’s gospel are:
“Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Now that is challenging.
Will we ever get to that point?
Of course not.
At least not in the way that we usually think of perfection – as having no defect, as being sinless, as being completely good.

One of our Catholic theologians, Father Richard Rohr, gives us an insight that may lead us to think about Jesus’ words here a bit differently.
Father Rohr says this:
“If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own.
A ‘perfect’ person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection (like God does), rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond any imperfection.”

Father Rohr’s insight is that Jesus calls us to holiness, to goodness.
And Jesus’ call to perfection actually gets fulfilled in our humble acceptance of imperfection within ourselves, in others and in the world around us.
This humble acceptance of imperfection leads us to a right relationship with God, a healthy and realistic sense of ourselves, and, amazingly, the love of others that Jesus talks about in this passage.


So, a different, and I think an excellent insight on this passage today.