“Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Mt 5:48
Brothers of the Eucharist, in the Gospel reading from the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, as a part of his sermon on the mount, Jesus instructs his disciples on how they should love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them so that they could become children of their heavenly Father.
The whole of the sermon on the mount is hard to hear, hard to model our lives on because it is so contradictory of our culture. Blessed, or happy are the meek? Blessed, or happy are the poor in spirit? Blessed are the pure in heart? We are assaulted daily by messages that urge us to seek after power and influence, to accumulate material goods, and when is the last time you saw or heard a commercial urging us to be pure in heart?
Following his teaching on the beatitudes, Jesus instructs the disciples to turn the other cheek, to give his coat to the one who would take the shirt off his back, to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them so that they could become children of their heavenly Father. Then in the final verse of the fifth chapter, we hear, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
That kind of perfection is impossible, humanly speaking. Lent is a time to look for and root out those things, the habits and desires, that hold us back from living lives that are salt and light, but we could live our whole lives as Lent and still not reach perfection. We can be men of hope though, knowing that in Christ, all things are possible.
The sermon on the mount, indeed all of the teachings of Christ, are meant to prepare us for a participation in the Divine life. Prayer, fasting and alms giving are helpful, indeed necessary tools for preparing our minds and hearts for that participation.
Jesus, in his Divine wisdom, knowing all of our efforts would be insufficient, left us a great gift. He left us himself in the Eucharist. It is there brothers, that we truly participate in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. It is there that when we receive in a state of grace, we can participate in perfection because Jesus is perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect.