Monday of the First Week of Lent
Holiness and Charity
The LORD said to Moses,
“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
When God tells his people to be holy, He is inviting them into the greatest intimacy. He asking us to be like He is. Immediately this removes today’s Gospel word today, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me,” from a self-centered do-goodism into the loving, graced action of God’s Holy Spirit. It is there that God’s charity is active in and through us. This is an education for us, leading us from a childish and adolescent, narrow, obligation-mentality and bringing us into the freedom to act as sons and daughters of God.
Hear it in Jesus’ words to God: “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise; for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to mere children” (Mt 11:25).
Here is, at one and the same time, the source for love of God and love of neighbor and the freedom to act from the heart and, in so doing, be confirmed as a person who, like God, gives and receives love.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Daily Reflections, Lenten Resources