Homily: March 7, 2022, Monday of the First Week of Lent.

 “Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am Holy”.

Both the first and Gospel readings today presented a ‘to-do’ and ‘not-to-do’ list. Some are really tough tasks. Can we ever accomplish them? Is it possible for us to be holy?

We all know that at the sacrament of reconciliation, it is Jesus Himself who is sitting at the confessional, listening to the confessions. And the sacred privilege for me as a priest, is that I get to see as God sees and hear as God hears. And what does God see and hear?

He doesn’t see our failures. He sees our brokenness. He doesn’t hear our sins. He hears our desire to be good. And God wants to help us. He reaches out to us, pouring out His graces. We desire to be holy and God desires the same. In that moment of reconciliation, in that meeting of desires, we become holy. And I, the priest who witnesses that sacred moment, also become holy.

The very first step to becoming holy is to desire holiness. To desire becoming what God wants us to be, to be like Him, to love like Him.

God looks at everyone with love. The neighbour, the labourer, the deaf, the blind, the weak, the mighty, the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the prisoner – everyone in the list in today’s readings.

If we can look at everyone with the eyes of God, and love everyone with the heart of God, we can accomplish everything in the list, not on our own effort but with God’s help. Because we desire, we receive. Because we receive, we become. Because God is holy, we will be holy.

Fr. Nivin Scaria   

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