From: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18

Moral and Religious Duties

[1] And the LORD said to Moses, [2] “Say to all the congregation of the people
of Israel, You shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.

[11] “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. [12] And you
shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am
the LORD.

[13] “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired ser-
vant shall not remain with you all night until the morning. [14] You shall not curse
the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I
am the LORD.

[15] “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or
defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbour. [16] You
shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not
stand forth against your neighbour: I am the LORD.

[17] “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your
neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him. [18] You shall not take vengeance or
bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

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Commentary:

19:1-37. The holiness asked of the Israelites is much more than merely ritual ho-
liness. As in 20:26, the exhortation made to them is based on the highest possi-
ble reason—the fact that the Lord is holy. The injunction to honor parents, as also
the obligation to keep the sabbath and the prohibition on idolatry, are command-
ments of the Decalogue already spelt out in Exodus 20:3-4, 12; 21:15, 17. The
rules about peace offerings were covered in Leviticus 7:11-15, and the rules to
protect the weaker members of society are repeated on a number of occasions
(cf. 23:22; Deut 24:19.22).

Verse 2 (”You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy”: cf. also 20:26) and
v. 18 (”you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” :cf. also 19:33-34)
sum up the entire ethic of Leviticus and indeed of the whole Law of God. Jesus
himself says this, as reported in Matthew 22:34-40 (parallel texts in Mk 12:28-31
and Luke 10:25-28): “When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Saddu-
cees, they came together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to
test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And he said to
him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second
is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments
depend all the law and the prophets’ “ (Mt 22:34-40).

19:1-8. Our Lord refers to the criteria about perjury in his Sermon on the Mount,
in which he rejects the prevalent abuse of swearing by holy things such as hea-
ven, earth or the holy city for no good reason (cf. Mt 5:33-37). Jesus’ teaching on
this point is that all one need do is simply tell the truth, without any oath to back
up one’s words. St James reminds Christians of that same teaching (cf. Jas 5:
12). The blind and the deaf (v. 14) are to be respected out of fear of the Lord: any
harm done them he regards as done to himself. Fraternal correction is a practice
which Jesus will put on a higher plane (cf. Mt 18:15f). He does the same for love
of neighbor. For one thing, one’s neighbor is not just members of the Jewish peo-
ple or sojourners in Judea: for Christ everyone we meet is our neighbor, irrespec-
tive of his religion or race. And it is not just a matter of loving others as oneself,
but of loving them as Christ loved us (cf. Jn 15:12).

19:13. The social teaching of the Church, which is part of moral theology and is
based on Revelation and on reason enlightened by faith, is summed up on the
subject of the just wage by the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A just wage
is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice (cf
Lev 19:13; Deut 24:14-15; Jas 5:4), In determining fair pay both the needs and
the contributions of each person must be taken into account. ‘Remuneration for
work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for
himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking
into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and
the common good’ (”Gaudium Et Spes”, 67). Agreement between the parties is
not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages” (no. 2434).

19:15. “Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to
give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the ‘virtue of
religion’. Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to
establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard
to persons and to the common good. The just man, often mentioned in the Sac-
red Scriptures, is distinguished by habitual right thinking and the uprightness of
his conduct toward his neighbor. ‘You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to
the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor’ (Lev 19:15)”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1807).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: 1 Corinthians 3:16-23

Apostolic Ministry (Continuation)

[16] Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in
you? [17] If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s tem-
ple is holy, and that temple you are.

[18] Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in
this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. [19] For the wisdom
of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craf-
tiness,” [20] and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”

[21] So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, [22] whether Paul or
Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all
are yours; [23] and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

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Commentary:

16-17. These words apply to the individual Christian, and to the Church as a
whole (cf. note on 1 Corinthians 3:9). The simile of the Church as God’s temple,
frequently used by St. Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:16), shows
that the Holy Trinity dwells in the soul in grace. As Leo XIII reminds us, by means
of grace God dwells in the just soul as in a temple, in a special and intimate man-
ner” (”Divinum Illud Munus” 10). Although this indwelling is attributed to the Holy
Spirit (cf. John 14:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19), it really comes about through the pre-
sence of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, because all actions of God
which terminate outside God Himself (activities “ad extra”) are to be seen as ac-
tions of the one, unique divine nature.

This sublime mystery which we could never have suspected, was revealed by Je-
sus Christ Himself: “The Spirit of truth [...] dwells with you, and will be in you [...].
If a man loves me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him, and We will
come to him, and make Our home with him” (John 14:17-23). Although this is a
matter which we never plumb in this life, some light is thrown on it if we remem-
ber that “the Divine Persons are said to inhabit as much as they are present to
intellectual creatures in a way that transcends human comprehension, and are
known and loved (cf. “Summa Theologiae”, I, q. 43, a. 3) by them, yet in a way
that is unique, purely supernatural, and in the deepest sanctuary of the soul”
(Pius XII, “Mystici Corporis, Dz-Sch”, 35).

Reflection on this wonderful fact will help us to realize how extremely important
it is to live in the grace of God, and to have a horror of mortal sin, which “des-
troys God’s temple,” depriving the soul of God’s grace and friendship.

Moreover, through this indwelling a human being begins to receiving an inkling
of what the Beatific Vision — Heaven — will be like, for “this admirable union [of
indwelling] differs only by virtue of man’s [present] condition and state from union
whereby God fills the blessed [in Heaven]” (”Divinum Illud Munus”, 11).

The presence of the Trinity in the soul in grace invites the Christian to try to have
a more personal and direct relationship with God, whom we can seek at every mo-
ment in the depths of our souls: “Get to know the Holy Spirit, the Great Stranger,
on whom depends your sanctification. Don’t forget that you are God’s temple. The
Advocate is in the center of your soul: listen to Him and be docile to His inspira-
tions” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”, 57).

18-20. As an application of his teaching about true wisdom, St Paul shows Chris-
tians that the worst kind of foolishness is that of thinking one is wise when one in
fact is not. He uses two biblical quotations (Job 5:13; Ps 94:11 ) as a gloss to
prove that an exclusively human approach is always doomed to failure.

Christians, therefore, are wiser the more they identify their desires with the plan
God has for each; that is, the more supernatural their outlook on life is: “We
must learn to acquire the divine measure of things, never losing our supernatural
outlook, and realizing that Jesus makes use also of our weaknesses to reveal his
glory. So, whenever your conscience feels the stirrings of self-love, of weariness,
of discouragement, or the weight of your passions, you must react immediately
and listen to the Master, without letting the sad truth about our lives frighten us,
because as long as we live our personal failings will always be with us” (St. J.
Escriva, “Friends of God”, 194).

21-23. One consequence of the defective wisdom which St Paul spoke about in
the preceding verses is the Corinthians’ desire to seize on one particular teacher.
They have forgotten that all ministers are there to serve the faithful (v. 5). In fact,
the Apostle tells them, it is not only the teachers that are theirs: “all things are
yours.” This clearly emphasizes the great dignity involved in being a Christian:
by being an adoptive son of God, a brother of Jesus Christ, the Christian has a
share in Christ’s lordship over the universe (cf. 1 Cor 15:24-28), and is the mas-
ter of all creation (cf. 2 Cor 6:10), through which he should move with a certain
proprietorial feeling, called as he is to live in the freedom of the glory of the sons
of God (cf. Rom 8:21), a freedom which God has won for him (cf. Gal 4:31). Hu-
man factions and dissensions of the type that have arisen among the Corinthians
show that they have forgotten all this and therefore their sense of vocation has be-
come impoverished. The Christian belongs to Christ alone: he has only one mas-
ter, Christ. “Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth”, St John of the Cross ex-
plains; “mine are the people, the righteous are mine and the Mother of God, and
all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, for Christ is mine and all
for me. What, then, do you ask for and seek, my soul? All this is yours, and it is
all for you. Do not despise yourself, do not despise the crumbs that fall from your
Father’s table” (”A Prayer of the Soul Enkindled by Love”).

The Apostle’s words also remind us of the love and respect that man should have
for created things, which God has entrusted to him (cf. Vatican II, “Gaudium Et
Spes”, 37). “The world is not evil,” St. J. Escriva reminds us “for it has come from
God’s hands; it is his creation; Yahweh looked upon it and saw that it was good
(cf. Gen 1:7ff). We ourselves, mankind, make it evil and ugly with our sins and in-
fidelities [...] our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial occurren-
ces and situations their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to
the service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means
and an opportunity for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ [...]. It is understan-
dable that the Apostle should write: ‘all things are yours, you are Christ’s and
Christ is God’s (1 Cor 3:22-23). We have here an ascending movement which the
Holy Spirit, infused in our hearts, wants to call forth from this world, upwards from
the earth to the glory of the Lord” (”Conversations”, 114-115).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Matthew 5:38-48

Jesus and His Teaching, the Fulfillment of the Law (Continuation)

(Jesus said to His disciples,) [38] “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ [39] But I say to you, Do not resist one who is
evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;
[40] and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak
as well; [41] and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
[42] Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow
from you.”

[43] “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate
your enemy.’ [44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you. [45] So that you may be sons of your Father who is in Heaven;
for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the
just and on the unjust. [46] For if you love those who love you, what reward
have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? [47] And if you salute
only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the
Gentiles do the same? [48] You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly
Father is perfect.”

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Commentary:

38-42. Among the Semites, from whom the Israelites stemmed, the law of ven-
geance ruled. It led to interminable strife, and countless crimes. In the early
centuries of the chosen people, the law of retaliation was recognized as an ethi-
cal advance, socially and legally: no punishment could exceed the crime, and
any punitive retaliation was outlawed. In this way, the honor of the clans and
families was satisfied, and endless feuds avoided.

As far as New Testament morality is concerned, Jesus establishes a definitive
advance: a sense of forgiveness and absence of pride play an essential role.
Every legal framework for combating evil in the world, every reasonable defense
of personal rights, should be based on this morality. The three last verses refer
to mutual charity among the children of the Kingdom, a charity which presup-
poses and deeply imbues justice.

43. The first part of this verse — “You shall love your neighbor” — is to be found in
Leviticus 19:18. The second part — “hate your enemy” —is not to be found in the
Law of Moses. However, Jesus’ words refer to a widespread rabbinical interpre-
tation which understood “neighbors” as meaning “Israelites”. Our Lord corrects
this misinterpretation of the Law: for Him everyone is our neighbor (cf. the parable
of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37).

43-47. This passage sums up the teaching which precedes it. Our Lord goes so
far as to say that a Christian has no personal enemies. His only enemy is evil as
such — sin — but not the sinner. Jesus Himself puts this into practice with those
who crucified Him, and He continues to act in the same way towards sinners
who rebel against Him and despise Him. Consequently, the saints have always
followed His example — like St. Stephen, the first martyr, who prayed for those
who were putting him to death. This is the apex of Christian perfection — to love,
and pray for, even those who persecute us and calumniate us. It is the distin-
guishing mark of the children of God.

46. “Tax collectors”: the Roman empire had no officials of its own for the collec-
tion of taxes: in each country it used local people for this purpose. These were
free to engage agents (hence we find reference to “chief tax collectors”: cf. Luke
19:2). The global amount of tax for each region was specified by the Roman au-
thorities; the tax collectors levied more than this amount, keeping the surplus
for themselves: this led them to act rather arbitrarily, which was why the people
hated them. In the case of the Jews, insult was added to injury by the fact that
the chosen people were being exploited by Gentiles.

48. Verse 48 is, in a sense, a summary of the teaching in this entire chapter, in-
cluding the Beatitudes. Strictly speaking, it is quite impossible for a created be-
ing to be as perfect as God. What our Lord means here is that God’s own perfec-
tion should be the model which every faithful Christian tries to follow, even though
he realizes that there is an infinite distance between himself and his Creator.
However, this does not reduce the force of this commandment; it sheds more
light on it. It is a difficult commandment to live up to, but along with this we must
take account of the enormous help grace gives us to go so far as to tend towards
divine perfection. Certainly, perfection which we should imitate does not refer to
the power and wisdom of God, which are totally beyond our scope; here the con-
text seems to refer primarily to love and mercy. Along the same lines, St. Luke
quotes these words of our Lord: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”
(Luke 6:36; cf. note on Luke 6:20-49).

Clearly, the “universal call to holiness” is not a recommendation but a command-
ment of Jesus Christ.

“Your duty is to sanctify yourself. Yes, even you. Who thinks that this task is on-
ly for priests and religious? To everyone, without exception, our Lord said: ‘Be ye
perfect, as My Heavenly Father is perfect’” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”, 291). This
teaching is sanctioned by chapter 5 of Vatican II’s Constitution “Lumen Gentium”,
where it says (40): “The Lord Jesus, divine teacher and model of all perfection,
preached holiness of life (of which He is the author and maker) to each and every
one of His disciples without distinction:’You, therefore, must be perfect, as your
Heavenly Father is perfect’ [...]. It is therefore quite clear that all Christians in any
state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection
of love, and by this holiness a more human manner of life is fostered also in earth-
ly society.”

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: Green.

First reading
Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18 ©

The Lord spoke to Moses; he said: ‘Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them:

‘“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

‘“You must not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. You must openly tell him, your neighbour, of his offence; this way you will not take a sin upon yourself. You must not exact vengeance, nor must you bear a grudge against the children of your people. You must love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”’

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 102(103):1-4,8,10,12-13 ©