"Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy."
Matthew 5: 48
Jesus sets a pretty high standard here. Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy.
I had the chance to listen to a priest talk about this line from the bible and he said that if we're really honest with ourselves, we don't want to be holy. Holiness sounds like you have to become a priest or a nun or involves suffering for others. In the Gospel today, Jesus says holiness involves loving your enemy.
Holiness sounds goody-goody. If we're honest with ourselves, we want to remain sinners and find it convenient that there is a chance to have our sins absolved. We want to enjoy life and holiness seems to be the opposite of enjoyment. (The kernel of the thought came from the priest. I've editorialized of course :-)
In the end, we might say that holiness is nice, but it isn't for me.
But I suppose holiness doesn't have to be boring. If we consider Jesus as the paragon of holiness, he seemed to like to dine with people. His first appearance in the Gospel of John after all was the Wedding at Cana. After his resurrection, he often asked if his apostles had any food with them. And he probably enjoyed the company of his friends.
I think the attitude for those of us who do not really want to be holy and are now confronted with this mandate from Jesus to be holy as his father is holy is to beg God for the grace to want to be holy despite ourselves. This probably is the appropriate attitude because in the end, our holiness (whatever that may entail) can only be a product of God's grace and not our efforts.
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