Our opening prayer today called for us to become dwellings that are pleasing to God by His abiding in our heart. A dwelling is a place to live-in, a house. We can see houses going up everywhere in our community. There are many new houses that are shiny and look good from the outside. But what makes a house a home is not what’s on the outside, but what’s inside. It’s the environment within, the heart of the home, that makes it inviting and pleasant to be there. If we are to become a dwelling that pleases God, how do we make it ready to welcome God and others to dwell in? Our readings today point to ways we our hearts a home to welcome God to dwell in.
The first reading from Sirach reminds us that we can choose to keep the commandments. Through God’s wisdom he provides the commandments that are life giving. They provide boundaries to give us the fullness of life so we can be in good relationship with God and our neighbor. God gives us the freedom to choose life or death, good or evil. He does not make us follow the commandments nor cause us to break them. If we choose not to follow the commandments, sin enters our lives, which damages the relationship with God and others. Our choice to sin may bring about some temporary satisfaction, but in the long term it results in feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and despair. It’s not what God wants for us, but he gives us the freedom to choose for ourselves.
In today’s Gospel Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount discourse that we’ve heard the past couple of weeks. His preaching is bold and with authority proclaiming
he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill it. Jesus tells the crowds that their righteousness must surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees. They were viewed as models in the community in keeping the law, but were only concerned with keeping the externals of the law and not embracing an internal change in their hearts. How could those listening possibly surpass the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees? By having a heart transplant. Not a physical heart but a wholehearted change in the way they lived.
Jesus goes on to teach on the commandants to not kill, commit adultery, and bear false witness, but he takes is a step further. Jesus with authority he states, “Amen, I say to you”, or “but I say” and teaches them how to change their hearts so they won’t break the commandments. He gives them a new way they living with authority because HE IS GOD. Jesus wants them to understand that anger, lust, and deceit results in sin that damage the relationships with God and their neighbor. Broken relationships cause pain, sorrow, and resentment which disturbs their peace. Jesus is teaching his disciples to make a wholehearted transformation so they maintain loving relationships with each other and God to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.
This sounds like a tall task to accomplish on our own, but St. Paul tells us how it’s through help of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit we receive in Baptism and Confirmation provides the grace for us to become dwellings pleasing to God. The grace of the sacraments reveals God’s wisdom and makes it possible to change our hearts to be life giving to others.
How can we become and continue to be a dwelling that is pleasing to God? By asking ourselves if we are welcoming place for Jesus to dwell when we receive him in the Eucharist. We can do this by making it a habit to examine ourselves to make sure the hearts of our home are in order to welcome him. The Holy Spirit is our guide to examine our own dwelling to make sure it’s is ready for Jesus to enter. We may say we have not killed someone, but is there a broken relationship with a family or friend that needs mending? We may not have committed adultery, but do we view others with pure hearts rather than for our own pleasure? We can say we haven’t be deceitful, but have we been fully honest with others and treated them as we would like?
If we find rooms in our homes that need cleaning, we can ask for God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Confession to restore our dwelling to make it pleasing to God. As we proceed to receive the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit will come down to change the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood to provide us the graces we need to change our hearts. Let’s invite that same Spirit to guide our hearts so we can become dwellings that are pleasing to God.
