O grow in the likeness of God about man.

Through baptism, we have been given participation in the life of God. But how does God live? In what does his life consist? Jesus Christ told us something about this when he revealed that God is one but three-personal. Jesus made visible the goodness and love of the heavenly Father. He lived to do His Father’s will to the uttermost, even to the cross. He also spoke of the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, who receives all things from Christ and communicates them to us. The Spirit of God guided Jesus in fulfilling his mission, and Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit.

From these few hints, we may suspect that the life of God is the life of each person and one for the other. Their relationship is so strong and deep that it is also a living person, the Holy Spirit. From this brief hint of what constitutes the life of God, we can suspect that we, too, as baptized persons, are called to cooperate in the growth and development of the life of God within us. Practically, this means that we are to develop our relationship with the triune God and our relationships with people and human persons.

It is on the theme of these relationships with people, and in quite concrete, practical situations that we heard in today’s reading from the Old Testament. These are challenging demands. They require overcoming our selfishness, striving to respect the other, and doing good to him. As a motive for such efforts, God challenges us, “Be holy, as I, your God, am holy.” Holiness is God’s perfection. Practically, it means the challenge to grow in the likeness of God. We are to express this likeness in our relationships with people.

In the Gospel, Jesus gives us yet another motive for such an endeavor: the other person, the person in need and suffering in various ways, the person who requires our service and the overcoming of our egoism, is the person with whom Jesus Christ himself identifies: “What you did – or did not do – to one of the least of these, you did – or did not do – to me.” There could not be a stronger motive for doing good to one’s neighbors, for showing love to people. And in His caring love for us, Jesus reveals that we will be judged from these very acts. For acts of serving love in our neighbors, Jesus will reward us by welcoming us into direct and full participation in the life of the triune God – or, God forbid, exclude us from that participation if we have been oblivious to the misery and suffering of people and have closed ourselves off to our selfishness. When we reflect a little on these words of the Gospel of the Last Judgment, we realize how little we cooperate with the development of God’s life within us and how, in our daily circumstances, we must increase our efforts to show concrete and practical love for our neighbors – following the example of Christ himself, who loved us to the uttermost, even to the point of total self-sacrifice. But it was precisely this total self-giving for our salvation out of love for the Father that brought Jesus, even as a man, to participate fully in the life of God at the moment of his resurrection.

Practical Instruction: acts of serving, attentive love toward our neighbors, motivated by the belief that we are serving Christ himself in them.

Prayer: Merciful God and our Savior, turn our hearts to you and instruct our minds with heavenly doctrine so that we may be perfected by Lenten repentance in the Christian life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who is God and lives and reigns with you in union with the Holy Spirit throughout all ages of ages.