March 15, 2025
Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Lectionary 229
Matthew 5:45-48:
“Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Meditation
It’s impossible. We cannot be as perfect as the Father! What does that sentence in Matthew mean? William Barclay tells us, “A thing is perfect if it realizes the purpose for which it was planned. Humans are perfect if they realize the purpose for which they were created and sent into the world.” We are created in God's image. God is love, and love knows no bounds.
God reaches out to everyone. Our perfection, then, consists in loving others and reaching out to them no matter who they are. We cannot love to the degree God loves, but we can love to the most entire degree possible. The U.S. Army recruiting poster says it well: “Be all you can be.” Therein lies our perfection.
At La Salette, Mary lives her perfection. Her love for us calls us to complete reconciliation with her Son. She is all she can be – a mother concerned for all her children.
Reflection Questions:
- Can I ask God to make me “all I can be”?
- · Where in my life is reconciliation still needed?