“But I say to you, be perfect.”

Called to holiness
Magnificat Community Growth Path 2013/2014

“Be perfect!” But what is perfection?

What is holiness? The world places holiness on a purely supernatural plane and believes that it is a path for a few,for special people. Instead, we know that holiness is not something unattainable, but is a road that runs through the everyday life of every child of God-that is, our road.

And the world in its incomprehension does not know that precisely in holiness is true happiness.

When we prayed for this year’s journey, the Lord invited us to confront our call to holiness: “Like the Holy One who called you, become holy also in all your conduct”;
His divine power has given us all that is necessary for a life lived holily.”
But what holiness? A holiness required of us who, although we have been on the way for many years, are not immune from the lure of the world that flatters us by trying to suck us in: “Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by renewing your way of thinking.”

A holiness that is not satisfied with our membership in the community, but goes further by pushing us to the transformation of our lives and hearts: “It is not circumcision that counts […] but being a new creature.”
A holiness that is nourished by concreteness and must be incarnated, lived to the point of being visible: “Be an example to the faithful in speech, behavior, charity, faith, purity. […] Let all see your progress”; “Conquer evil with good”.A progressive holiness that does not get satiated and must grow in our lives: “Let the saint sanctify himself again”; “Put every effort to add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly love, to ‘brotherly love charity.

A holiness that has God himself as its model: “You shall be holy, for I am holy”; “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is brother and sister and mother to me”; “Become imitators of me, as I am imitators of Christ.”
It was then thought to respond to this invitation from the Lord by taking up the great Sermon on the Mount, which for two years we have had the grace to have as the theme of the walk.

That was a very intense and fruitful journey in which we were led, step by step, to contemplate that extraordinary authorship trait of Jesus that are the beatitudes, to make it the mirror with which to compare ourselves.

This year we will then pick up the Sermon on the Mount right where we left off and walk through one more section of it. In fact, immediately after the invitation to be light and salt to the world-which was the last stage of the walk on the beatitudes-Jesus goes on to invite his disciples to live a higher righteousness than that of the scribes and Pharisees, and this is in order to enter the kingdom of heaven: that is to become holy

And in this regard he shows them, with six very clear exemplifications, how to accomplish this in their lives.
These very exemplifications will be the heart of this year’s journey. In them Jesus will give us the key to becoming saints, that is, to be “perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.”

General managers