On this seventh Sunday the last two antitheses (of the collection we mentioned above) are presented: one relating to the law of retaliation; the other that speaks of love for one’s enemies (cf. Mt 5:38-48). We should pay attention to reference to the Father—to the “perfection” of the Father—to which Jesus exhorts us (cf. Mt 5:48). What does he mean? Why does Jesus speak of the “perfection” of the Father? First of all, that the Father wants us to be like him. Paul also writes to the Ephesians: “Be therefore imitators of God, as dearest children” (5:1). Jesus then affirms that the Father gives life (images of the sun and rain) to all men (good or bad), regardless of their merits. This non-division manifests the perfection of the Father. In other words, God is not perfect because he is without flaws, but because he doesn’t exclude anyone from his heart, because he doesn’t divide his children into deserving and not deserving. To be perfect as the Father is perfect, then, means: not to classify men. More positively, it means participating in God’s tummà or tememuth, according to Jewish tradition. When God asked Abraham to be whole, perfect (tamim) he didn’t mean so much moral perfection, as long as Abraham remained in unity, in non-division (f. Gen 17:1). Instead, the Patriarch divided the righteous from the sinner. Precisely for this reason Sodom was destroyed (cf. Gen 18). Jesus, on the other hand, lived to the end the unity of the tummà so as to reconcile on the cross the righteous and the wicked, the Jew and pagan, man and woman (cf. Eph 2:14.16). This, surely, is non-division: the holiness to which he invites us in Leviticus 19.2? Holiness, as we know, is the property of God (cf. Is 63,3). What is surprising is what God has shared with us of his own free will; he has offered, given freely (cf. Heb 12.10). Holiness therefore takes the form of man’s yes to God’s call (cf. Eph 1:4) or as the willingness to let oneself be shaped by his “perfection”. Hence the realization of what is humanly impossible: love of one’s enemies.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey