Delivered by Father Peter Tukan, SDB from Salesian Don Bosco Gerak in Labuan Bajo, Diocese of Ruteng, Indonesia. Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Rs psalm 119: 1-2.4-5.7-8; Matthew 5: 43-48

TO BECOME PERFECT LIKE A THE FATHER WHO IS PERFECT

Our meditation today has the theme: To Become Perfect Like the Father Who is Perfect. In the family, parents really hope that the child or their children reach the level of progress according to the standards they want. If a father or mother targets a high grade in school and their children can achieve it, or even go beyond it, the parent's goal is achieved. So, the perfect parents really want their child or children to be as perfect as they are.

But not all families experience such situation. There are children who cannot meet their parents expectation. Dialogue, compromise and openness with each other are to be made possible, so that good relations and living together can be maintained in a common level of understanding. When the words of Jesus Christ challenge us to be perfect like the heavenly Father who is perfect, which should become our discipline in this Lent, our situation is seen somehow the same as children who have not met the standards of their parents.

Lent is indeed full of compromises and calculations to enable us to realize what God and the Church want from us. One of the most important compromises or calculations is the act of love. When we love our relatives or friends, this act is classified as a normal love. In the family and school, a child is considered kind and sincere if he loves his siblings and friends. Among neighbors and members of the society, we always do acts of love, and this all makes us good friends or neighbors.

Jesus wants to teach us more than just this normal and good thing. Although this is a teaching for all times, the discipline of Lent encourages us to do more than what is normal or odinary. It is about to love, to pray, to help, and to forgive those who have done us wrong. They might have been deliberately jealous, angry, and hateful to us. This kind of love will make us greater and can increase our standard as the followers of Christ from the level of just good and normal believers. Through ordinary good works and we need to add something more that is to love our enemies, we are assured that Jesus will gives us a very high quality of our faith, which is to be perfect like the heavenly Father who is ever perfect.

Moses had previously revealed this teaching to the Israelites across the Jordan River, when they saw that God's promise was very clear to them. Everyone and the whole nation became a holy people to the God Almighty, the Lord of the whole world. Perfection like the heavenly Father as taught by Moses demanded the people of God to obey God's commandments with all their hearts and souls. The teachings of Moses werebinding and demanding, but were later perfected by Jesus, who made himself the example of our perfection. We only need to obey and be loyal to Him.

Let's pray. In the name of the Father ... O Good and kind Father, make us live in the fullness of Your loveuntil we become perfect just as You are ever perfect. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit ... In the name of the Father ...