In the Sermon on the Mount, which has formed our Gospel readings over the last few Sunday’s, Jesus is explaining what the Beatitudes mean in practice.
When faced with words such as “holiness” or “perfection”, our first reaction may be to distance ourselves from them. Such terms belong to saints. They don’t come into the orbit of our everyday world. It is true that we are not required to live at these heights every moment. Jesus asks us to consider that, if we are His true followers, we all have the potential to respond at this level. We can all follow in His footsteps. The times when we are asked to give ourselves so utterly are few and far between. But we prepare ourselves for such challenges by the way we live through the day-to-day moments of our lives.