Jesus calls us to great holiness today.
It is a holiness that can feel daunting when we take it seriously. Too often, we are satisfied with external appearances and actions—acting like saints on the outside—while leaving the deeper movements of the heart untouched. But Jesus insists that the holiness our Father made us for must go deeper, into the depths of the human heart.
St. Paul reminds us that God has prepared good things for us, far beyond what we can imagine (1 Corinthians 2:6–10). He has in store for us a heart more noble and pure than we could have hoped for. The hope given by the Holy Spirit is a real conviction that a life of holiness is not only possible, but desirable. This is what makes Jesus’ commandments in Matthew 5:17–37 encouraging rather than discouraging.
The desires we experience in life—our desire for justice, our sexual desire, our desire for honesty in speech—are not accidents. At their root, they are placed upon our hearts by God. They are meant to be powerhouses of love, moving us toward what is good and noble. Ancient and medieval thinkers used the image of a chariot for the passions: prudence and reason, informed by God’s law, act as the charioteer guiding the passions like horses pulling the chariot. Our emotions are meant to help us grow in holiness, not hinder us.
The goal of the Christian life is not to suppress these desires or stuff them away so they never bother us again. Rather, it is to gently guide them—especially when they become unruly— and direct them back toward love, a love informed by God’s law.
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that anger is an emotion directed toward the restoration of justice. We become angry when we perceive injustice, whether in the world or against us personally. That perception may be accurate, or it may be exaggerated—and often, it is exaggerated. A wrong look or careless word can feel like a personal attack, and instead of responding honestly, we turn to gossip, sharp words, or resentment.
Sexual desire, similarly, is designed to draw people together and bring forth life within the context of marriage. But that initially good desire can become twisted when it shifts from self-gift to consumption—when another person is no longer seen as someone to love, but something to use. The horses pulling the chariot of our hearts can become unruly, even frightening.
It is because of these subtle distortions of what God meant for good that Jesus speaks so directly in Matthew 5:17–37. He does not speak to shame us, but to reveal what our hearts were made for and what they are capable of by God’s grace.
In this passage, Jesus says:
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill,’ but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the evil one.”
Jesus moves the commandments from external actions to the interior life. He reminds us that bitterness, lust, and distortions of truth are not inevitable. They are false ways of satisfying deeper longings. Resentment and exaggeration are attempts to grasp justice without courage or intimacy without commitment. They settle for less than love.
But what if we could gently calm and guide those horses? What if anger could be trained to remain capable of mercy? What if desire could be purified to see in another person not just a body, but the glory of God imprinted upon a son or daughter of the Most High? Blessed are the pure of heart, Jesus says, for they shall see God.
Such a life is possible—but not by our own strength.
What we need is the Spirit of God to enter into the cracks of our hearts, the places where the evil one twists what is good. As St. Paul describes, the Spirit searches even the depths of the human heart (1 Corinthians 2:6–10). We are invited to ask calmly and honestly for hope: hope that the parts of our hearts we both delight in and feel ashamed of can be restored by a new breath of life from God the Father.
That is why Lent is so fitting. We trust that God will draw even the unruly movements of our hearts back to himself and toward love of neighbor. For eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it even dawned upon us what kind of love God has prepared for us.
Father Grant Huslig, Parochial Vicar