Personal Holiness Beyond that of the Pharisees
Thursday, 10th Week of Ordinary Time, 2025 | Matthew 5:20-26
Jesus’ words might seem daunting, that someone’s righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees if they hope to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hopefully, though, we don’t find them too terribly intimidating. Because, rather than setting an unimaginable bar of holiness, Jesus is re-calibrating the assumptions of his listeners and is showing us that personal holiness is not tied to someone’s position—in life, in the world, or in the Church.
It must have been easy to assume that, The Pharisees are the religious teachers, learned men who have dedicated their lives to study of Scripture and observance of the Law… of course they’re holy. They deal with God-stuff all day.
I think this it echoes a sentiment that sometimes persists in the Church, one that she has accidentally reinforced by canonizing a list of mostly popes, priests, and religious through the Middle Ages—as if the laymen and women of the same time period could not be as holy.
Our holiness is not tied to a vocation, to a state in life: married, single, ordained. It might be easy to think: He’s a priest, so he’s holy. She’s a nun, so she’s holy.
And hopefully, a given priest or nun, any religious is holy! But, hopefully too, any man, woman, child, young, old, rich or poor, married, single, or divorced person is also holy!
The meaning of life is to become a saint—not necessarily canonized by the Church with our own feast day. But a saint nonetheless, a citizen of Heaven. The point to life is to journey well toward Heaven, growing in holiness, so as to one day enter fully into the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is our Father’s plan for us. He made us, loved us into existence, so that we could know him, and in knowing him, love him, and in loving him, choose him above all other things. He’s the one that makes us saints, we just have to choose that.
Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, far from being daunting, put the scribes and Pharisees on blast. He has no problem with their authority, he says in another place to do whatsoever they tell you; but their personal holiness seems to be lacking. They were professional churchmen, but that was not a guarantee of holiness.
Becoming a saint consists in constantly giving ourselves over to God. Growing closer to him through prayer and the sacraments, using our state in life for the glory of God and sharing of the Gospel… be it: married, single, ordained, rich or poor, old or young.