In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers a rather radical call to holiness. Many of us have a hard time accepting that we are all called to such levels of morality. Yet, read to whom Jesus is speaking here. The Gospel says his audience is everyone: his apostles, his disciples, and a large number of other people from around the region. The Second Vatican Council offers a reminder when it says, "Fortified by so many and such powerful means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord, each in his own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the Father himself is perfect" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 11).
     A key to progress in any personal area is

keeping hungry, never being fully satisfied.    
   The same goes for our faith and relationship with our Lord. If our goal is to be comfortable, to follow the path of least resistance, then mediocrity is our goal. Jesus is anything but mediocre. He proposes to us a high moral standard that isn't reached by coasting. 
   Our souls are hungry by design. They are never fully satisfied in this life because we desire the Infinite - we desire God. 
   Luckily, our Lord not only proposes a high moral ideal of holiness, but he also gives us his very Spirit so we can reach the heights he proposes. And so we can pray with St. Augustine, "Give me what you command, and command what you will."    

                                        - Fr. Mark Haydu, LC
                                               Ligouri Publications