Deut 26:16-19 / Matthew 5:43-48
In searching for a religion to believe in or to adhere to, the question that will come up might be this.
How is Christianity different from the rest of the other religions? Or specifically, what is so unique about the Catholic faith?
There can be many answers to that question. One possible answer could be that Christianity does not just teach us to be good.
In fact Christianity goes much further - it teaches us to be like God. But of course we will frown and say that we are only human and we have our weaknesses.
Yet Jesus does not seem to take any "ifs, buts and maybes" as He says in the gospel - You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
To be perfect like God Himself is certainly way beyond our abilities if not impossible. Yet we may have forgotten that we are made in the image of God.
In the 1st reading we heard this declaration that the Lord God made about us - that we are His very own people.
So it is not enough to say that we want to believe in God. We too have to make a declaration that He is our God, and that we would want to follow His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and listen to His voice alone.
In that way, we will also declare to others who we believe in - we believe in the one true God.
We also declare who we are - we are the people of God
We also declare what we want to become - we want to become like God in whose image we are created.