Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. // Leviticus 19:2

She sat on the floor, a scattering of puzzle pieces encircling her. Her little hands picked up the pieces for closer inspections. She proudly shifted forward as she fitted pieces together and sagged back when she cast aside those she could not yet place. At times, she’d reference the picture on top of the puzzle’s box, but eventually she sat back and sighed.

She was stumped by the trickiest part of the puzzle, where the shapes and colors could possibly go this way or that way, but don’t seem to fit anywhere. I left my chores, knelt beside her, and we finished it together.

In the Old and New Testaments the Lord Himself asks us to be like Him: holy and perfect. This instruction can feel overwhelming to me, especially when my life and personal holiness seem to be stuck at the tricky part, a scattering of options that surely fit together, but I just don’t know how.

But today’s readings fit together to show us. To begin, we are to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). And Jesus, who tells us to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” illustrates how God the Father is generous and kind to “the bad and the good” (Matthew 5:45-48). And Saint Paul reminds us we are holy because the Holy Spirit is within us (see 1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

With the Holy Spirit we are able to love and to choose to love, we are able to be holy. Ask the Lord to increase this grace in you.