Someone will occasionally say to me, “He’s a holy man,” or “She’s a saint.”

Whenever I hear that, I’m always a little skeptical—not because I doubt that there are holy people, but because holiness is something only God can truly see.

We are often tempted to judge holiness by appearances.

We picture a priest in a cassock or beautiful gold vestments. We picture someone carrying a worn Bible or Rosary. We imagine a person with bowed head, folded hands, and a peaceful expression.

Those things are good. They can certainly reflect a deep interior life.

But they are still only externals.

A person who looks devout can be living far from God, while someone who appears quite ordinary may be a great saint.

One day Eileen George told her spiritual director, Fr. Raphael Simon, “Someone told me I was a saint.”

Perhaps she expected him to reassure her.

Instead he simply replied, “Then you had better be what they think you are.”

What wonderful advice.

Our Lord teaches the same lesson in the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost:

“Unless your justice exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus was not condemning the scribes and Pharisees because they kept the Law. In fact, they observed it very carefully.

The problem was that, too often, their religion remained external. They were concerned with appearing righteous before others instead of becoming righteous before God.

Their observance had not fully reached the heart.

To understand what Jesus means, it helps to notice that St. Matthew uses the same Greek word two other times in the Sermon on the Mount.

First:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.”

Then:

“Blessed are those who suffer persecution for justice.”

Finally:

“Unless your justice exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees…”

The Greek word is dikaiosynē (dee-kai-oh-soo-NAY).

It can be translated as either justice or righteousness, but it means much more than simply treating others fairly.

It means being rightly ordered to God.

It means living in His grace.

It means conforming our minds, our wills, and our lives to His.

Notice the beautiful progression that St. Matthew gives us.

First, we hunger and thirst for justice.

Then we are willing to suffer for justice.

Finally, justice becomes who we are.

That is the holiness to which Christ calls every one of us.

True justice is not merely about doing the right things.

It is about becoming the right kind of person.

It is living in communion with Christ—in grace, in faith, in doctrine, and in morals.

When we live that way, we gradually become what the saints have always called “another Christ.”

As St. Paul so beautifully writes:

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

That is true justice.

That is true holiness.