Lev 11, 44-45 Keep yourselves holy, because I am holy

Leviticus 11 (chosen pages)

(Lev 11, 44-45) Keep yourselves holy, because I am holy

[44] For I, the LORD, am your God; and you shall make and keep yourselves holy, because I am holy. You shall not make yourselves unclean, then, by any swarming creature that crawls on the ground. [45] Since I, the LORD, brought you up from the land of Egypt that I might be your God, you shall be holy, because I am holy.

(CCC 2813) In the waters of Baptism, we have been "washed … sanctified … justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (2 Cor 6:11). Our Father calls us to holiness in the whole of our life, and since "he is the source of [our] life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and … sanctification" (1 Cor 1:30; cf. 1 Thess 4:7) both his glory and our life depend on the hallowing of his name in us and by us. Such is the urgency of our first petition. By whom is God hallowed, since he is the one who hallows? But since he said, "You shall be holy to me; for I the LORD am holy," we seek and ask that we who were sanctified in Baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be. And we ask this daily, for we need sanctification daily, so that we who fail daily may cleanse away our sins by being sanctified continually.... We pray that this sanctification may remain in us (St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 12: PL 4, 527A; Lev 20:26).