Holiness: A Calling for Everyone

With notable timeliness, in an era that sees the increasing manifestation of the active participation of peoples in history, the Second Vatican Council very clearly and repeatedly reminds us that holiness is a vocation open to all the Church's faithful. It is the entirety of the People of God, as such, and in each one of its members, independent of juridical situations or states of life, that is summoned to holiness. "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,"[1] teaches the Council.

It's not that the universal calling to holiness is a novelty, as can be seen by the Lord Jesus' own preaching and the life of the Church throughout the centuries. It's rather that in some moments of history certain discriminatory currents have achieved, be it theoretically or factually, a kind of "expropriation of holiness" in favor of one certain sector of the People of God, obscuring the universal call to holiness. For example, those heretic currents which, emerging at different moments, established a measure of the Christian by which the Church would only be formed by the "pure," by the "Cathars.[2]" Or, those other ones, also erroneous, which emerged in the beginnings of monasticism, and considered that that state of life was fully consistent with Baptism, while other modes of Christian life would be less demanding than what the faith calls for.

Obviously not all, probably not even the majority, thought this way among the monks. Saint Basil, for example, father of oriental monasticism, never ceased to preach the universality of the evangelical demands. A clear example can be seen in his work, On the Renunciation of the World and Spiritual Perfection, where he affirms: "It is very clear that obedience to the Gospel is for everyone, those married as much as celibate" and "Christ, when he preached the commandments of His Father, addressed himself to people who lived in the world. He clearly witnessed to this by an answer he gave to his disciples on one occasion in which they questioned Him privately: "What I say to you, I say to all" (Mk 13:37). Therefore those of you who have chosen the company of a wife, do not relax your efforts as if you were at liberty to embrace worldliness." In the "expropriatory" vision, what is lost sight of is the personal and universal call to holiness which will recuperate all its doctrinal vigor with Vatican II, even when still today some people maintain factually the "expropriatory sense of the perfect life" in favor of one state of life to the detriment of others. The prevalence of discriminatory ideas contributed to a relaxation and lack of coherence in the faith life of those who suffered its consequences.

It should be highlighted, however, that alongside these visions deformed by exclusivism there have always been manifestations that make a claim for the universal character of holiness, particularly extended to the secular clergy and the laity. There are no children of the Church that, because of their state, are "second class." All the faithful are invited to live their own state of life in holiness. Alongside monks and Fathers, spiritual currents like the Devotio moderna and the "Spanish Spiritual Reform," as well as many saints, among whom Saint Francis de Sales stands out, ceaselessly postulate the necessary universal call to holiness. None less than Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori, author of The Glories of Mary, says emphatically in the 18^th century: "It is a grave error, that which some people say: 'God doesn't want all people to be saints.' No, says Saint Paul (1 Thes 4:3), God indeed wants all to be saints, and each one in his own state: the religious as religious, the lay as lay, the priest as priest, the married as married, the merchant as merchant, the soldier as soldier." The conceptual clarity of this great Doctor of the Church cannot but stand out. At the same time that he refutes the "expropriatory error" he highlights the ambit of each person's holiness: the priest, for example, in the priesthood, and the married person will be a saint precisely in the measure in which he lives the fullness of his vocation to matrimony.

All the faithful, then, are called to be saints. Holiness is not something optional, a mere choice, but rather the way desired by the express will of the Lord, according to that maxim of the Apostle of Nations that Saint Alphonsus reminds us of: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thes 4:3)." Holiness is a goal that we must tend towards, an obligation necessary for the attainment of fulfilledness. The duty to want to be holy is born of being Christian.[3] The tendency towards holiness is essential to the life of the Christian. Jesus preaches to the People and all are invited to the holy life. "The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of all perfection, preached holiness of life to each and every one of His disciples, regardless of their situation: 'Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect' (Mt 5:48)."[4]

Holiness is aligned with conformity with Christ. He is the divine Teacher and Model to whom all must necessarily refer. He is the Lord who invites into the Kingdom and He shows how to live according to His justice. "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe in the Gospel."[5] Holiness is a process of conformity with Christ through the deep interior transformation that the Christian lives. Christ is the source and model of holiness for everyone. Holiness must be the object of our hope insofar as it means conformity with the Lord.

The path of holiness is not possible without grace. Union with the Lord is the condition and reality of the perfect life.[6] The call and the gift precede the response. Before the dimension of holiness granted by God in the Baptism of faith[7], increased by the Eucharist and by the Charity poured into hearts by the Spirit[8], there lies a duty to respond.

The Second Vatican Council fittingly points out the Lord Jesus' mode of sanctification: "He sent the Holy Spirit upon all men that He might inspire them from within to love God with their whole heart and their whole soul, with all their mind and all their strength (cf. Mk. 12:30) and that they might love one another as Christ loved them (cf. Jn 13:34; 15:12)."[9] Man must respond to that influence, according to the gifts received, so that following the Lord's footsteps and conforming himself to Him, he fulfills the Plan of God in Charity, giving himself with all his being to the fulfillment of the command to love.[10] It is according to Charity, as Saint Thomas emphasized, that the perfection of Christian life is measured.[11] It's a question of vitally configuring oneself with Christ Jesus, to live according to his spirit, to acquire his style of perceiving and responding to reality, his way of acting. It's a matter of recovering one's own identity in the Lord, to go forward receiving and assuming the gift of likeness, lost through sin. In the end it's about complete adherence to the Lord through love.

The Christian's task is to accept and cultivate the gift received. Due to the Lord's infinite richness, the efforts to see in Christ the model of personal holiness are never exhausted. Many are the legitimate approximations that throughout history have become concrete paths to follow in order to maintain and perfect the holiness received through faith in Baptism.[12] They explain the real multitude of spiritual ways and religious families that accentuate some characteristics of the Lord's message without excluding any of the others. In their number and variety of accents, they present the Lord Jesus before the world.[13]

Nonetheless, we might note that one path in particular seems to enjoy the merciful look of God, a path which illumines all liberation and sanctification within the Church.[14] We're talking about Mary, who "unites and mirrors within Herself the central truths of the faith,"[15] and, being the "most excellent fruit of the Redemption,"[16] "summons the faithful to Her Son and His Sacrifice, and to love for the Father."[17] Therefore it's logical that the faithful who "still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin…raise their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as a model of the virtues."[18] Mary is an exceptional witness of faith, hope, charity, and of perfect union with Christ, who exercises Her function as Mother, guide and model among the faithful, in whose "birth and development She cooperates with a maternal love."[19] Mary, who was invited by God to be Mother, and to educate the Lord Jesus, received from Him, at the foot of the Cross, the task of continually being Mother, and, consequently, of educating and guiding the disciples to Jesus: "Woman, behold your Son."[20]

It's a mystery of God, this dynamic connection of the Virgin to the economy of Salvation, to the holy life of the People of God. "Christ came to us from Mary, we have received Him from Her - taught Pope Paul VI - Christ shows Himself to us in the arms of Mary; from Her we receive Him in His very first relation with us…If we want to be Christians, we must be Marians, that is, we must recognize the essential, vital, providential relation that unites the Virgin with Jesus and that opens to us the road that leads to Him."[21] That reality, manifested in the life of the Church throughout the centuries and magnificently highlighted by the Second Vatican Council, appears with outstanding characteristics in the reflections and teachings of the Latin American Bishops in Puebla[22], where they condense and delineate beautiful and vital realities about the Mother of the Lord, Mother of the Church, our Mother,[23] who through filial love unites the believer to Christ,[24] being in all justice "the star of Evangelization and the Mother of the Latin American peoples.[25]

Holiness is the radical objective of the Christian, of all the baptized. All the baptized in the Church are Church. That's the meaning of the rich notion of 'People of God,' that today, happily, is so profusely employed. Everyone, then, is required, by the demands of coherence, to concretely aspire to perfection, according to the gifts received, the circumstances, and the state of life to which each has been invited by the Lord.

As a member of the Church, the faithful is called to live, by faith, total fidelity to God's plans,[26] to the time that under the guide of Saint Mary he proceeds in consolation and hope towards the day of the Lord,[27] receiving from the Holy Spirit blessings that sanctify him,[28] vivify him, and impulse him to live the full mystery of love,[29] giving witness to the world of the sublime reality of the Kingdom by way of Evangelization[30] and life in fidelity.

1981

Notes

[1] Lumen gentium, 11c.

[2]Translator's note]: The Cathars were a heretical sect with Christian roots whose members were spread throughout Europe between the 11^th and 13^th centuries. They held a neo-manichean dualist doctrine, which claimed that there were two principles of reality, each with their own gods, the spiritual and the material, that were opposed to each other, and that it was the duty of human beings to purify themselves by renouncing everything that pertained to the material world, especially everything procreative in origin - meat, eggs, milk…and marriage. They denied the Incarnation of Christ and the existence of the Trinity.

[3] Cf. Lumen gentium, 42e.

[4] Lumen gentium, 40a.

[5] Mk 1:15

[6] Cf. Jn 15:5

[7] Cf. Lumen gentium, 40a

[8] Cf. Rom 5:5

[9] Lumen gentium, 40a.

[10] Cf. Mt. 22, 36-40

[11] Cf. S. T. 2-2, q. 184, a. 1.

[12] Cf. Council of Trent, Ses. 6, c. 10. (Denz. 803)

[13] Cf. Lumen gentium, 46.

[14] Cf. Puebla, 333.

[15] Lumen gentium, 65.

[16] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 103.

[17] Lumen gentium, 65.

[18] Lumen gentium, 65.

[19] Lumen gentium, 63.

[20] Jn 19:26.

[21] Pope Paul VI, Speech, 24/4/70.

[22] Trans. Note] The Third General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate on Evangelization in the Present and Future of Latin America, Puebla, Mexico, 1979.

[23] Cf. Puebla, 282ff., 745.

[24] Cf. Puebla, 1195.

[25] Puebla, 168.

[26] Cf. Gaudium et spes, 11a.

[27] Cf. Lumen gentium, 68.

[28] Cf. Apostolicam actuositatem, 3d; Lumen gentium, 12b.

[29] Cf. Apostolicam actuositatem, 29c.

[30] Cf. Ad gentes, 35.

Notice: These articles have been translated by members of the Christian Life Movement and have not been revised by the author.

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