It is easy for us to become a pacifist in the midst of the Church. What I mean here is that it is easy for us to not see holiness as something that we are called to in our everyday life. Sometimes when a lay person thinks of this call to holiness they instead think that it is a call which has been reserved to the clergy alone. Well I am here to tell you that the call to holiness is not reserved to the clergy alone, but instead to all of us for we are all to strive towards holiness. All of us are to strive to be saints.
The universal call to holiness was not something that was new at the time of the Second Vatican Council. Nevertheless, it was something that the Second Vatican Council was highly concerned with. The document to take this up in detail is known to us as Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Here we are told: “it pleased Him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness.” This document would later say this of the universal call to holiness: “Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification.”
This my fervent hope concerning our time together that each of us strive for “the will of God, your sanctification.” Here there will be an opportunity for reflection in our faith, the cleansing of our sins through confession, an opportunity for fraternity, and most of all an opportunity to sit in the Presence of our Lord who is present with us Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Through the various topics which I brought up here through the course of time we will delve more and more into this call to holiness for all of this is intertwined.
As Pope Francis reminded in a General Audience given in 2014: “Holiness is a gift, it is a gift that the Lord Jesus gives us, when He takes us to Himself, and renders us like Himself.” Here we must remember that if we are to become holy that we must grow to know Christ. The more that we grow in faith in Him the more that we grow in this universal call. This is why we must make use of reflection, prayer, confession, and Most Holy Eucharist enter into our life if we in return can grow in this universal call. Some, those filled with pride, believe that they can do without this. To those I remark if we do not enter into the full sacramental life of the Church this is an impossibility.
Now when we think of holiness sometimes we think that this requires us to do something which is impossible. Saint Josemaria Escriva summed things up perfectly in the words of this homily: “There is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it. There is no other way, my daughters and sons: either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or we shall never find Him.”
It is with this that I continue to challenge each of you to find way to search out holiness in your everyday life. Moving forward with these Evening of Recollections we will spend our time with this being the line of our focus.
