“Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self. To depend on God sets us free from every form of enslavement and leads us to recognize our great dignity.” (from Gaudete et Exsultate [On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World] # 32)
Pope Francis recently wrote an Apostolic Exhortation on holiness. The above quote coming at the end of chapter 1 helps us to begin to understand why the call to holiness is such an important and necessary path of the Christian life. We may ask the question, where does holiness begin? The Second Vatican Council reminded all people the primary vocation of each woman and man, each boy and girl, each person was a vocation of holiness. We understand this the call to being in communion and part of the Body of Christ.
This weekend I will be helping to present a Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) weekend with a team of three couples. One of the reminders we share with each other is this call to holiness; to be especially attentive to our sacramental love and life in the months, weeks and days leading up to the weekend. The reason for this is quite simple if we think about it carefully. We must be able as married couples and priest to show forth the love of God. Of course this does not mean we have lived perfectly in the time leading to our WWME weekend but rather we have continually placed our Sacrament into the light and love of God…most importantly in forgiveness and mercy.
“To the extent that each Christian grows in holiness, he or she will bear greater fruit for our world.” (#33)
This is true and has been proven over and over again. When I was teaching at St. Lawrence the Martyr Middle School one of my practices was to take 15 minutes before the beginning of school to pray and spend time listening to God. This didn’t mean my day wouldn’t be filled with the trials of Sixth Grade life and the families they were part of and it certainly didn’t mean my colleagues would be perfect and positively it wasn’t the fix to all my teaching foibles but in the mysterious work of God’s mercy and love I dealt with it better as the moments of stress and friction rose to the top. When I practiced prayer and chose to listen to God in love the holiness tank seemed a bit fuller and the temptation to fall deeper into sin was a little easier to resist…at least most of the time.
When we enter into the grace of prayer we discover our true and authentic self and vocation. When we seek to be attentive to our sacramental life; our vocational sacrament and those of Eucharist and Reconciliation we become grace filled vessels of love. This is the hope of our WWME ministry and the wonder of God’s call to holiness…to not just be good but to be great in our love for each other.
Pope Francis ends the First Chapter of the Exhortation with this quote about daring to be great, to be love and to be Sacraments of encounter.
“Do not be afraid to set your sights higher, to allow yourself to be loved and liberated by God. Do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Holiness does not make you less human, since it is an encounter between your weakness and the power of God’s grace. For in the words of León Bloy, when all is said and done, “the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint””(#34)

God Bless
Fr. Mark