Is Holiness Possible?

Universal Call to Holiness

Holiness begins by assenting to the will of the Father and therefore the outpouring of his grace. Those who seek holiness “must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things” (Lumen Gentium, 5). This is initially manifested in the sacrament of Baptism wherein one enters into union with God who is holiness.

God initiates this call to holiness, which is essentially a call to a relationship with him. Since God calls us, it must be possible to answer. In his love for us, God provides man with the tools for sanctification. Primary among these are the sacraments which draw us closer to him by availing us to his grace. He also gives us the liturgy so that me might learn how to pray, the essential tool to develop our relationship with the Lord. He provides the faithful with role models to follow in the lives of the saints. Their lives provide evidence that answering the call to holiness is possible for all.

The call to universal holiness is not something simply born out of Vatican II. Christ gave us the instruction to all of us to be perfect as the Father is perfect (Matt 5:48). The saints and popes have written about this instruction years before the Second Vatican Council.

St. Francis de Sales wrote in the 16th Century:

"But my object is to teach those who are living in towns, at court, in their own households, and whose calling obliges them to a social life, so far as externals are concerned. Such persons are apt to reject all attempt to lead a devout life under the plea of impossibility[.]" (vi)

Pope Piux XI in 1930 issued the encyclical Casti Connubii in which he said:

For all men of every condition, in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ Our Lord, and by God's grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example set us of many saints. (CC, 23)

I'd like to close with a point from St. Josemaria: "Conversion is the matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime." (The Way, #285)