5 actions to help us live a life of holiness
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I was asked to speak to my church’s Youth Group last night on how to live a life a holiness, how to live like saints in this life. I’m sharing my thoughts with you and hope that you find them fruitful.
We know that hell is a horrible place with indescribable suffering. A place we would not want to spend a minute of our lives, let alone all of eternity. We also know that heaven is more glorious and amazing that our minds can ever comprehend. In heaven we will share in Jesus’ divine nature, which also means that we will have much higher capacity to love and to understand God’s plan. We will be able to intercede for our friends and family. Naturally, we all want to go to heaven and be in the presence of God in all his splendor. In practice, few of us behave as if heaven is our most important goal in life. We get so distracted.
What would it take to be able to go straight to heaven without having to spend time purifying in Purgatory? As Professor Dr. John Bergsma says, our goal should not be to barely slide into Purgatory as if it was home plate. Our aim should be heaven. To go to heaven, one must be a baptized Christian who lived a life of intense love for God and for one another, whose sins have been forgiven, who has satisfied the consequences of his or her sins through penance, and who is pure from the disordered attachments that lead to sin. To be saints in heaven we should strive to be saints on this side of the veil; to live holy lives. Holiness is not reserved for just a few. In Matthew 5:48 Jesus told us "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect". He told that to all of us, not just to a few people. The church also, guided by the Holy Spirit, declared in the Second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium that all of us are called to be holy in our various paths of life: as parents, teachers, priests, religious, mechanics, students, etc. We should strive for holiness with all our strength out of love for God.
The way I function, I needed to have a framework in my mind or a defined path that I can take to live a life of holiness, as the word holiness itself seems vague. In reading various Catholic sources I did not find a consistent approach, but found very good suggestions. I landed on these 5 actions that we can take to help us in this journey, and I intend to do my best, with God’s grace, to embark in this beautiful and joyful journey. Here are the 5 actions:
Intensely Love God. The most important action we can take is to have an intense love for God as the center of our lives. Bishop Barron says that we need to “find our center.” Everything else in our lives such as relationships, fitness, work, studies, etc., are like spokes that radiate from this center and are guided by our love for God. Jesus told us “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) To me there are three ways to foster this intense love for God. The most important one is prayer. As St Paul said in 1 Thessalonians, we want get to the place where we pray without ceasing, even if we just say “Jesus” as we walk between meetings or classes. The more we love God, the more we want to be in relationship with him through prayer, and the more we pray, the more we are able to love God. The second way is by loving and studying Scripture. To be holy is truly to live as Jesus lived, and we can only learn that in the Bible, God’s love letter to humanity. Finally, by entering into an intimate and mystical relationship with Jesus through the sacraments, especially through the Holy Eucharist.
Love one another. Moved by the outpouring of divine love, we devote ourselves to love our neighbors as ourselves. We perform acts of justice that ease suffering and oppression, acts of kindness, and we selflessly serve others with joy.
Surrender to God. The third action is to surrender our will to God’s will. Our thoughts, words, actions, and all of our decisions should be aligned to God’s will for us. The gifts of the Holy Spirit in our soul help us become docile to God’s whispers and God’s graces guide us along the way. Our goal is to be able to some day say “It’s no longer I that lives, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Repent. Inspired by divine love and the Holy Spirit, we become ever conscious of our sins and humbly ask our merciful God for forgiveness. A nightly examination of conscience as described by St. Ignatius of Loyola is a wonderful practice to become aware of both how God was present in our lives each day, and the ways in which we fell to the temptations of Satan. We then pray for the resolve to not choose to sin. Remember, we share in the body of Christ triumphant and the devil has no power over us, he can’t make us sin. He will tempt us and trick us, but it is always our choice.
Do penance. The final action in the path to holiness is to walk humbly with God through penance. Penance helps purify our souls of the tendencies or attachments that lead us to sin. Penance also helps us satisfy the consequences of our sins (temporal punishment). “The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the self-discipline and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes.” (CCC 2015). Examples of practices of penance are: fasting, giving alms, patiently enduring the difficulties of life such as sickness, doing prayers like the Rosary and other devotional practices, healing divisions in the family, asking forgiveness of others for our transgressions and forgiving those who have injured us, and many other acts of sacrifice and self-denial. Penance liberates us from what binds us to sin and actually gives us more joy as we purify our hearts and advance into a deeper relationship with God. Remember that Jesus went to the wilderness for 40 days to fast and pray.
OK, so we take these actions, we become holy, and are ready for heaven, right? Not quite. Holiness is a never ending process until the day we breathe our last and are are hopefully united with our Lord. The brighter we are able to shine Jesus’ divine light, the more of a target we become for Satan, who wants to use his snares to make us trip. Along the journey to holiness, we also need to focus on fulfilling our mission as Jesus’ disciples by praying for the conversion of sinners and doing what we can to lead all souls to heaven.
The path to holiness may seem daunting. When Jesus said “Be perfect, as my Father is perfect” he gave us a very high standard to follow. But our loving God is also helping us and not just by giving us advice through Scripture, but by pouring his divine love into our souls and by sharing his grace with us. Every day. Grace allows us to have an intimate relationship with the Holy Trinity, to fully participate in life with God, and to selflessly express that love for him and others. God wants to share his kingdom with all of us. The Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in heaven are also praying for us and helping us along he way.
“Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4)
References:
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraphs: 2014, 2015
Lumen Gentium chapter 5
Thank you for reading my blog. May God bless you and your family.
