CALL TO HOLINESS

Grace and Holiness

1. What is grace?

Grace is a free and undeserved gift that God gives us to respond to our vocation to become his adopted children. [glossary, 2017].

2. What is sanctifying grace?

Sanctifying grace is a habitual gratuitous gift from God, a stable and enduring supernatural disposition to live with God and act by his love, giving us a share in the divine life. A person with sanctifying grace is said to be living in the state of grace. [glossary, 2023*, 2024*, 1999, 2000].

3. What is actual grace?

Actual graces are God's interventions, helps that he gives us to conform our wills to his will, and thereby avoid sin and do good. [2024*, 2000].

4. What is holiness?

Holiness is the fullness of Christian life, and the perfection of charity. Christian perfection has but one limit, that of having none (Gregory of Nyssa). [2028*, 1709, 2013].

Characteristics of Spiritual Progress

5. What factors are involved in seeking the way of perfection?

The way of perfection proceeds by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the self denial and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the beatitudes. [2015].

6. What is the goal of spiritual progress?

Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with God, a union called "mystical". We are all called to this intimate union which participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments, and thereby in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Extraordinary signs of this mystical life are only granted to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift to all. [2014].

7. What is contemplation?

Contemplation is a form of wordless prayer in which the mind and heart focus on God's greatness and goodness in affective, loving adoration; we look on Jesus and the mysteries of his life with faith and love. Acquiring the dispositions for attaining contemplation is a sign of progress in the spiritual life. [glossary, 2715].

Purpose and Goal of Human Life

8. Why did God put us in this world?

God put us in this world to know him, to love him, to serve him here on earth, and to thereby come to paradise. In paradise we become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4) and "eternal life" (Jn 17:3), being happy forever with God in the beatitude of heaven. [1721].

9. What is beatitude?

Beatitude is happiness or blessedness, especially the eternal happiness of heaven. [glossary, 1024, 1721].

10. What can hinder us from successfully seeking holiness?

Concupiscence, or our disordered human appetites and desires, produce inclinations to sin which must be overcome. Also our vices, or habits acquired by repeatedly sinning against particular commandments, must be overcome by seeking to acquire the corresponding virtues. Major goals in our lives should be to overcome concupiscence, rid ourselves of vices, and fill our lives with virtue. [1264, 1426, 1866, 2515].

Factors Involved in seeking Holiness

11. What is the role of justification?

Justification is the gracious action of God which frees us from sin and communicates "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" (Rom 3:22). Justification is not only the remission of sins, but the sanctification and renewal of the interior person. [glossary, 2019*-20*, 1987-89].

12. What is the role of grace?

Grace is the help God gives us to respond to the vocation of becoming his adopted sons and daughters. It introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. It assists us in overcoming vices and acquiring virtues. [2021*, 1997, 2004].

13. What is the role of the Holy Spirit?

Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ's passion by dying to sin, and in his resurrection by being born again to a new life. We go through a process of shedding our vices and acquiring virtues. Some spiritual writers call the shedding of vices the purgative way, the acquisition of virtues the illuminative way, and the final state of communing directly with God the unitive way. [1988].

14. What is the role of our free will?

Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act. It characterizes what are called properly human acts. God's free initiative of conferring grace demands a person's free response. The soul only enters freely into the communion of God's love. [1744*-45*, 2022*, 1731-36, 2002].

Helps in Acquiring Holiness

15. What positive actions can be taken to proceed along the road to holiness?

Two indispensable positive approaches of working toward holiness are the growth in virtue and the fostering of a prayer life. [

16. What role does prayer play?

The habit of regular and frequent prayer, the habitual lifting up of the mind and heart to God, is necessary for growth in the spiritual life. Our prayer life should have a rhythm to it: morning and evening prayers, Liturgy of the Hours, prayers suitable to the liturgical season, an emphasis on Mass and the Eucharist. It should have a variety of types: vocal, meditative, and if attainable, contemplative. [2559, 2697-99].

17. What are some helps in the quest of holiness?

Some helps in the quest for holiness are the development of a personal relationship with Jesus, frequent attendance at Mass and Communion, praying often, praying the Liturgy of the Hours every day, reading and meditating on the scriptures, reading classical spiritual writers and lives of saints, seeing a spiritual director regularly, frequent confession, and joining a group eager to acquire a spiritual life. Finally one must emphasize always cooperating with grace.