their inner sense that they are trying
their best. Baptism and confirmation
are incalculably precious assurances
of inclusion in a second family that
will welcome us back, no matter
what. Reconciliation gives a concrete
pledge that we can never make ourselves so unworthy that we negate
what Jesus did for us.
Inadequacies no barrier
if God so generously offers the merits of Christ to make up for our inadequacies and indiscriminately invites
www.nazarethcsfn.org
Holy is really a synonym
for successful, fulfilled,
well-rounded. Each
of those words
describes what God
intended fully evolved
human beings to be.
Enter #155 at VocationMatch.com
us to holiness, God does not expect
anything close to undiluted purity of
motive or action when asking us to
lead holy lives. This is borne out on
page after page in scripture, despite
our penchant for sanitizing saints regardless of what they did. Abraham,
our “father in faith,” pandered his
wife into another man’s harem. Jacob
scammed his brother’s birthright.
even the unassailable Moses stammered for some time trying to weasel
out of God’s call. David, the ancestor of the Messiah, was a conniving
adulterer and murderer. Unthinking
piety turns the apostles into bowdlerized saints instead of a passel of
Keystone Kops, often bumping into
one another in pursuit of personal
advancement.
Reflect on the down-to-earth
holy people you know—usually not
the fastidiously devout, the cautious
observers of the tiniest rules, the
judgmental. Think of the millions
of men and women who refused to
surrender their souls in nazi camps;
those who bear with dignity the
slow impoverishment of disease; the
patient teacher who taught you to
write. There is an almost palpable
serenity about such people. They
seem unafraid and open, indiscriminately caring, inwardly coherent
and focused. Their holiness is their
wholeness, their altogetherness.
The source of that equanimity seems to be a special relationship with the ultimate being and,
reciprocally, a freedom from the
