Be Holy as your Father is Holy (1 Th 4:3)

The call to holiness

“God wants you to be holy” (1 Th 4:3). We must not be content with the Christian life we are living. We must strive for holiness. We must put out into deep water and press on. We must dream of being saints. To be holy is the  goal of the Christian life. “Be holy as your Father is holy” (Mt 5:48). Saint John Paul II said: “Every church must be enthusiastic for holiness.” So the call to holiness is addressed to everyone. It is the foremost aim of the Church: that all Christians become saints. Holiness is not optional; it is a commandment of God: “Be holy.”

What does it mean to be holy?

Perhaps I truly want to be holy, but what does that mean? To be holy is to be set apart, to live differently from others for God. Through baptism, we are set apart by God. To be holy is to be like God (2 P 1:3-4). For God alone is holy, and he sanctifies. At Mass the priest says: “You are holy, and you sanctify all things.” So it is God who imparts his holiness.

How do we set out on the path of holiness?

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus said: “Holiness does not consist in practices, but in an  interior disposition, in which, though weak, we place our trust in the mercy of God and in his fatherly love.” This means that the first step toward holiness is the desire to be holy. Before holiness consists in actions, it is first a desire, an interior disposition, a will. Do you have the desire to be holy? If you do not, ask it of the Holy Spirit: “Lord, give me the desire to be a saint.” If you have this desire, then you are already on the path of holiness. At that moment Jesus calls you to decide, to make  the decision not simply to be a “good  Christian  ” but to be a saint. Let us be heralds of a new current of holiness. Let us teach others this ideal. Even the young and the children must seek holiness: we remember children such as Saint Dominic Savio, Saint Maria Goretti, Saint Kizito, and many others. A good member of the Word of God group is someone who desires holiness, who works for holiness, who   does everything in the community with a view to becoming holy. A true Christian seeks to be holy. The holy Pope John Paul II said: ‘When a catechumen is asked, “Do you wish to receive baptism?” he is in fact being asked: do you wish to be holy?’ Let us too resolve to be saints. This is true spiritual progress. Let us pray that God may increase in us the desire to be holy.

Henri Bayemi