By DON FIER
Part 2
The second of four distinguishing marks or properties of the one true Church, as we saw last week, is that she is “unfailingly holy” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 823). Despite being composed of sinners, “the Church is holy because she was founded by Jesus Christ, who is all-holy, and because she teaches, according to the will of Christ, holy doctrines, and provides the means of leading a holy life, thereby giving holy members to every age” (The Baltimore Catechism).
Moreover, she is holy because “the Most Holy God is her author; Christ, her bridegroom, gave himself up to make her holy; [and] the Spirit of holiness gives her life. Since she still includes sinners, she is ‘the sinless one made up of sinners’” (CCC, n. 867).
An underlying emphasis of the Second Vatican Council, we also saw last week, is one of “the universal call to holiness” (Lumen Gentium, chapter V, nn. 39-42). Our Lord Jesus Christ “preached holiness of life to each and every one of His disciples of every condition” (LG, n. 40 § 1).
In other words, there are no exceptions: Each of us — not only those called to a clerical or religious vocation — is to strive for holiness, to have as his or her goal to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). And it is precisely the holy Catholic Church who has been entrusted with the means, the channels of grace, to enable us to grow in holiness.
The Catechism next focuses on that virtue which is indispensable for growth in holiness: charity. So necessary and fundamental is this self-giving form of love that one can accurately say that “charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are called: it ‘governs, shapes, and perfects all the means of sanctification’ (LG, n. 42)” (CCC, n. 826).
In fact, as we shall soon learn when we examine the insights of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a 20th-century cloistered Carmelite nun who, though hidden from the eyes of the world was raised to the lofty rank of doctor of the Church by St. Pope John Paul II in 1997, love itself was the vocation to which she was called.
As related in the endearing autobiography and precious gem of spirituality entitled The Story of a Soul (SoS), the “Little Flower of Jesus” wrote a letter to Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart (her older sister and godmother) approximately one year before she died at the tender age of 24. Sr. Marie requested that Thérèse put down in writing “the secrets Jesus confides to [my] little sister” (SoS, p. 187). At the time, she was suffering intensely from yet undiagnosed tuberculosis, but hiding the magnitude of her trials from her Carmelite community.
In her letter, the Little Flower wrote of the insights she received as she reflected on chapters 12 and 13 of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. So great was her desire for holiness that she yearned for more than her vocation as Carmelite, Spouse of Jesus, and Mother of souls; she longed to be a warrior, priest, apostle, doctor, and martyr (cf. SoS, p. 192). She felt the need and desire to carry out heroic deeds for Jesus and firmly believed a basic tenet of Catholic doctrine — that God does not inspire one’s heart with unrealizable desires.
Thérèse did not initially see in herself any of the vocations that St. Paul enumerated: “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28). However, when she continued reading chapter 13, she received an inspiration that she participated in all vocations and exclaimed, “My vocation, at last I have found it…my vocation is love” (SoS, p. 194).
St. Thérèse came to understand that love, or charity, was not only the root of all her desires, but also the bond that connects all members of the Mystical Body of Christ. God gave her the clear inspiration that love was the key: that whenever she loved, she contributed to and participated in all the works of the entire Body of Christ. When St. Paul wrote that love is the greatest of faith, hope, and love in 1 Cor. 13:13, St. Thérèse understood it to mean that if she possessed authentic love, the love of benevolence for God and neighbor, she could be all things to all people.
She came to understand that “love comprised all vocations, that love was everything, that it embraced all times and places…in a word, that it was eternal” (SoS, p. 194).
Herein lies a great mystery regarding a path to sanctity which has been embraced by the Church as the “Little Way of St. Thérèse.” The Little Flower came to realize, as we must, that “Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude” (SoS, p. 188). It is not the deed itself that makes an act extraordinary, but the love contained in the deed. Her littlest sacrifices and humiliations, done with great love, were truly extraordinary deeds in the eyes of God.
Never did she allow an opportunity for sacrifice to escape. Every look she gave, word she said, discomfort she endured, she did with great love, entrusting herself to the boundless mercy of her loving Father in Heaven.
St. Thérèse’s “little way” is one that each of us can practice in countless ways in the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives. Simple little actions — greeting and smiling at someone who annoys you, secretly doing a little act of kindness for another, patiently biting your tongue when someone irritates you, taking care of unpleasant duties promptly rather than procrastinating, etc. — have great value when done with no other motive than love.
The Catechism, citing Lumen Gentium, now stresses once again that the Church fully realizes that she is composed of sinners and is dependent on our Lord for her indefectible holiness: “While Christ, holy, innocent, and undefiled (Heb. 7:26) knew nothing of sin (2 Cor. 5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb. 2:17), the Church, embracing in its bosom sinners, at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, always follows the way of penance and renewal” (LG, n. 8 § 3).
“Hence the Church,” teaches the Catechism, “gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness” (CCC, n. 827).
The Ultimate Model
Of Holiness
Pope Paul VI proclaimed this truth of our faith beautifully in his apostolic letter of June 30, 1968, entitled The Credo of the People of God:
“[The Church] is therefore holy, though she has sinners in her bosom, because she herself has no other life but that of grace: It is by living by her life that her members are sanctified; it is by removing themselves from her life that they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for these offenses, of which she has the power to heal her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit” (n. 19).
Before closing its section on the Church’s second mark, the Catechism reflects on a key motive of credibility for her holiness: the canonization of saints.
To understand why this is true, let us first define the term: “Canonization is the act by which the Supreme Pontiff declares in a definitive and solemn way that a Catholic Christian is actually in the glory of heaven, intercedes for us before the Lord, and must be publicly venerated by the whole Church” (Robert J. Sarno, Canonization: Theology, History, Process, ed. William H. Woestman, OMI, p. 9). It is a solemn declaration that a Catholic person who has died now enjoys the Beatific Vision.
“By canonizing some of the faithful . . . the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors” (CCC, n. 828).
Canonization of holy men and women thus serves as a powerful reminder and encouragement that it is possible to attain holiness and a high degree of freedom from sin even during our life on earth. So rigorous, exacting, and impartial are the procedures used in examining the lives of those raised to the altar that anyone — believer or unbeliever — would be unable to refute the evidence.
As expressed by Leo J. Trese in his book The Faith Explained, “The many thousands of men and women and children who have led lives of super-eminent sanctity, and whose names make up the calendar of the saints: these are pretty hard to explain away, and there is nothing like them in any other Church” (p. 166).
The sinless Virgin Mary, assumed body and soul into Heaven, is our ultimate model of holiness: “in her, the Church is already the ‘all-holy’” (CCC, n. 829). “In the most holy Virgin,” teaches Lumen Gentium, “the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, [while] the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin” (n. 65).
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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