We have been called to holiness through our Initiation into the Church. In fact we   express this quite dramatically during our initiation ritual. We walk around the Tetrapod three times with the person being initiated into the Church and we sing: All you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ! Alleluia! Our Alleluia is an exclamation that we truly agree with this statement. So the question is: What does it mean to put on Christ.

First of all, we must understand what the word Christ means. In the ancient Greek, Christos was the word for an anointed person. So if we are to put on Christ, we must become an anointed one of God. How do we do this? By imitating The Christ, who was and is Jesus of Nazareth, the only-begotten of the Father.

How do I imitate Him? By making His way of living my way of living. This entails making sure that my attitudes and behaviors are like His were when He was here on earth.

We already know what His attitudes were and know that attitudes dictate behavior. We recall His attitudes from the four rules of living that He gave us which, I am sure, are engraved on everyone’s mind:

1. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

2.  Love others as you want to be loved.

3.  Don’t judge others so that you won’t be judged.

4.  Forgive others so that you will be forgiven.

These four simple rules sum up the teachings of Jesus and are guides to live as Jesus lived. These four rules of living seem to cover all the circumstances in life that we could possibly imagine. They are the rules that we use to govern our lives. Truly the call to holiness would have us use these four rules in all circumstances to determine our behavior. They make a whole lot of sense. Of course they can be summed up by the one commandment that Jesus gave us: Love God with your whole heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself. These four, however, show us how to accomplish this.

If you look at the life of Jesus, you will see that these four rules always governed His behavior. If we implant these rules deep within our hearts and minds, they will help us govern our behavior and make it possible to more frequently respond with unconditional love to all others, regardless of how they respond to us. They can help us truly become like God.