What is important to know about the Call to Holiness is that God wants free-will partners. He created us to be His sons and daughters not His blind slaves. Once we come to know Him, however, we do become His servants, but we do it willingly, out of love. We must remember that the Man Jesus was a servant of God. The will of man is an essential condition, said St. Macarius of Egypt, for without it God does nothing. James says in his letter this: Draw near unto God and He will draw near unto you. Indeed, faith begins with obedience. Obedience is what we mean when we say, draw near to God.

The Call to Holiness requires that a certain “synergy” with God be established. Synergy does not mean that God does one-half of the saving work and I do the other half. For God always takes the crucial initiative. He alone provides the saving grace. God does all of the saving work; we merely respond. He stands knocking and calling at the door of our souls and hearts. Yet, He will not break down the door. We have to open it freely. That effort on our part of opening the door and then taking up our cross to follow Jesus is our part in God’s plan of salvation. If we were to use percentages here, we would say that God does 99.9% of the work of salvation. Our response to God in accepting the   gift would amount to one-tenth of one percent. Yet that one-tenth of one percent is crucial. It represents our free response, our acceptance of His great gift.

Before salvation and union with God can take place, two things must happen. First, God must reach out to us. This is the divine initiative and it is called Grace. Grace is God’s hand stretched out to us in Baptism. Then, there must be our response to God’s reaching out, and the name of the response is Faith. Faith is our hand reaching out to clasp God’s hand which is already extended to us. Paul brought these two words – grace and faith – together when he described salvation in Ephesians 2:8. (Look this up)