In the last issue of this article, I suggested that there are several very important questions that we, in my estimation, must attempt to answer if we wish to respond to the call that God is giving to us to become holy. I wonder if any of my readers took the time to think about how they might answer those questions. They are truly questions which, I believe, we must go back to repeatedly during our life’s journey, expecting that we might change our answers as we continue to spiritually grow. As we grow in our understanding that we are “called to holiness,” we sill also begin to understand in a much more realistic way what “salvation” means and what “being saved” truly means. I think we will also discover that “being saved” doesn’t meant that we will be spared the possibility of “hell” when we die.

It is my humble belief that God did not become incarnate in the Person of Jesus to save us from hell. I do think that He became incarnate to eliminate the human attitude which suggests that salvation is something that we can leave until later, after we take care of more pressing matters.

Attaining salvation should be and must be the most important task in our life. It is connected with the very meaning and purpose of human life. According to the Fathers of the Church, salvation is not so prosaic a matter as saving ourselves, upon death, from damnation but, rather, the deification or divinization of our whole human person in Christ. Salvation involves becoming like unto Christ to the point of identity with Him. It involves acquiring the mind of Christ and indeed it signifies the sharing in His very life. It is the true work of this life. We cannot put anything ahead of this. We may think that focusing our lives on our children or the achievement of success is more important. They are not. The most important thing we can do for our children is to help them discover the meaning and purpose of their lives. Eternity depends on what you teach them.!