As I think about the two great feasts that our Church celebrates in August, I am reminded that the call to holiness is a call to embrace a belief in (1) the fact that human life is a sharing in the life of God Himself, and (2) human life is eternal. The Fathers of the Church based their belief in the Jesus message because of His wondrous Resurrection from the dead. Why? Because it helped them wipe out one of humankind’s greatest fears, the fear of death.

So the call to holiness is a call to not fear death but, rather, to truly see it as a means of experiencing eternal life and growing in our union with our Creator. People only fear death because they don’t know what comes after earthly life. We know, through faith, that there is life after death and so, if we believe, we do not fear it as people do who have no faith.

People ask me how I can believe in life-after-death when I have no proof. If I had proof, I wouldn’t need to believe. I have something greater, FAITH IN A LOVING GOD.