Being Called to Holiness through my initiation into the Church, means being called to believe that human life is immortal because it is a sharing in God’s own life. True holiness means putting on the mind of God – of thinking like His child. It means thinking and living like Jesus thought and lived.
It is our belief that God’s life-force fills all creation, bringing it into existence and sustaining it. It is also our belief that we humans not only share in His life-force but that we have also been made in His image and in His likeness.
These beliefs change – or should change – the way we look at life and creation. This faith-filled way of looking at ourselves and all creation is the beginning of holiness. Why? Because it puts God at the very center of our thinking and lives.
Think about it. If I firmly adhere to these beliefs, I begin living in God’s Kingdom and don’t become seduced by the attractions of this world. The things of this world, whether they are things I own or positions and status I enjoy, are all temporary and finite. They pass with time. I cannot take them with me into the next life. That is why Christ exhorts us to store up those things which we can take into the next life, namely loving memories of people with whom we have shared life – human experiences.
This way of thinking also helps us to become less self-centered, more God and other-centered. We develop our relationship with God through loving relationships with others.
When we are self-centered we cannot have a real relationship with God or anyone else. We find an example of complete selflessness in the person Jesus. He never put Himself before others, even during His suffering and crucifixion.
God has given us, in the Person of Jesus, a wonderful model of how to live. The Call to Holiness is a call to become as much like Jesus as possible.
Some years ago there was a movement which actually made rubber bracelets that had the following question printed on it: What would Jesus do? This is the approach that we need to take. As we are confronted by events in life we simply need to stop and ask ourselves this important question. If we base our reactions to the events in life upon how we think Jesus would have responded, we can never go wrong.
Хрїстóсъ воскрéсе!