The Road to Holiness; Can you find it?

The Road to Holiness; Can you find it?

Reiterating the words of Jesus; “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is Perfect!”  (Mt 5: 48).  What must we need to become perfect; or what is a good description of perfection?  “The state or quality of being flawless, complete, or supreme in excellence.”  (Merriam-Webster).

Being like God is an easy suggestion but imitating his total supremacy in excellence is beyond the scope of the finite mind of man.  Perhaps Jesus was speaking metaphorically, but he was always very direct in his speech.  There may have been some prophets or seers that reached that point, but very few that we have learned about.  However, the road to finding holiness is not an abstract entity that cannot be followed.  It is open to anyone who qualifies themself by learning just what holiness entails.

For many who might reflect on this spiritual essence may just do that; reflect on it.  The requirements needed could be too difficult for most who might begin the trek and lose heart part way through the struggle of adhering to the steps needed.  

The state of being morally pure, spiritually whole, and set apart for a dedicated purpose.  Key dimensions of Holiness: Moral Purity; freedom from sin or corruption, and the embodiment  of absolute righteousness and goodness.  Set apart: in many traditions, it means being separated from ordinary or secular use to serve a higher, sacred purpose.  Wholeness; Etymologically tied to the word “whole.”  It means living an integrated life that is uncontaminated by divided loyalties or worldliness.  (the preceding from the Internet).

One important factor of finding holiness is through the Holy Spirit.  Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken faith in us and to communicate to us new life, which is to "know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ.”  But the Spirit is the last of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be revealed.  St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, explains this progression in terms of the pedagogy of divine “condensension:”   (CCC 684).

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father clearly, but the Son more obscurely.  The New Testament revealed the Son and gave us a glimpse of the divinity of the Spirit.  Now the Spirit dwells among us and grants us a cleared vision of himself.  It was not prudent, when the divinity of the Father had not yet been confessed, to proclaim the Son openly and, when the divinity of the Son was not yet admitted, to add the Holy Spirit as an extra burden, to speak somewhat daringly…By advancing and progressing “from glory to glory,” the light of the Trinity will shine in never more brilliant rays.  (St. Gregory Nazianzus).

Holiness cannot be formed without the presence of the Holy Spirit and our first step towards this entity is the complete adherence of the Holy Spirit that is with us from Baptism. 

Ralph B. Hathaway