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A Walk in Holiness
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A Walk in Holiness1
A Walk in Holiness1
for Beginners
By: Oyam Atnhoj Sucram
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1 A Walk in Holiness For beginners: The original first appeared in a local monthly newsletter for Saint Joseph Covenant Keepers.
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Personal holiness is all too often misunderstood. The misunderstanding itself is not subject to beginners alone. Often in our walk toward holiness, we can stumble on misconceived or misguided notions, causing us to draw away from that which our Baptism initially called us to seek. The call of Baptism is to embrace a Christian lifestyle. This call from our baptism is to constantly seek a lifelong encounter with the Lord. It can happen where sometimes we come up with very wrong conclusions about our faith and what it is God is calling us to do. We need to be aware of this because what God requires of us and how it is we are to respond to Him is a very large portion of understanding holiness. Holiness or the desire for it, is not simply a portion of the Christan way of life, it is life itself. Drawing towards such holiness does not need to be viewed as a daunting task.
To begin with, here is what the call to holiness is not. Personal holiness is not obtaining high marks or ranking within the Church, amongst family, friends, or society for the sake of recognition. Thinking of Holiness as a name on top of a list of achievements is to misunderstand holiness. Obtaining miraculous powers is not the hallmark of holiness. Thinking of holiness as a constant sense of piety is to understand it wrong. Acts of piety for the sake of “going through the motions,” do not develop real holiness. True piety itself is the result of real holiness. True acts of piety involve a consistent raising of our faculties and needs to God through the grueling mess of life.
In addition, a wrong idea of Piety is one where we may think a stoic look, look of introspection, or holy gestures is maintained as a type of “want to be holy’ veneer for our life. This idea as a behavior cannot be maintained no matter how strong-willed we think we may be. The effects can be sad and frustrating for the person as well as those around them. This veneer of false piety is thin. Eventually, it gets tested, and like an eggshell, it cracks under pressure. False Piety is an outside-only approach to holiness that does not work.
True holiness comes from outside of us and is a constant infusion of God’s grace which is drawn inward into the very depths of our being. We must be willing to remove all that is not of God and allow God in, to replace all our brokenness, silly notions, ego, and false ideologies. This is rudimentarily achieved only through God’s grace and testing. It is with the eventual building in Holiness that we can see Piety as a result of God’s grace working within us and not taking our achievements and sincere intentions and thrusting them in the face of God. True piety comes from a virtue that maintains reverence towards God. It is achieved by a humble heart and by allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us.
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
2 while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God. Heb 12: 1-2
A Walk in Holiness for Beginners (Page 2)
A Walk in Holiness for Beginners (Page 2)
The striving for holiness is never to be approached as an ambitious longing for loftiness even for the sake of such noble and worthy causes as a scholastic knowledge of true faith or even theology. God speaks to us through our hearts and soul, not our heads. But our hearts must be torn open and laid bare through humility and prevailing ourselves to the grace of the sacraments. It is then and only by this means God speaks to us through love, for God is love. This idea of speaking through love should not be confused with sentimentality or emotions. The language of love coming from God is direct and revealing. It challenges and conditions us to receive more, but only to receive it with perfection.
This Love penetrates our very being, as we choose to cooperate with God’s will and follow a constant abandonment of the things of this world. Those things especially include our contrived and imperfect notions which we store up in our heads. Many of our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and perspectives are incomplete and imperfect and become obstacles to God’s love fulfillment with us. Our fallen state because of Original sin still leaves us with minds and eyes that see imperfectly. This imperfection tends to skew our vision regarding what God is allowing to occur in our lives. Our Skewed vision can lead us not to see God’s love in action and even worse to reject it.
God’s desire for us is sainthood. Such sainthood means dying to ourselves. This is living out our faith handed to us at Baptism where our old self dies, and we are born anew. God is given praise not when we act like saints on the outside but when we truly strive after sanctity by allowing Him in. Thus, allowing God’s love in by the removal of as many obstacles as we can find is living like saints. Besides living a life of humility, this also involves obedience. This includes God’s commandments and the truth taught through His Church.
Sanctity is another word used for holiness. Sanctity deals more with the activity of responding to God’s grace and God’s response by bestowing holiness on us. It is with and in sanctity that our soul uses grace poured upon us by a loving God and gives it back to God with love and with a life of praise directed towards God alone. Without God’s grace, there is no Sanctity, and without either no supernatural life is being born within us to prepare us for eternity in heaven. It is in this life that we continually ask and seek for a relationship with God. The life of praise is one where we humbly seek God’s will in all our activities and thoughts throughout the day. It is in this continued relationship with God that we are transformed.
Humility is the first step towards holiness.
Humble people are always at peace, even when they are put to shame because they trust in God and not in the world.
Once you are decently humbled, knowing that left to yourself you cannot even carry out the things that you very much want to carry out, you are getting ready to be used.
Obedience is the second step toward holiness.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”
Luke 6:46
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1 Peter 1:14
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