A Universal Call to Holiness

In one of his several addresses to the Catholic Community, Monsignor Guissiani uses a quote from T.S. Elliot to describe how the Catholic Church and mankind have equally failed each other. In Elliot's quote, he states that: "if I need something, I chase after it if it goes away." We keep pushing God's call to us aside, as our everyday lives rush by. We are putting off the call to holiness by the fact that we always see that the present time is in fact the wrong time to respond to his call. We see other things as more or equally as important, and we tend to place those things above him. However, along with our physical and mental sluggishness, which makes us lax in this area, it is the fact only caused by the “but [also] the interior sluggishness of our hearts.” As the author Seghers presents in his article, “We [all Christians] need to be clear that there will never be a better time or a better set of circumstances than now to respond wholeheartedly to the call to holiness.” He goes on to say that "now is the acceptable time", and that "the very things that we falsely judge as obstacles are the very means God gives us to draw us to surrender more deeply on Him."


I personally believe that this quote implies for the everyday Catholic to "not be discouraged by by these painful moments of our transformation but to accept that they're a necessary and blessed part of the whole process." "It is essential for all those who want to spend eternity with God." It says in the Bible, (John, Ch 15:5), that "Without [him], we can do nothing. Without  God, sucessfully completing the journey is impossible, but with Him, in a sense, we are already there."

I believe that by "say[ing] who Christ is" without shame, we fully declare ourselves as Christians, and by doing this we are finally accepting his call and his will for us. When we are ashamed to accept him, we are not only rejecting God and all of his great works, but we are failing to fulfill the vows that we promised, and agreed to, both at Baptism and Confirmation.  

Jim Segher, the author of The Call to Holiness, notes that: “an intimate union with God is possible in this life for everyone who will surrender to it, and work toward it with God’s grace.” As we [the Christians of the world] seek the perfect union with God, we only need to accept his will for us, and be constantly pursuing this call.