On Holiness

 The Lord has ordained me to write on holiness, regardless of how unholy and wretched I am. This is what I understand about holiness. Holiness is an attribute of God, to what I understand it is of God whole. Things holy are things near to God, having a special proximity to God which I understand is measured by similarity. The more similar a thing is to God, then the holier is that thing. As such, man compared to the animals is holy by virtue of his rational immortal soul. Yet even among man there are degrees of holiness.

I am not ordained to write about the theory of holiness, but primarily the practice of holiness, with theory serving only as the basis. Why is holiness important? Because we are called to holiness. Why are we called to holiness? For the holiness that we possess shall determine our reception of the greatest good that is God in heaven, or even our eternal loss of God, in what we know as hell. Now our fundamental holiness or righteousness is not merited of any of our works, but by the blood of Christ alone.

Yet we still have to cooperate with the grace merited by the blood of Christ in order to fully realize the holiness in ourselves. In other words, while our fundamental salvation is not a wage for any of our works, we still have to do works in order to maintain that salvation. Then, works are insufficient but necessary for salvation. Thus the works that I am about to explain are the kind of works that advances one's holiness for the maintenance, sustenance, and perfection of one's own salvation.

There are 2 works of holiness, the works of love and the works of faith. The works of love are known by most people, despite the controversies on what constitutes as love. The works of faith are lesser known because it is to my observation that most people are practical atheists, some by their own rejection of God and some by no fault of their own. The relationship between works of faith and works of love is that faith supports love, and love is the manifestation of faith.

The works of faith are constituted by 2 things, prayer and study. Prayer is the foundation of all spiritual life, without prayer man dies. What is prayer? Prayer is both simple and difficult at the same time. Scripture attests to this that we do not know how to pray. However, in practice, prayer is as simple as speaking to God, because that is the essence of prayer. The purpose of prayer is 4 things, glorification, thanksgiving, forgiveness, and petition. We pray to praise God, to thank God, to ask for His mercy, and to ask Him for graces.

To praise God is to praise the Supreme Good for what He is, the Supreme Good. It is both useful and an end of its own. It is an end of its own as it is the final purpose in a sense, to praise the Goodness that is God as an expression of our love to God. It is useful as it builds within us respect and honor towards God, or piety. To thank God is to acknowledge everything that He has done for us, which is only good. This also has the same properties as praising God. It is an expression of love, respect, honor, and piety.

We ask mercy from God for we sin always, the perfection of this asking of mercy is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We cannot absolve ourselves of our own sins, only the priest in persona Christi can do that. When asking for the Lord's mercy, we also ask for grace so that we do not sin anymore in the future. The true purpose of asking for mercy in personal prayer is to remind ourselves of our sins, to commit not to sin again, and to remind ourselves that God is rich in mercy and forgiveness, for He is Mercy itself.

The final end of prayer, petitions, are important as God Himself commands us to ask of Him graces in order we shall obtain those graces. In my experience, God wants us not to pray many things but pray this only, "Give us the graces necessary to do Your Will." This is perfectly manifest in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Will be done...," "Give us our daily bread". The petitive prayer, when done in full faith, is truly efficacious and will give us the graces necessary to do God's Will, which is what advances us in holiness.

That is the formal kind of prayer, where we pray to God as God. However, there are times where we seek to pray to God as a Friend, and this is where informal prayer comes in. Informal prayer is simply the pure and honest expression of our self to God, whatever that is. It might be anger, happiness, sadness, or even despair. Then we surrender ourselves to God and sink in His ocean of love and mercy. Here we speak anything to God, but we must be aware still of our relationship to Him. Why do we pray essentially? To be holy, to be closer to God. So if our prayers are done in disrespect of Him, then it is no prayer, but perhaps only self-glorification.

It is not necessary to worry ourselves too much on recognizing God's answer to our petitions. Some effort on our part is necessary, that is a general awareness of God's graces, but at important occassions God will make you aware of His answer, through any source that exists in this world. Once God has answered your prayer, do not forget to praise and thank Him for answering your prayer and for being very loving to us. At one point of life, God may graciously reveal Himself in a more intimate way, perhaps through interior voices or through other forms of communication, unique to each person and individual.

Study is principally the study of God's Word, the totality of His Word, that is Christ, as manifest in the teachings of the Church which is the Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Tradition. Why do we study His Word? To understand Him and His Will more and so we may be made holy by our work of His Will that is Love. We also study His Word to love Him better, for you cannot love what you do not know or understand. Now our knowledge of God on this temporal earth may be inadequate, but it can still be true and substantial, that is the means by which we love God.

These 2 works, the work of prayer and the work of study, has one unified purpose, equipping us with the resources necessary to do the Divine Will. That Divine Will is of course the works of love. The works of love are the main and ordinary means of becoming holy and thus the perfection of our salvation. Conventionally and I agree upon this, the works of love are divided into the corporal and spiritual works of love or mercy. The corporal works concerns with the body while the spiritual works concern with the soul. 

In this writing I wish to unite those 2 works of love into a single expression, "Preach the Gospel". To preach the Gospel and the Good News of the Kingdom of God is not merely the preaching of the Christian faith, but also all good works of love of God's Will. For all the works of love in some way preach the Christian faith that has its summation in Love, for as Scripture attests, God is Love. In taking care of the body we empower the soul to do acts of love, and in taking care of the soul we lead the soul to God. So the greatest act of love is not divided but united into a single act of love for all people, just as God is One Single Act of Love.

The practice of love of course begins with one self, but with proper self love and not selfish love. True love is universal, just, and merciful. True discrimination is the differentiation of treatment according to different needs, and not by any other kind of difference. Then love may spread to the family and to our friends, until it spreads to the entire world. Love does not begin with great works, but with the simple works, for if man is found trustworthy on small works then they shall be entrusted with the greater works. It may begin with simply speaking to our family members and friends, hearing their problems, supporting them, and praying for them. 

The work of love is of course simply obedience to the Divine Will. It is not just any work of love that advances our holiness, but that work of love which is united to the Divine Will. Without the Divine Will, that is the Supreme Good, our work becomes meaningless in the eternal run. Thus all of this work, from prayer to studies to love, is useful only when done as fulfillment of the Divine Will, which it certainly is. With that, I conclude my writing for now.