The Universal Call to Holiness

ok today we're talking about chapter 11 of our series as we're looking at the teachings of the church this semester and today's chapter is called the universal call to holiness this is actually one of the major themes of Pope John Paul the second taking up this call this was a big reminder that the Second Vatican Council gave us which we'll get into in just a little bit but again the universal which means of course everyone called to holiness so a reminder of every body every single person in the church and throughout the world is called to be holy and so we're gonna talk about what that means and why that is here and as we go through this particular chapter so first of all though just a quick review last two chapters we were looking at the four marks of the church when we say at the end of the Creed we are one Holy Catholic and apostolic what we mean by that one of course the idea that Christ prayed in the garden that we all maintain our unity as the body of Christ throughout eternity throughout our time here on earth holy the church is holy not because of us first and foremost because we are sanctified by Christ as our head Christ is the head of the body of Christ and then also because of the presence of the Holy Spirit so two members of the Trinity are in a particular way are dwelling within us and in helping guide us and sanctify and make holy the Catholic Church Catholic is the third mark of the church which means universal so every body the church is meant to be something that is offered and extended to every single person and then finally apostolic meaning of the Apostles so this is the faith that was given to the Apostles it was handed on by the Apostles and in fact the Apostles are continued to be present to us in a particular way through the work of our bishops the bishops are the Apostolic apostolic succession is the word that we use there okay so as we talk about the universal call to holiness a couple of key themes first of all we're in it and what we are but what we are asked to do there we go we're asked to do as Catholics and as all people of followers of Christ is to people be people who cooperate with grace now what do we mean by grace you hear the song Amazing Grace and all these other sorts of things and we hear a lot about grace what does it mean grace is the presence of God really kind of working in our lives and sort of that which is being given to us and sort of poured out upon us by God you know and he so he's sort of pouring out his grace his power if you will upon us in some sense it's kind of like you know this is this is something that doesn't work but you know like kind of like pixie dust or magic dust right in that sense grit God's grace that's being sprint you've seen that in movies where things are kind of like the fairy comes and sprinkles things on people right well in a similar way the grace of God is like that God is constantly pouring out and sprinkling upon us His grace not just like little bits and pieces but giving it to us in you know in an infinite quantity of God's grace right but it's that power that comes to us but again what's this is a super important idea we become holy we you know if you think about again we're talking about the universal call to holiness we become holy by cooperating with God's grace so we've talked before about how we can sort of shield ourselves and choose to not act with God's grace but this is such a perfect word this word cooperating because sometimes people talk about God's grace sometimes our Protestant brothers and sisters even talk about God's grace as sort of being something that almost sort of in some ways like annihilates me and I think some people fear to let God work in their lives because they feel like who they are will be destroyed by God and that God will sort of raise up a robot you know or this person and so I am I am this horrible sinner and then when God's grace comes it totally destroys me and makes me into some other person son Christian well that's not really true we God's grace is something that doesn't destroy Who I am it builds on Who I am so Who I am before God's grace is there and God's grace doesn't come to destroy that it does come to destroy our sins but it comes to not destroy Who I am as a person but you rather build on my nature and build on Who I am as an individual so you in in letting God's grace in and deciding to cooperate with God's grace your destroy you're not committing suicide so to speak you're not like you know you who you are does not die completely you you maintain your personality you maintain your identity you maintain all you know all of your gifts and talents that you have but cooperating with God's grace magnifies those and makes them even better so you become an even more who you are not less more who God made you to be you become that identity even more fully when we allow and cooperate with the grace that God is pouring out upon us so we are cooperating called to cooperate if we do that if I cooperate with God's grace here we go it makes me holy it sanctifies me sanctify means to make holy so when I allow God's grace in and I allow it to work in my life and I begin to act on that it makes me holy so if I think about again this universal call to holiness what I need to be doing is recognizing first of all that you are called to be holy I am called to be holy everybody every single person Universal every single person is called to be holy how do we become holy we become holy by acting on and cooperating with God's grace allowing the power that God is pouring out upon me to take root in my heart and to flower and so forth right okay so now we want to think a little bit about in this this is a related topic here we want to there is the the teaching of the church that every body is called to be a priest in some sense okay now we want to look at that what does that mean a priest is here we see the Catholic image offering the sacrifice of Christ right the body and blood of Christ we were remembering the sacrifice is why we look at a crucifix when we're offering mass we are representing the sacrifice that Christ makes on the cross even though of course he's resurrected there's a reap resin tation of that sacrifice at mass so we're offering up to the father the sacrifice of his son this is literally your your body the body of your son Lord and we are then having access but a priest there's been pre before Christianity right and there's other priests and other faiths a priest of other religions or other Colts that have existed throughout the time a priest is always a person who offers sacrifice right it's what has always been understood as whether that's Egyptian priests or Roman priests or Greek priests or whatever cultures you want to go through there's almost every culture has this priest figure who is a person who is there offering sacrifices to some God which is exactly what Catholic priests do offer sacrifice as well but this of course is the true sacrifice it's Jesus right so this idea of a priest what we mean by that is that we say as Catholics in my universal call to holiness in my becoming holy cooperating with God's grace I must recognize that I am called all people are called not just Catholic priests every single person in their baptism is called to be a priest to be a person who offers sacrifice now that doesn't mean that everybody is called to be a Catholic priest in the sense in the minister sense not everybody you have to be ordained and receive special Grace's and so forth and have the bishop ordain you to be a Catholic priest as a minister but everybody is called to be a priest in the sense of we are all called to offer up sacrifices right and so in our baptism we are all baptized it says we will we talk as Catholics in every single person's baptism you've all been baptized you're baptized a priest a prophet in a king okay and we've talked a little bit about that before right a king in the sense that you are baptized to rule and to make decisions but not in the sense of ruling and lording it over people but instead that you are called to be a king in the sense of a person who serves others as Christ the Kings offers his kingship how does Christ offer his kingship he does it through service right not through actually lording it over people you're called to be a prophet in your baptism right to be one who preaches about and goes out and witnesses to the truth of things which are also called and baptize to be a priest so we as Catholics are saying every single person who's baptized is called in his baptized to be a person who offers up to God sacrifices and I ask you this a question here do you think of yourself as a person who God is asking to offer sacrifices up to him do you think that that's your role do you believe that okay you how what kind of sacrifices can you offer right you're not gonna be saying Mass unless you get ordained a priest but the sacrifice is that all of us are called to make as a follower trying to become holy trying to cooperate with God's grace is to offer the sacrifices of our self so literally heat Lord Here I am I offer you myself to do with me what you will every single person can do that every single person can say that prayer I invite you to pray that all the time Lord Here I am here is my body I give you my life show me what you want me to do with my life is it to be a priest is it to be a nun is it to be married whatever it might be okay you can offer sacrifice of your time right you can literally take what you want to do with your time and give that back to God and say Lord I was going to go play video games I'm giving that to you I'm sacrificing that so that I can go work at the homeless shelter or so that I can go collect canned goods so they can go help serve someone who's in need or rake my neighbor's leaves is elderly okay so we can offer a sacrifice of our time we can offer our energy right in the same way we can kind of say I was gonna save some energy for myself and just kind of hang out on the house but Lord here is my energy I'm gonna give that to you in order to do service we can offer our fastings and things in sacrifices that we take on in that way our prayers our sacrifices so we can literally pray and offer up you know the Lord I was gonna go do this thing with my time but I'm gonna go spend some time in prayer and offer that as a sacrifice and I'm gonna offer it for myself I'm gonna offer it for someone else in my school who's in need in fact everything but our sins can be offered up as a sacrifice to God that is a gift to God right everything but our sins and so do you see yourself as being in some way a priest that's what you're baptized to do right that's what you're baptized to be is it to be a priest a purse offering sacrifices and in doing that we become holy we begin we begin to become Saints the Saints that God has made us to be in desires as to be ok so when we think about that the laity we hear that phrase sometimes the laity or all the people who are not minister ministerially priests ordained priests and in anyone else who is not a person who is in a religious community of some kind so the laity is everyone who's not a minister ordained priest and also anyone else who is not a religious brother or sister or a nun ok so that's most of the people that are in the world 99 percent of Catholics are the laity okay now there's a beautiful statement at the Second Vatican Council the Second Vatican Council brought back out and kind of not not a new teaching but a reminding teaching a teaching that maybe had been lost a little bit particularly you know in our culture as I've heard many people relate it got to the point where you know right around the second tie a deacon council and maybe the 1940s and 50s and a lot of the time before that most people assumed that the only people who are called to be Saints were priests and bishops and nuns right those are the holy people and then you had all the lady over here and they were really just kind of called to just kind of stay out of the way or come to Mass and pay your tithing right but just to kind of that there so some people had had loss that the church never taught that but again some people began to kind of think that way so the Second Vatican Council in 1963 through 65 wrote one of these documents one of the pillar documents called lumen gentium which means light to the nation's and this paragraph here what this is saying is that the laity live in the world that is in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations they live in the ordinary circumstance as a family and social life from which the very web of their existence is woven they are called there by God and that by exercising their proper function and led by the Spirit of the gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as 11 and so what we're saying there is a reminder that they are called there by God that's not some sort of accident that you're not just a not a priest and then also that you may work for the same occasion of the world from within so the lady is called to be out in the world kind of working in the world with their co-workers with their friends with their family members to help make the world a holier place from within in the sense that a priest a lot of times as a Catholic priest there are places where if I went in people would would treat that differently but if you're working alongside someone and you go to school with someone there's a real sense in which you can be a witness to them in a different way in a better way so again this is not that the church forgot the vocation of the laity but again maybe it hadn't been emphasized enough so again a reminder what we're called to do is grow in holiness and this is Jesus's statement be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect so we're all called to that Jesus wouldn't call us to be perfect and to grow in holiness if we couldn't do it so some practical ways to grow in holiness are through attending mass as as frequently as possible in the sacraments in general I think Mass and confession in a particular wake helps us grow in holiness through daily prayer through sacrifices and self-denials through doing our ordinary tasks but seeing them as being holy participating in charitable work so doing acts of service for other people and to spread the gospel and try to talk to other people about it when you're doing that you will find yourself growing in holiness in a great deal when you're trying to talk to other people about it so the great example of someone who did that is st. Gianna beretta Molla she's a her the person featured in the chapter in your book and she was a mother and while she was pregnant doctors found a tumor inside her and they encouraged her to abort her child and have the the tumor removed but she's told them if you must decide between me and the child do not hesitate choose the child I insist on it save the baby and so saint john paul ii made her a saint she ended up losing her life in childbirth but her child survived and in fact at the canonization mass her husband and daughter were able to be there at that mass and so she is a great saint I think for the lady for the for the laypeople a person who was married and who had children and and so forth again a reminder that it's not just priests and nuns and monks who are called to be Saints everybody is called to be a saint and then finally the final question others is there is their salvation as their hope for people growing in holiness outside the church and it's a reminder here that the church says others possess elements of salvation from our faith in their lives and so they can be saved other faiths have baptism other faiths believe in the scriptures other faiths believe in God and so forth and so those small things that they share in common with us that they've utilized from the church can help them even those who are technically not Catholic in that sense we consider them to be partially in the church through those sacraments and through those things so even those who do not know of Jesus seek God with a sincere heart and are moved by grace trying their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience even people who are not who are who have not heard of Christ or who are we believe that just by trying to be a good person and in striving to do the will of God and listening to the voice of God on their hearts and their conscience that even through that Christ can help them attain salvation that's from the Catechism and so everyone what we need to remember though is that everyone is best off in the church no matter who you are you're going to be you're gonna find the best version of yourself you're gonna find the happiness that you were destined for inside the Catholic Church and so yes you can attain salvation in some sense by not actually potentially being in the doors of the church but by using elements of the church outside the walls of the church but everyone is best off in the church so you need to go and help your friends and your family and all the people in the world find what it is that they're looking for if you know someone who's searching for the truth or is in misery let them know that what they're what they're looking for is going to be found most fully here in the church so your questions today number one who are the laity who are the lady how would you define the laity number two what is the vocation of the laity what is it that the lady are called to do number three who is called to be holy what people who who is it that is called to be holy number four what are ways in which the lady can grow in holiness so what are some practical ways in which the laity can grow in that and the number five what does it mean to cooperate with God's grace okay so that's all of our questions and that's our class for the day hope you have a blessed week and if I can do anything just give me a and know of my prayers

Channel: Father John Hollowell

Views: 1,927

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Keywords: Jesus, God, Jesus Christ, Catholicism, Catholic, Catholic Church, Hope, Love, Faith, Lumen Gentium, Universal Call to Holiness, John Paul II, Saint John Paul II, laity, priesthood, priesthood of all believers, priest, prophet, king, Priest prophet king, baptism, Mass, sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, conversion, charity

Id: QY3x5EQKycs

Length: 17min 52sec (1072 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 23 2016