Mar 16 Mon
Can I be holy just by my own effort?
Only God makes us holy.
We have been called by God to share in the glory of his holiness as his adopted children. “Let us not turn away from our duty to live our whole life - to the last drop - in the service of God and his Church."
Nevertheless, the road is long, like that of the Israelites in the desert, and we often find our strength disappearing and our path becoming steep and difficult. Sometimes, above all, after a period of prolonged interior struggle, a feeling of weariness and indifference could come over us, and open the gates to the temptation to stop fighting. Then we have to react and seek help from Him.
Why do we sometimes feel such tiredness and even discouragement? Perhaps without realizing it, we may have been trying to build up our holiness through our own efforts instead of relying on our Lord. Then He allows a state of interior loneliness to make us understand that holiness without God does not make sense.
“We have a clear guide, which we should not and cannot do without. We are loved by God, and we will let the Holy Spirit act in us and purify us, so that we can embrace the Son of God on the Cross, and rise with him, because the joy of the Resurrection is rooted in the Cross."
Are we still going to place our trust in ourselves, in our own worth, and in the strength of our own will? God has indeed given us some talents. Yet if we try to use them to climb the heights of holiness by ourselves, we will only meet with difficulties, for we would be trying to attain a supernatural goal by human means.
Let us always turn to God our Lord for help. Let us ask him never to allow us to leave him; instead, may we always struggle to be with Him. This is a large part of the inner conversion which God, the Father of goodness, wants to effect in us.
Holiness does not depend on us alone. It depends primarily on God. It is the grace of God which sanctifies us, although our own good will and personal effort must accompany it.
Christ has given us, as a promise of his victory, together with a command which is also a commitment: "Fight". We, Christians, have an obligation that urges us to fight persistently. We know that we are as weak as other men, but we cannot forget that if we use the means available to us, we will become salt and light and leaven of the world; we will be the consolation of God.
Certainly, there will be difficulties. But our Lord invites us to lift our gaze towards the reward that awaits us.
We must struggle as if everything depended on us; and then, we must turn to God with the confidence that comes from knowing that our petition will be heard.