UNIVERSAL CALL TO HOLINESS
As the Catholic Church celebrates the 50 years of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, it is great to remember the foundational magisterial document from "The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church" particularly those that LUMEN GENTIUM (LG) has highlighted to remind all the baptized of a historical church landmark that recognized in the church documents our universal call to holiness: "All in the church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for it, are called to holiness."(40)
According to LG, this call to holiness derives its origin and model after its preeminence in the life and ministry of Jesus. Holiness is a gift from God that Christ bestow in Spirit upon us so that we would be strengthened in manifesting the God's spirit of "compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience" in daily moments of our everyday lives (LG,40,cf. Col 3:12).
Holiness, as a way of life, is deeply grounded from the greatest commandment of all, i.e., love of God and neighbor (LG, 40). As such, our life witness, emanates from and is manifested by own actions according to our individual gifts and talents, as we embrace our dynamic calling to live a life of embodied hope and love in our home, work, and in our various ministries in the Church and in the whole of society. As we manifest genuine compassion, kindness and acts love and hospitality to those around us, we gradually become, not just in the closer to created image of but also, in the likeness of Jesus Christ.
One powerful image that the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church uses to invite deeper us into this universal call to holiness, is that of KENOSIS (self-emptying). In God's desire to dwell with us and among us, God humbly and intimately entered humanity by embracing all our human situations and experiences, even at the point of suffering and death.
Thus, in Christ's incarnation, God has not only shown us the greatest and penultimate challenge of love - self-emptying, suffering for and laying down his life for his friends.(LG,42) May we be imbued by God's grace to come closer to Christ's example of living and loving life to the fullest!
In our recalling and our claiming of our universal call to holiness, may we continue to be inspired and to be seized by the Spirit in our desire to respond to our vocational calling, that is, to be a living sign of God's love and holiness in the midst of our own ordinary everyday lives.
