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How To Become Holy: It Ain’t Gonna Be Easy

The one goal every Catholic should have is to be holy. Now, holiness looks very different in different people. God did not create humans to be cookie-cutter images of Himself or each other. Holiness can look like Mother Teresa, or Solanus Casey, or John Paul II, or Elizabeth Lesuer. No matter who we are, what we do for a living, what our situation is, one thing is certain: we are made to be holy.

Peter Kreeft, Catholic philosopher and writer, in his book How To Be Holy: First Steps in Becoming a Saint, says that God can sanctify us in two ways.

God makes us holy in two opposite ways, in the two parts of our lives. First, He makes us holy through our own will, our own free choice of faith and hope and love. (For divine grace does not turn off human free will; it turns it on.) And second, He also sanctifies us against our will, through suffering, because the other way of sanctifying us, through our own will’s choices is not strong enough, because our faith and hope and love are not strong enough. So He sanctifies us also through what He allows to happen to us against our will, in other words, suffering.

This makes perfect sense, of course. It is like the old prayer: “God, make me patient. But not yet.” Our own will and desire are simply not strong enough to overcome the weakness of sin.

How can suffering make us holy? Doesn’t it just make us cantankerous and bitter? Well, it certainly can. But if we recognize that suffering (although not pleasant) comes with gifts, we can allow it to sanctify us.

Illness can make us dependent upon others. If a person is strong-willed, this dependency can be grating. It can also be an opportunity to practice humility and patience and thankfulness. When we grieve the loss of a loved one, we are certainly allowed to be saddened. Yet if we are set upon holiness, we can use that loss to remind ourselves that life is short and precious. Our loss can spur us to be mindful of every moment God allows us.

Being holy is hard. We know this: just look at our world. We recognize holiness so easily because it’s rare; it’s like finding a gem while we are shoveling out the barn. If holiness were easy to achieve, everyone would do it. But holiness is only for those who pray, over and over, in the face of both good times and bad: “Thy will be done. Thy will be done.”

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Why Am I Here? To Become A Saint

“Why am I here?” It is an eternal human question. We all want to have a meaningful life … but what is that meaning? Young people, graduating from high school and college, ask this. We ask ourselves this when we are in despair, when we are hopeful, when we are lonely. It is the question of youth, of middle age, of the elderly. Why am I here? God answers, “To be holy. To become a saint.”

Of course, we all have our own paths in life. We have different jobs, different callings, different vocations. We go through various stages of life, and hopefully learn, as we go, more about God, ourselves and others. But God has only one plan for everyone: to be holy, to become a saint.

“Me?” you may ask. “Me? A saint?”

“Oh, no. That is only for really holy people. Extraordinary people. People who pray ALL the time. I’m not like that.”

What is that like? What does it truly mean to be a saint, and why is God calling all of us to this? One of the documents from Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Light of Nations), says there is a “universal call to holiness.”

[A]ll Christ’s faithful, whatever be the conditions, duties and circumstances of their lives—and indeed through all these, will daily increase in holiness, if they receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and if they cooperate with the divine will. In this temporal service, they will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world. (41)

Two sentences answer the question, “Why am I here?” But those two sentences are “heavy duty.” We must trust God, wherever we are, whatever we are doing. We must be open to faith, even when it seems dim and distant. We must acknowledge that our heavenly Father has a plan for us, and we must conform our lives to that plan. We must serve others always, making known to all God’s love for them in our daily actions.

“Why am I here?”

Therefore, all the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state. Indeed they have an obligation to so strive. Let all then have care that they guide aright their own deepest sentiments of soul. Let neither the use of the things of this world nor attachment to riches, which is against the spirit of evangelical poverty, hinder them in their quest for perfect love. Let them heed the admonition of the Apostle to those who use this world; let them not come to terms with this world; for this world, as we see it, is passing away. (42)

Go. Become a saint.