July 24 The Heart of St. Paul
People set many goals themselves in life, but St. Paul makes it clear that there is only one goal we must attain. He writes in the First Letter to the Thessalonians: “For you know what instruction we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. For God has not called us for uncleaness, but holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” (1Thess 4:2-3a,7-8)
St. Paul asks us to do something that may frighten us: to pray to God to make us holy. We have our own ideas of what holiness is all about, and they deal with the heroic actions and lives of the Saints. But human beings are not cookie-cutter copies of each other. While our common goal is holiness, God respects our uniqueness and therefore our holiness will be unique. There has already been a St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The Church has already made Saints of the likes of Edith Stein and Vincent DePaul. Our holiness is going to be in the way God wants us to be holy.
There are some points all of us share in common. We must lead an upright moral life and be an example for others through our practice of the virtues and overcoming our passions. We must pray daily and receive the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist and Penance as often as we can. Finally, we must listen carefully to God’s voice and pay attention to the needs of others, ready to sacrifice and offer all to God.
Holiness does not happen at once, but by means of the Holy Spirit gradually reshaping our life, helping us to respond to God’s voice. It has been said that the greatest tragedy for a person is that he or she did not become a saint. Let us, like St. Paul, hear the voice of the Lord and always seek to do his will. If we can accomplish that, then our life will not be a tragedy, but a triumph.
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