Holiness

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

One of the objectives of the current Year of Faith is to renew within all of us the pursuit of our universal vocation or call to holiness. Today's Feast of All Saints is a reminder that the life of holiness is not limited to those who have been officially canonized or recognized by the Church. Each of us is called to be a saint. While the lives of some of the saints have provided us with examples of heroic virtue, indeed it is through the circumstances most of us would call ordinary that we are to distinguish ourselves as people set apart.

The observance of All Saints Day originates in the sixth century for the Western Church. It was originally a day on which to honor the Blessed Mother and all those who had died as martyrs. In the Eastern Church during the ninth century, Emperor Leo XI, built a church to honor his beloved wife who had preceded him in death. When he was told that he could not name the church for her, he decided to call it "All Saints" in the hope that she would be included in that number and thus honored by the church's name. He was also responsible for extended the feast to include all men and women who had reached heaven.

The word "holy" in Hebrew simply means "set apart," or "different." Those of us who have been baptized and who believe in the Lord Jesus as our Savior are to be different from others, set apart from the ways of the world.

Some time back, a popular adage was formulated that went something like this: "If you were accused of being holy, would the world find enough evidence to support the charge?"