Called To Be Holy

"Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . ." 1 Corinthians:1-3

As I read the above Scripture, I hope with all my heart, at first, that it is someone extraordinary like Paul, who is called to be holy! Surely, God, you do not mean ME?!!

How can I be holy? I get angry with my son; when my faith seems to evaporate, I fall into fear and despair; sometimes I tell "little white lies"  and I try to justify that by saying I am only trying to spare someone's feelings. If someone is evil against me, I want to lash back, to do it right back to them.

Fr. Richard Rohr says, "Jesus does not define holiness as separation from evil, as much as absorption and transformation of it. [Rohr, Fr. Richard, http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/]

When I look back at my difficult life growing up, I realize that I DID absorb evil! In my circumstances, as the baby in the family, I could not fight back against the mistreatment and trauma by utilizing brute force. I had no power. In my childish mind, it seemed the best equation to counter all the negative forces coming at me was to reflect back love, humility, peace. It seemed to me that if I countered all the negatives with more anger, I would become bitter and angry inside, I would perhaps unleash an even greater family conflict and I would not survive.

What started out as a strategy of self-preservation became an outlook of love! I decided as a matter of affirmation that I would not let strife, anger, hatred  etc. overtake me and rule my heart.

Years later, I discovered that this attitude is the basis of the Prayer of St. Francis: "Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love. . . ."

And this is what Jesus embodied. The greatest single weapon against all the evil in the world is not the firepower of war or hate, or anger or blackmail or persecution or physical assault or pride etc.

The greatest weapons against evil are peace, acceptance, forgiveness, tolerance, humility and even joy!

In other words, LOVE.

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