Call to Holiness Essay

            In this world we care a lot about instant gratification and material things. We want to make the things we desire as easy to get as we can. Holiness doesn’t get counted out of that. We all want the quickest, easiest way to heaven and don’t want to do any work. However, the Church continues to tell us that going to heaven is impossible on our own and that we need divine help that we need to do a lot of work for. As a result, when the Church started to lose its way in modern society, we didn’t go after it.

            There are many things that we want in life but very few that we will chase after. We only chase after the things that we need like food and shelter. We live our lives for the goal of being rich enough to have food and good shelter. Another thing that we chase after is happiness. We search for it in every nook and cranny of reality but never quite get there. We should be chasing after God if happiness is our goal but the world always feel as if God has failed them in some way. As a result of this lack of faith, as the Church began to fall, we let it.

            We let it fall because the Church calls us to be holy and we as a society simply don’t want to do the work or go through that pain. Jesus calls us to be perfect as God is perfect and we see that as an impossible task. We don’t want to do it. We all think that that is impossible and being a good person should be enough to get into heaven. Saints are things of the past to us and part of a time when being holy was easier since they had less distractions. The Church is telling us that we need God’s grace and the Holy Spirit to fulfill our call to holiness and it’s going to take work. We don’t want to chase after something that seems that impossible and is known to require a lot of work. We have too many things that are easier to get that give us limited happiness.

            The quote by Giussani implies that every Christian needs to chase after the Church and really want God’s grace and love and the Church needs to show us that they can lead us to that goal. This means that we need to stop chasing after things that give limited happiness and really strive for the perfection that Jesus calls us to. This means that we can’t give in to our worldly desires and we must be charitable and virtuous people upholding God’s laws. We must love each other as God has lived us and follow each commandment with joy in our hearts. We must be able to speak Jesus’ name and not feel shame. We must not be scared to go against society but to stand up for our newfound happiness in the name of Jesus.

            Society at this time makes it hard for us to want to work for anything especially something not of this tangible world. We chase after things that are easy to get and make us temporarily happy because God seems like an impossible dream for people that are born holy and with God. We don’t want to go through the struggle of seeking God and staying with him. Being holy is hard and we always chase down the easier route.