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"Be
Holy, Because God is Holy"
Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ!
We read in the First Letter of St. Peter: "Gird up the loins of your
mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be
brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires
of your former ignorance but, as He Who called you is holy, be holy
yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is
written: ‘Be holy because I am holy’" (1: 13-16).
In the Liturgy, when the priest elevates the consecrated gifts saying:
"Holy gifts for the holy", we answer: "One is holy, one is
Lord, Jesus Christ for the glory of God the Father. Amen".
We are called to holiness, because we are children of God Who is
holy, but we recognize at the same time that we are sinners. In the Creed
we proclaim our belief in "One Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church". The
Church is holy because she is the Body of Christ who is holy. But
we, as members of the Church, we remain sinners who need to repent.
St. Ephrem defined the members of the Church as "the assembly
of sinners who walk through repentance to holiness".
The late bishop Fulton Sheen wrote: "I once gave a retreat in a
maximum security prison, where there were 1,979 inmates.
All of them thought, of course, that I had on a white hat and they
had on black hats—that I was good and they were bad. How could I begin?
Well, I began by saying: Gentleman, I want you to know that there
is one great difference between you and me.
You got caught. I
didn't. In other words, we are
all sinners". And commenting on the following verse of one of
the psalms: "I thirst for the living God, when will I appear before
Him?", he writes: "We have a thirst for holiness.
We want to be saints. We
want to be happy, to be at peace on the inside, to be one with the Father.
What is sanctity? Sanctity
is Christ living in me so that His mind possesses my mind and I am
governed by His truth. That's
sanctity. He is in my body, so
that my body becomes a tabernacle. Sanctity
is not only Christ in me, it's making Christ known to others.
It's being loveable. It's
making Christ loveable. When
others see us, they see Christ".
Holiness is a long journey in which we have to struggle so that we
"do not act in compliance with the desires of our former
ignorance.” Great Lent is a
particular time for repentance from our sinful conduct and for deepening
our union with Christ so that He Who is holy may live in us. "I
am the vine,” Jesus said, “you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me
and
I in him bears much fruit, because without Me you can do nothing"
(John 15:5).
I wish you a holy and fruitful Lent. “The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ
and the Love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all".
+ Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros
Eparch of Newton
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