Tuesday March 29--Holiness of life. It's simpler than you think.

"Holiness consists not in extraordinary actions, but in performing your duties toward God, yourself and others well."--St Maximillian Kolbe

Many times we sell ourselves short and say, "I can't do the holiness thing.  Too much work."  How we fail to see that living a holy life is doing what's necessary and doing those things which we strive to do, as well as we're possibly able.  Too often we go for the lowest common denominator and we think of only doing the minimum.  If we only do the minimum we receive the minimum.  If we strive to do things well, and strive to share our talent for those things that we do well to others we're being good stewards of the gifts given to us. 

If we believe that the talent we use comes from God, who empowers us through the sacraments to go out and "love and serve the Lord."  You and I will bring a whole new attitude to how we care for the poor, the sick, the suffering, the defenseless and the vulnerable.  Those who we choose to stand with when we love and serve the Lord.  This way brings us that much closer to holiness because we've chosen to stand with those who have no choice.  The Catholic Social teaching of the Church always calls us to imitate Jesus and make a preferential option for the poor.  Those who we stand with have no choice, we do have a choice to stand with them in solidarity.  The more we identify that suffering with the suffering of Christ the more we impel ourselves forward to serve him all people we meet, especially the poor.   We become the Christ for another, and we minister to the Christ who suffers, in the other.

Bishop Oscar Romero wrote along this same vein, "Aspire not to have more but to be more."  How often do we think it's all about what we have to have.  Jesus calls us to a holy life that we might be what we're called to be, holy and blameless by how we do the things we do well.  When we forget ourselves and look to being for others then the action of the Lord works through us to help us that much more effectively.  Thus, coooperation with God's grace keeps us in tune and helps us grow in love and grace in living a holy life.