God created us for happiness. He wills nothing more than that we share in His own blessedness, and it is for this purpose that God created us in His image and likeness. To be created in the image of God means that we have intellect, free will, and the capacity to love. When we exercise our freedom for the sake of loving God and one another we become like Him. The gift of freedom is thus a capacity God gives to us in order to make our life a gift to others.
To Be Holy is to Love as God Loves
Another word that captures this human vocation to love is holiness. To be holy is to love as God loves. Indeed, Christians often overlook the fact that Jesus elevated and perfected the golden rule, which states, “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12). By making His free self-offering on the Cross — the complete revelation of divine love and the measure of Christian discipleship — He is able to give us a new commandment: “love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). This is the whole meaning of Christian morality — to use our freedom for the sake of charity, for self-gift.
As Christ shows us, charity makes many demands of us and can only be expressed in truth. True and mature Christian charity recognizes that certain acts are evil and to be avoided because they destroy our relationship to God, our self, or our neighbor. Christian maturity is moved to what is good by the truth and beauty of God.
Original Sin
Because of sin, however, to love as God loves is not easy. Original Sin fragments the order and wholeness God established in the beginning. The challenge of becoming like God in holiness, therefore, is most evident in the experience of sin and the woundedness that follows. Through sin we impair our capacity for love by abusing our freedom and using it for selfish purposes, even while deep within our conscience we also experience God calling us to a deeper faithfulness and obedience to the light of truth. Sacred Scripture reveals the profound depth of God’s mercy in dealing with the problem of human sin. Therein, Salvation History tells the story of how God gives humanity a variety of helps to assist us on our path to holiness. We need these helps because of the weakness with which Original Sin affects us.
The first of these helps is God’s law by which he guides us toward the way of life (Deuteronomy 30:19). God’s law was first written on stone tablets at Mount Sinai and then written anew on our hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Baptism. The second help God gives us is among the first fruits of our Baptism, namely, the seeds of those virtues that build us up in holiness, especially faith, hope, and charity. By infusing within us the virtues of Christian living, God empowers us to live as children of light (Ephesians 5:8) who for freedom have been set free from sin (Galatians 5:1).
God’s Greatest Gift to Us
These forms of assistance that God gives to us would not amount to much, however, without the redemption won for us by Jesus Christ. This is God’s greatest gift to us. Through His life and Death, Suffering and Resurrection — the Paschal Mystery — Jesus has not only exemplified perfect holiness of life, but He has also opened for us a wellspring of grace and has given us “power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Jesus said of Himself “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). In becoming one of us, and in being tempted in every way but without ever consenting to sin, the Son of God opened humanity up to the inner life of God’s eternal love (Hebrews 4:15). In becoming flesh, the Word of God has raised human nature up to divine life (2 Peter 1:4). This is why we call Christian morality “Life in Christ.”
Living Life in Christ
A key to living in Christ and receiving this life as a gift is prayer. Prayer is how we meet the gaze of our loving Savior who longs to renew us from within and release us from the bondage of sin. When we encounter Him in prayer, the Divine Physician heals our interior wounds, insecurities and weaknesses.
The liturgy offers us the supreme opportunity for this communion with God. All the Sacraments are an invitation from Christ to encounter His love and receive the spiritual nourishment that renews us and restores us to the happiness for which God made us and the fullness of life. The Sacrament of the Eucharist holds a privileged place in Christian discipleship, as does the Sacrament of Reconciliation. By these two fonts of grace, the divine life of Christ is built up in us and draws us more deeply into the Trinity’s own inner life of blessedness. It is into this most holy place that Jesus calls us when He asks us to follow Him. The challenge of the moral life is simply to respond generously to His call.
