We Are All Called To Perfect Holiness
Earlier this week I was confronted with a concept I had never considered before: what if the story of the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30) applied in its most radical form to us all? What if God’s perfect will for all of us is to completely detach ourselves and follow him? One immediately assumes this cannot allow for married life, and even St. Paul advises in 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 to remain unmarried if one can help it. Does this mean the entire world is called directly to the religious life? What does this imply about married life?
This suggestion—while compelling—didn’t sit right with me. Surely, in God's perfect will, he calls some to married life. In the very beginning, he said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18); and he made Eve. I don't think God's first gift to man (other than life) would be something not in his perfect will.
The Catechism states in paragraph 873, “The very differences which the Lord has willed to put between the members of his body serve its unity and mission. For ‘in the Church there is diversity of ministry but unity of mission. To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing in his name and by his power. But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly office of Christ….’” One state cannot exist without the others, for each is necessary to support the others. Therefore, God must call us differently in his perfect will, and thus the Church recognizes three different main vocations.
The Church does recognize consecrated life as having “objective superiority,” which is something to be addressed in another article. However, we must address the idea that due to this concession and a lack of full understanding, people have developed the mentality that absolute holiness through contemplative prayer and mystical experiences is reserved for a select few within the few that recognize their calls to religious life.
Fr. Thomas Dubay, in chapter 11 of his book “Fire Within,” analyzes the universal call to holiness and the misconception of a “two-tiered holiness” (which does not exist). Dubay wrote, “de facto fewness is no argument at all against de iure oughtness….We are all therefore called to the heights of prayer that alone make this heroic virtue [of the Gospels] possible.” In her own writings in “Interior Castle,” St. Teresa says of married life, “this is certainly a desirable state and there seems no reason why they should be denied entrance into the very last of the mansions; nor will the Lord deny them this if they desire it.”
Not all are called to religious life, but all are called to perfect holiness. We must be willing to sacrifice all we love and desire before we can truly live for Christ and see his will for us clearly, as he emphasizes in Matthew 16:25. St. Bernard of Clairvaux estimated that one-third of all people are called to religious life, but the number of people answering that call is staggeringly low. I think it is no surprise, though, when we recognize our unwillingness to sacrifice. If we truly trust God, we will stop clinging to anything other than him. If we sacrifice our personal plans and open our hearts to his, then no matter the vocation, we will unite ourselves to him in true holiness.
