Center for Catholic Education at UD

By Mike Ingram

Several months ago I was running late to attend a Theology on Tap discussion on the concept of holiness. As I was trying to quickly prepare by looking up the definition of holiness in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), I was surprised to find that there was no such entry. Although we never explicitly defined holiness, I remember us discussing that night the distinctions we make between holiness and sacredness.

Left with still without a definition for holiness, I was then on a mission. What is the Catholic Church's definition of holiness? With this question in mind and wanting a specific 'dictionary' definition, I went to my office and began to research.

Of all my go-to books, the 2 books that proved to be most useful were the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults and the documents of Vatican II. While the CCC didn’t have a glossary entry for holiness, the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults did. However, I was disappointed upon reading that they simply define holiness as

“A state of goodness in which a person--with help of God's grace, the action of the Holy Spirit, and a life of prayer--is freed from sin and evil. Such a person, when gifted with holiness, must still resist temptation, repent of sins that may be committed, and realize that remaining holy is a lifelong pilgrimage with many spiritual and moral challenges. The struggles evident in the lives of the saints are instructive when trying to explain and describe holiness.”

Although this was not the explicit definition I was looking for, I found some value in the idea of trying to describe holiness by means of the lives and actions of the saints.

This is similar to what I found in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations) chapter “The Call to Holiness”. The second paragraph under section 40 states,

"It is therefore quite clear that all Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love, and by this holiness a more human manner of life is fostered also in earthly society. In order to reach this perfection the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ's gift, so that, following in his footsteps and conformed to his image, doing the will of God in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor. Thus the holiness of the People of God will grow in fruitful abundance, as is clearly shown in history of the Church through the life of so many saints…”

In light of this definition, this is a nice reminder that we are all called to holiness and called to sainthood. So if it is a quality of character that God calls everyone to, it must be possible as the lives of the saints show us. Consider using this Lent as an opportunity to study the lives of the saints as examples of holiness and how we can offer our lives to God’s will like they did.

Edited by Lindsey Bronder.