Holiness

[Laurie]

On 7/6/2018 at 12:32 PM, Sponsa-Christi said:

I was present at the Rome conference. From the context of the talks, I took all the mentioning of: "all vocations being equal" as meaning: "all forms of consecrated life are equal." E.g., that a vocation to religious life wasn't higher than a call to consecrated virginity, etc. 

The conference was about the various forms of consecrated life, and how they relate to each other and the Church. So there really wasn't any discussion about comparing consecrated life to marriage or the lay state. 

Being there in person you heard more than I did. I have listened to all the sessions on Youtube (but I have less thorough access to the workshops which I haven't seen recorded, so I've only seen 2nd hand notes).

From the formal talks, I don't agree with your conclusion. There was a lot of emphasis on the common roots that all vocations share, and it was made clear they were talking about all the faithful  (whether clergy, lay, or consecrated), most particularly in regard to living the evangelical counsels.  It was crystal clear that baptism is the font from which the Sequela Christi flows (in many more forms than just poverty, chastity, and obedience) and only in light of that commonality can we even begin to discuss the various forms of consecrated life.

23 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

The vocational states of life when considered objectively do have a hierarchy, but when vocation is considered for an individual(s) or subjectively, nothing can be higher than God's Will for a person(s).

Where the very ordinary lay person is concerned from my experience, the distinction is not grasped.  Because it is not grasped, there is a thinking that spirituality is for the expertise in the higher states of life - not for the rest of us who can get on with keeping the commandments and the laws of The Church and not be concerned with "all the other stuff".  To my way of thinking this is one of the cracks in The Church through which secularization is taking a hold.

I agree. And I think the distinction is not grasped because a lot of scholars are clergy or consecrated and they quite understandably concentrate on studying and writing about and clarifying their own vocations. There has been a real lack, I will go so far as to say negligence, in thinking and writing about the lay vocation(s) with the depth, dignity and beauty that, JP II for one, embraced. He left a treasure trove that few have chosen to focus on.

[little2add]

But if Christ wished to live on and continue his work in the Church, the first thing he had to do was to provide for the continuance of his sacerdotal and mediatory function. Above all, if Christ wished to renew the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages and all over the world as the sacrifice of the New Law in the Holy Mass, he had to allow other men to share in his priesthood. For if there is to be a true sacrifice, there must be a priesthood ordained and authorized by God from whose hands God will accept the sacrifice.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders  most selfless sacrifice a mankind can do on this world.  To follow the footsteps of Jesus as a priest truly is  holy 

on a side note;  I attended a catholic wedding today the priest sermon  for the couple brought me to tears. So insightful, so eloquent, it was just Beautiful beautiful and truly unforgettable

Edited July 8, 2018 by little2add

[Laurie]

15 hours ago, little2add said:

But if Christ wished to live on and continue his work in the Church, the first thing he had to do was to provide for the continuance of his sacerdotal and mediatory function. Above all, if Christ wished to renew the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages and all over the world as the sacrifice of the New Law in the Holy Mass, he had to allow other men to share in his priesthood. For if there is to be a true sacrifice, there must be a priesthood ordained and authorized by God from whose hands God will accept the sacrifice.

I agree with everything you said. What I would add is without married couples & children, there would be no one to receive the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages. Christ laid his life down for the Church, His people. They are initiated into being His people through the ministry of the clergy who bring us all the sacraments. But there'd be no Church & no one to initiate without marriage.

[Guest]

If there was no marriage and children, there could be no Holy Orders and priestly vocations - no Church.

[fides' Jack]

On 7/5/2018 at 11:16 PM, Laurie said:

That depends.

1. There is a sense in which some vocations are objectively higher than others. That sense hinges on the Trinity. Some vocations, in some ways, have something about them that points to the Divinity in a very special way. In this sense, contemplative nuns are objectively higher than active sisters. The reason for this is that contemplative life creates a space to focus, like no other vocation does, on listening to & adoring God, single-heartedly, with ardor, and unceasingly.

But don't forget -- theologians have pointed out that the contemplative vocation being higher is due *to fallen human nature*. It is due to the fallen state that we mortals cannot seamlessly combine  contemplation with active apostolate. Which means the capacity to combine contemplation with active service is actually the highest vocation of all. We humans forfeited that, however, due to original sin. Therefore, the ways in which we serve God have become splintered.

The bottom line is, any sense in which any vocation is "highest" has everything to do with the Trinity and nothing to do with the individual. God calls *this person* to a "higher vocation" *for His own reasons*. Anyone who thinks he or she is "higher" for having been called to a "higher vocation" is delusional.

Hierarchies exist, for us, to offer clarity about the most important things, and the things that are crucial for our salvations, for ALL OF OUR salvations. Monastic religious don't exist for themselves. They exist to pour themselves out in silence & contemplation and to be a beacon of the heavenly kingdom. They exist to help fulfill God's grand plan of bringing His beloved people safely to shore. Their special status is not for themselves alone. They are, uniquely, a banner that leads us all to the promised land. No one else carries that banner. They are ahead of us all, they are above all of us, in that respect.

2. The sense in which all vocations are equal is only understood by flipping the scenario above, and looking at it from the point of view of a specific person. Person A is called. She fulfills her vocation. That is all God asks of her. You don't need to know for the purposes of this exposition what Person A's vocation was. She could be a monastic, an active religious, diocesan hermit, a dedicated single, a mother who has not been blessed with children, a mother of many. It doesn't matter. If she has done what God has asked of her she has fulfilled His will EQUALLY amongst all others who have also done His will.  Her vocation is 100% equal to all other vocations. She has fulfilled it, good & faithful servant. Period.

3. There are consecrated, especially in this day and age, who use numerous excuses to avoid doing what Christ asks of them. But let's not pin that on anyone else. If they want to use one truth, for example, that all vocations are equal, as a reason to half a$$ their own vocations, that's on them. Their error or grave negligence doesn't diminish the truth of the statement.

 

 

Basically, you're saying that the most any one person can do, their highest calling, is to do what God wills for them.  And I absolutely agree with that, completely.  My beef with this position comes when people claim that when 1 person does God's will for them 100%, and another person does God's will for them 100%, that it somehow makes them equally holy, or just equal in general.  That's really not the case.  

God calls some people to a greater holiness than other people.  That's the simple truth.  Not all vocations are equal.  Objectively speaking, a religious vocation is holier than the married life.  The early Church fathers noted this on many occasions.  

On 7/6/2018 at 1:03 PM, BarbaraTherese said:

What can be higher than God's Will?

Absolutely nothing.  But that doesn't mean that one person submitting to God's will can't be more or less pleasing to God than another person submitting to His will.  

I think we could argue about the definition of the word "holy", and argue about whether one person doing His will is holier than another person doing His will.  That really depends on the definition.  But certainly, God loves some people more than others, and some people are more pleasing to Him.  I would say that the level of being pleasing to Him is not solely based on the level at which a person does His will.

Edit: removed extra apostrophe... how embarrassing!

13 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

If there was no marriage and children, there could be no Holy Orders and priestly vocations - no Church.

It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass. ~ St. Pio of Pietrelcina 

Edited July 9, 2018 by fides' Jack

[Sponsa-Christi]

11 minutes ago, fides' Jack said:

Basically, you're saying that the most any one person can do, their highest calling, is to do what God wills for them.  And I absolutely agree with that, completely.  My beef with this position comes when people claim that when 1 person does God's will for them 100%, and another person does God's will for them 100%, that it somehow makes them equally holy, or just equal in general.  That's really not the case.  

God calls some people to a greater holiness than other people.  That's the simple truth.  Not all vocations are equal.  Objectively speaking, a religious vocation is holier than the married life.  The early Church fathers noted this on many occasions.  

Absolutely nothing.  But that doesn't mean that one person submitting to God's will can't be more or less pleasing to God than another person submitting to His will.  

I think we could argue about the definition of the word "holy", and argue about whether one person doing His will is holier than another person doing His will.  That really depends on the definition.  But certainly, God loves some people more than others, and some people are more pleasing to Him.  I would say that's the level of being pleasing to Him is not solely based on the level at which a person does His will.

Edit: removed extra apostrophe... how embarrassing!

This reminds me of that line in the Litany of Humility: "That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it."

Also, I'm pretty sure that God loves Our Lady more than He loves me, and that Our Lady had a higher vocation than I do.

[fides' Jack]

Just now, Sponsa-Christi said:

This reminds me of that line in the Litany of Humility: "That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it."

Also, I'm pretty sure that God loves Our Lady more than He loves me, and that Our Lady had a higher vocation than I do.

Exactly!  

[truthfinder]

5 hours ago, Sponsa-Christi said:

This reminds me of that line in the Litany of Humility: "That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it."

Also, I'm pretty sure that God loves Our Lady more than He loves me, and that Our Lady had a higher vocation than I do.

Precisely!

I think in Therese's Story of a Soul, she writes about how she couldn't understand how God could give more graces to some people.  One of her sisters took two water glasses of different sizes and filled both with water. The one clearly had more water, but both were equally full - so it is with our souls. (Also reminds me of a couple years ago, a priest preached on the different levels of heaven and how some people are rewarded more.  Some people certainly didn't think that was 'fair'.) Jealousy over spiritual advancement is just as dangerous as any other jealousy or envy.

[Guest]

 

   http://jimmyakin.com/2006/08/who_does_god_lo.html

2 hours ago, truthfinder said:

Precisely!

I think in Therese's Story of a Soul, she writes about how she couldn't understand how God could give more graces to some people.  One of her sisters took two water glasses of different sizes and filled both with water. The one clearly had more water, but both were equally full - so it is with our souls. (Also reminds me of a couple years ago, a priest preached on the different levels of heaven and how some people are rewarded more.  Some people certainly didn't think that was 'fair'.) Jealousy over spiritual advancement is just as dangerous as any other jealousy or envy.

As I stated previously, the gift to one is a gift to all because all gifts are given for the good of all, for the good of The Church. We ought to rejoice in the gifts to others and be sad at the failings.

[Laurie]

I think there are a lot of layers in this discussion, and while I think some good points have been made, I don’t agree with all the conclusions.

To say some vocations are higher than others doesn’t mean Christ calls some to a higher level of holiness than others. To say He does would mean you could plot the Eternal Salvations of everyone on a grid, with every single person landing at some fixed point, in relation to everyone else. And you’d have to be able to say that every single person is higher than or lower than this or that other person, in heaven. To say THAT, I think, is to miss the entire point of Heaven and the Blessed Trinity themselves.

The whole point of heaven is that, in the Beatific Vision, I myself am fused with the Trinity. I am fulfilled, 100%, and 100% perfected, and 100% in union with God. Forever. That union is based upon who God made & called me to be and how I cooperated with Him in that call.

If everyone is fully fused with & perfected in a union with Christ, we are all as close to Him as possible. No one *is closer to* Him (or closer to the 3 Divine Persons, to be accurate) than any other person is. Because you can’t get any closer than total union with the Beloved. There’s no scenario where some are only sort of united to Him, or united to Him in some lesser way, with others being fully united to Him.

To say that Christ loves His mother more than me is both true and not true. On the one hand, of course he does. And on the other hand, of course he doesn’t. He spilled every last drop of His blood for her. He did exactly the same for me. But then again, on the other hand, *she is his mother*. She is the only one He loves as mother. So of course He loves her uniquely and in a way He loves no one else. All those things are true.

To jump from Our Lady’s unique role in salvation history, to then say that X vocation (e.g., Carmelite nun, Therese Martin) is higher than another (e.g., marriage, Zelie Martin) and therefore God called Therese to a higher level of holiness than her mother is, I think, an opinion that is engulfed in a worldly view.

All of our vocations on earth exist for the Church herself in her pilgrimage to God. Some vocations are higher because of the role they play in advancing the perfection of the Church herself and bringing about the salvations of all. But to think that means that in heaven all the cloistered nuns will be higher than all the mothers is a pretty wild leap.

We know there are rewards in heaven (the crowns of martyrdom and virginity being two – I suspect there are also rewards we will only learn about once we get there). But the rewards themselves are separate from the vocations. A woman can be consecrated as a virgin and then decide to lose her virginity anyway. The vocation and the reward are 2 separate things.

If we are going to start slicing and dicing vocations & holiness & rewards (from our own limited, earthly points of view) it gets very messy, very quickly. Cloistered Dominican nun, virgin, non-martyr. Mother of 5, martyr, non-virgin. Are you really going to say one is “holier” and one is “higher” *in heaven* than the other? How one earth would any of us know?

We know, through Divine Revelation, that certain people have very special roles in salvation history (Our Lady, St. Joseph, Moses, St. Peter). Those roles and their places in salvation history have been *partially* revealed to us. To leap from that partial revelation to conclusions about everyone else who has ever lived and where they will land in heaven, in relation to everyone else, isn’t something that I think is discernible.

Likewise, we know some vocations are considered higher by the Church than others. (See my point about contemplative religious a few posts above, and why they have a special role.) But I see zero basis to conclude that a higher vocation equals a higher level of sanctity, when all is said and done.

I’m also puzzled that the discussion went from: some vocations are higher > and those people are holier > and Christ loves those people more/He loves some people more.

Christ is going to have a unique love for his Mother and His foster father St. Joseph. He’s also going to have a unique love for his patriarchs. And his prophets. And his virgin-martyrs. And his martyrs. And his martyrs in white, as JP II was. And he also has a unique love for every married couple and every family. He has a unique love for the mentally ill who were not well enough to embrace any vocation other than their own illnesses. He has a unique love for the babies who died at 1 day old.

There’s just no way to slice & dice & weigh all of that and say, “These people are holier.” “These people are higher.” “He loves these ones more.” To try to do that is to not grasp the essence of Divine Love.

On 7/9/2018 at 5:20 PM, truthfinder said:

I think in Therese's Story of a Soul, she writes about how she couldn't understand how God could give more graces to some people.  One of her sisters took two water glasses of different sizes and filled both with water. The one clearly had more water, but both were equally full - so it is with our souls.

I've always loved this teaching from St. Therese!

I didn't quote anyone directly above because I was responding to various things, not all of which were said directly, and not all of which anyone here necessarily thinks.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Laurie

[linate]

all ya'll hella more holy than me, with this deep conversation. :D

[Ash Wednesday]

My one word answer to the original question was just going to be "prayer" 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[linate]

it'd be interesting to compare it to the love of a parent. do parents love kids to different degrees? it's not politically correct, but i wouldn't rule out some honest parents saying they do love some more than others. i remember one time though i compared it to God's love..... if God loves us all unconditionally, how can he love one more than another? or in other words infinite. how can he love someone more than someone else who he already loves infinitely? are all these concepts i'm using like infinite love just ideas of men, and not the mind of God?

[fides' Jack]

19 hours ago, Laurie said:

If everyone is fully fused with & perfected in a union with Christ, we are all as close to Him as possible. No one *is closer to* Him (or closer to the 3 Divine Persons, to be accurate) than any other person is. Because you can’t get any closer than total union with the Beloved. There’s no scenario where some are only sort of united to Him, or united to Him in some lesser way, with others being fully united to Him.

Wow - I just discovered the "quote selection" feature.  amesome!

I think the point is that 100% of 1 person is not the same as 100% of another person.  So, yes, I believe that God could, if He wanted to, project people's different levels on a graph or chart and show how each is different.  I do believe He loves some people more than others.  The obvious example is His Blessed Mother - I would think He should love Our Lady more than He should love me.  I don't know if that's a theologically accurate statement, but that's how it seems to me.  And if there's just one single example, it negates the entire idea of "everyone is equal in Heaven".  

Or is Our Lady just the 1 exception to the rule?  And if there's 1 exception, why not more? 

Priests are indelibly marked by the sacrament of Holy Orders.  They remain priests for all eternity.  That bestows on them certain powers, as well as certain responsibilities, for all eternity.  People who are not priests, then, do not partake to the same degree, or at the very least all the same actions, as priests do in Heaven.  Do priests get another exception to the rule?  

What about martyrs?  

And also, what about the angels?  We know there are definitely hierarchies to them.

17 hours ago, linate said:

it'd be interesting to compare it to the love of a parent. do parents love kids to different degrees?

I think the analogy of a parent is useful when it's kept simple, but I don't think God's love can be quantified the same way as a human's love can.  Additionally, God is much more to us than a simple Father.  He has other equally important roles that human parents don't have.  For these reasons I don't think we can use this analogy as an argument for why or why not some people might be loved more by God, or why some paths in life might or might not be objectively holier than others.

Interestingly, mathematically, 2 x infinity (or for simplicity, infinity + 1) can be described as being equal to infinity and not equal to infinity, simultaneously.

[Laurie]

1 hour ago, fides' Jack said:

Wow - I just discovered the "quote selection" feature.  amesome!

It is!

 

1 hour ago, fides' Jack said:

I think the point is that 100% of 1 person is not the same as 100% of another person.  ...

I agree.

1 hour ago, fides' Jack said:

 And if there's just one single example, it negates the entire idea of "everyone is equal in Heaven". 

Everyone can be equally united to the Beloved without having to be equal in all aspects. As you point out, the angels exist in a hierarchy. I was waiting to see if someone would bring them up... But to say there are hierarchies in angels doesn't mean one angel is more loved than another, and it doesn't mean one is holier/more full of grace than another. They are all fully, full of grace, & fully united to God.

There's no dichotomy in saying a priest has a special status as priest in heaven. It's absolutely true. But it doesn't mean that all priests in heaven are going to be higher or holier or more loved by God than these other persons, because they are priests.

And, again, I myself would never mush together theological hierarchies, with levels of holiness, with how much someone is loved (more or less than another).