Holiness

I had a reminder this morning in prayer of when the Lord first started working in me, and my family.  Given my conversion came about in the midst of my mom's cancer and subsequent death in 1997, it was all very intense.  We had many signs, wonders, and love flowing from the Lord.  The Blessed Mother was very present.  This was all poured out on a family that truly was steeped in sin.  We are Catholic, but we weren't living the gospel.   Of five children, two were attending Mass regularly.  I wasn't one of them.  I had been away from the Church for about 10 years.  What we experienced then, which I knew nothing about, was God's Mercy.  I look back at that time, and am amazed that God saw fit to extend His Love and Mercy to us.  We absolutely and certainly did not deserve it.  But, that is Mercy! 

What I was reminded of was being told by a woman in a prayer group that "God wanted me holy."  I didn't understand.  At that time, I was going to daily Mass, praying the rosary daily, Novena's, serving the sick, teaching 4th grade Religious Ed; most of the things people do in that fervor to please God and spread that around as much as possible.  You really want to share what God gave you.  So, when she said that I didn't get it. I honestly didn't think of it, being "holy."  I simply was acting on what I was led to.  I brought it to a priest I was seeing at the time for direction.  He said that what it meant was we do not make ourselves holy.  God makes us holy.  He sets us apart, and begins His work.  It is our job to cooperate with what God is doing.  What we "do "does not make us holy....

This was a huge truth for me.  It completely changed how I viewed what God was doing and made me a little less likely to fight Him on everything.  Isn't that what we do?  When all hell cuts loose on you, you tend to rise up and fight it.  Fighting is also encouraged by fellow Catholics.  Fighting in the sense that you don't accept it, or at least you don't accept it laying down.  I agree, there is a time to stand firm and fight in the Lord.  But this isn't what I'm talking about.  We fight God and get in His way when we disagree with Him.  How do we disagree with Him and His plan to make us holy?  Well, an example may be to lose everything....but your life.  That doesn't seem right, or fair, or loving.  Why would God permit you to lose everything and not step in and save it all?  Because He knows best.  That's where the fight starts......