Our secular world has very low expectations for its citizens.  

Holiness seems out of reach and therefore unrealistic. “Have a nice day,” “Don’t do drugs,” “Don’t drink and drive” and “Don’t wear white after Labor Day” are today’s moral imperatives. They represent a kind of moral minimalism. Catholics who write and talk about being holy seem to be preaching pie in the sky. But what is left undiscussed remains unknown. Holiness, in truth, is both realistic and achievable. It is well worth promoting. 

Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow has asserted that the survival of Jewish culture would have been inconceivable without stories that gave point and purpose to the Jewish tradition. Stories can be edifying. They can inspire people to live better lives. The Bible is replete with such stories. One of my favorite illustrations of holiness is from the Jewish tradition and is both instructive and edifying. 

A certain rabbi in a small Jewish village in Russia has gained the reputation of being holy. According to the townsfolk, he leaves his community each Friday morning and ascends to heaven to speak with God.  

A newcomer enters the village and scoffs at this amusing story. He dismisses it as a product of the villagers’ gullibility. Nonetheless, in keeping with his skepticism, he decides to prove that the rabbi’s lofty reputation is merely a myth. He decides to follow the rabbi and witness for himself that the man he stalks does not rise to heaven each Friday morning. 

Friday morning arrives. The skeptic observes the rabbi wake up, don peasant clothes and reach for his axe. The axe is used to chop wood. Then, this allegedly holy man brings a bundle of wood to a woman and her sick child who live in a dilapidated shack in the poorest section of the town. The amount of wood will be enough for a week until the rabbi returns and replenishes the supply. The rabbi unceremoniously returns home and quietly resumes his duties. All this, the skeptical outsider takes in with increasing admiration — until he finds himself becoming a disciple of the rabbi.  

Later, when asked whether this rabbi actually rose to heaven each Friday morning to be with God, his simple answer was, “If not higher.”  

The rabbi is a person we should want to emulate. The combination of humility and concern for others makes virtue attractive.   

Holiness, etymologically, means “whole.” All a person needs to be holy is to be entirely himself or “unspoiled,” according to the meaning of the word in Greek. A holy person is uncontaminated by the world. He lives in union with God but not without concern for the needs of others.  

For St. Thomas Aquinas, holiness signifies two things: “purity” and “firmness.” The man of holiness is unstained by the world and remains steadfast in his unity with God. 

We think of healing as a form of curing, bringing a person to health. We may also think of this word in conjunction with its cognates — whole and holiness. Healing can be applied to render a person more holy. This is the purpose of the sacraments. The holy person does not view himself as exalted, but as a humble servant of God and neighbor. Health, healing, wholeness and holiness are all etymologically related to each other. 

For Aristotle, the end of man is happiness. For Christians, it is holiness. Holiness does not replace happiness but raises it to a higher level. Aristotle was not cognizant of divine grace. Happiness belongs to the individual; holiness belongs to the community. Holiness wants to make others happy.  

In a homily Sept. 18, 2010, in Westminster Cathedral during his apostolic voyage to the U.K., Pope Benedict XVI said, “How much we need, in the Church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendor of truth of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ.”  

It is a mistake to think that holiness is reserved for the elite. As Mother Angelica, the foundress of EWTN, reminds us, “Holiness of life is not the privilege of a chosen few — it is the obligation, the call, and the will of God for every Christian.”  

Jerry Bridges, author of The Pursuit of Holiness, may never have appeared on EWTN, but he is in agreement with Mother Angelica when he remarks, “We are 100% responsible for the pursuit of holiness, but at the same time we are 100% dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable us in that pursuit. The pursuit of holiness is not a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps approach to the Christian life.” 

Plato, in his dialogue, Euthyphro, raises one of philosophy’s most basic questions: “Is something holy because it is loved, or is something loved because it is holy?”  

If something is holy because it is loved, then holiness loses its primacy and is the passive recipient of something external to it. On the other hand, if something is loved because it is holy, then holiness becomes primary while love is subservient to it.  

Likewise, we love another person because he is good. It is not the love that makes a person good, but the good is good in itself. Holiness is good in itself and it should draw our love, just as God is good and draws us to him. 

Holiness is nothing more than the whole person in union with God. It is the fulfillment of our deepest aspirations.