This week, I will be heading down to Clear Creek Abbey for retreat. Many people don’t know this, but priests are required by Canon Law (aka Church Law) to make a spiritual retreat every year. In our diocese, this means a retreat that is at least five days long.
The Church even tells us why priests are to do this: “Clerics have a special obligation to seek holiness in their lives…” (Can. 276) This is the same part that says we are to say Mass daily, to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, to untiringly work to fulfill the other obligations of our ministry, and to engage in mental prayer. The Church wants priests that are holy, more than anything else.
It’s not just the priests that the Church wants to be holy, though. At Vatican II, the Church wanted us to know that “in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’.” (Lumen gentium 39)
Sanctification, another way to say “becoming holy”, is sharing in God’s life, and we live holy lives by striving to imitate Christ. Everyone is called to holiness, and everyone lives out holiness in their own unique way. Married couples are called to live holiness through their faithful love for each other and in their day-to-day family life. All the laity are called to sanctify wherever they are in the world by cooperating with God’s will for their lives.
I told the school kids at Mass on Thursday that life in our Church is a team sport. We are in this together. While I am on retreat this week, you will all be in my prayers, and if you have a moment, I would ask that you say a prayer for me. I would also invite each of you to ask yourselves a question: what is one concrete thing you can do today to be holy?
Fr. Matt