Universal call to holiness

All these people called to partake in that glory of heaven.

I think this vision helps us to reflect on the universal call to holiness.

We might ask, what does it mean to be holy? And it seems that the sacred author had that in mind and what continues.

One of the elders addressed me saying, who are these robed in white and where have they come from? I said to him, sir, you are the one that knows.

A great multitude that no one could count, we just heard.

And St. Josemaria was chosen by God as a special instrument to proclaim this message.

In the prayer from the liturgy, For the feast day of St. Josemaria, which is June 26th, we pray, O God, who raised up your priests, St. Josemaria and the church, to proclaim the universal call to holiness and the apostolate.

Today is a very special feast day for us in Opus Dei and for all people who have devotion to St. Josemaria.

I remember the first time it clicked for me in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

One of the documents was talking about the universal call to holiness.

See, we all have a vocation, and when I ask people, what's your vocation? Oh, it's to be a spouse, it's to be a parent, it's to be a priest, it's to be a religious.

No, we all have the same vocation to holiness.

Well, in the succeeding 20 years before the Second Vatican Council, the Holy Spirit worked a bit more.

And we came to the great teaching of the Council about the universal call to holiness.

There are no limits to where we can be holy, which walks of life can be holy here on earth.

This feast of all the saints has been celebrated since the eighth century.

What about the Second Vatican Council's...

It has a principle, the universal call to holiness.

Yeah,

yeah.

And, and anyways, um, even married people, you know, are baptized, but everybody is consecrated to God on some level, you know? And so the, all the baptized are called to sanctity.

And in fact, every human being is called to sanctity ultimately has created in God's image and likeness.

So, uh, universal call to holiness is a reminder to the whole church that holiness doesn't just belong to those that were the habit or the cassock it belongs to everybody to the married to the unmarried to the religious and non-religious but the path to holiness is going to look different for these various people because their calling is different but ultimately holiness just means you know, sanctity, consecration, whatever, all these things mean really the same thing.

You've been set apart by God.

Father, I think one thing that's really beautiful is that at least in the US, where I've traveled a lot more, you can see priests under 50 who have been, they are almost always more reverent uh they're more doctrinally well-formed uh if if you go under 40 it's even more so right that the there was a huge visitation uh that john paul ii and benedict did in the early 2000s to kind of help re uh basically you know reform uh get seminaries back in line with the teachings of the church and it's really born tremendous fruit and i think right now too when you see younger people, that they're not going to leave a life of the culture or the world to become a priest, to practice apostolic celibacy, to be under obedience, unless they really are convinced that it's true.

And so I just see such a wonderful renewal of the priesthood and of the liturgy that's going on uh every day and you know so i just think it's a wonderful thing to remember and i think your book really kind of articulates and it's kind of beautiful and i think i might have mis uh pronounced that earlier but the document from vatican ii is on the ministry and life of priest presbyterium ordinance ordinance and uh so uh but that showing that it's really rooted in uh to mystic theology and the domestic theology is the way of moving it forward for the 21st century so um we are coming up at the end of our time uh i'd love to chat with you a little bit more about how this like i i think it's interesting a lot of people know that vatican ii taught that the laity are that there's a universal call to holiness but but somehow what happened i think is that instead of calling the laity up to the standard of holiness of the priests we kind of somehow sociologically, not doctrinally, but sociologically, we almost ended up lowering the priests to the laity, which was the irony instead of recognizing that the baptismal vocation of all the faithful is nothing other than a participation in the perfect priesthood of Christ.

Just participated in different ways.

So I think everything you're saying here about the priests and their participation and their call to holiness is something that I think also ought to inspire the laity to live a greater devotion to the Eucharist, a greater intimacy with Jesus Christ, and in our own ways to live... a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to our state of life, not under religious vows, but under the spirit of Christ that continues that.

I came across Amber's work a number of years ago now because her work is so atmospheric, I believe might be the word I'm looking for, where you just kind of feel like you can fall into the paintings.

And so it was a great joy for me to sit down with Amber and talk about all of her paintings, including her newest work, which is a 14 foot by 7 foot painting titled The Universal Call to Holiness for Franciscan University's Christ the King Chapel.

So go ahead, grab whatever creative project you're working on today.

Maybe you're going to be doing some painting or if you're going to do some cooking or even if you're just folding the laundry, maybe fold them in a creative way.

Also, the idea that you're saying that the gold leaf catches the light.

I think that's so thoughtful and creative as an artist because it also gives it kind of, again, that transcendental beauty in the painting as well.

And so you're currently painting the universal call to holiness for Franciscan University.

Yes.