3 — HOLINESS FULLNESS OF GRACE

Presence of God. — I approach Jesus, “source of life and holiness”, with a lively desire to drink from this inexhaustible source.

Meditation

1 — If Jesus came to sanctify “all” of us, if God’s will is for “all” to be saints, holiness cannot consist in extraordinary gifts of nature and grace, which depend solely on the liberality of God.

Holiness must consist of something that all souls of good will, even the humblest and simplest, can achieve supported by divine help. Holiness is the perfection of the Christian life. It consists in the full development within us of supernatural life, the principles of which are sanctifying grace, the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism has placed in us this seed of holiness which is precisely grace, a seed capable of blossoming into precious fruits of supernatural life, of eternal life for the soul that follows its development with commitment.

Grace, by elevating us to the supernatural state, makes us capable of entering into a relationship with the Most Holy Trinity, that is, capable of knowing and loving God as He is in Himself, as He Himself knows and loves Himself. It is therefore a new life of knowledge and love that grace gives birth to and nourishes in us, a life that is participation in divine life. And what could be holier and more sanctifying than these intimate relationships with the Most Holy Trinity? Grace brings us to such heights, a gift granted to all the baptized.

2 — It is necessary that the supernatural life that blossoms from grace invests our entire human life, so that it is supernaturalized in every activity, in every detail, in its entirety. As grace grows and matures in our soul, it exerts an ever wider and deeper influence; and when this influence effectively extends to all our activities, orienting them all towards the glory of God and uniting us totally with him through charity, we will have reached the fullness of Christian life, to holiness.

Grace is a completely free gift that God has bestowed on us through the infinite merits of Jesus. Jesus, by dying on the Cross, deserved it for us and not in a small measure, but in a superabundant measure; He, says St. John, is “full of grace... and of the fullness of him we have all received, and grace upon grace” (Gv. 1, 14 and 16). Precisely for this reason we can all become saints.

This does not mean, however, that we are all called to the same height and the same form of holiness. Alongside the so-called “great” saints, that is, those who had a great mission to accomplish and therefore also received special gifts of nature and grace, there will always be the most humble, most hidden saints, who sanctified themselves in the shadows and in silence.

Holiness does not consist in the greatness of the works performed or the gifts received, but in the capital of love and grace that the soul accumulates, faithfully responding to divine invitations.

I too can aspire to this sanctity, without any fear of recklessness or illusion.

Colloquy

O my sweetest Savior, not only for some privileged souls, but also for me you wanted to deserve the fullness of the life of grace which is holiness. I understand it: that infinite love that led you to incarnate yourself for us, to make yourself one of us, You who are God, to suffer until you died on the cross by shedding all your precious Blood, those infinite merits that you have thus acquired for us are more than sufficient to deserve not only the salvation, but also the sanctification of the entire human race.

So why are so few who truly sanctify themselves? Why am I so far behind on the path to holiness? I who have received from you not only the gift of holy baptism, but also that of many, many confessions and communions which should already have increased my capital of grace to a very great extent? I who have also received so many current graces, so many inspirations and solicitations of your infinite love which has called me to a state of consecration?

O my Lord, You make me understand: You who created me without me, will not save me, will not sanctify me without me. You have already deserved everything needed for my sanctification, you have already given me a lot, but I will not become a saint without cooperating in your work.

You alone are holy and You alone can sanctify me, and yet you demand my free cooperation and you demand it to the point that if I refused it, despite your omnipotence and your infinite love, you would not sanctify me.

O Jesus, therefore, through my indolence, through my little love, through my coldness, can I make your infinite merits, all your blood shed on the Cross, vain for my soul? How can a poor creature, who owes everything to her God, have the audacity to hinder and prevent your action in her soul? Will I, little ant, have the courage to do this? Permit it not, O Lord, never permit it, and persecute me, persecute me with your grace until I surrender totally to it.

To demonstrate to you the sincerity of my feelings I want, with your help, to be generous, to overcome on that point that costs me the most and to say my yes to you even when it is most repugnant to my bad nature. Assist me with your almighty help, support and sustain my poor efforts, because you already know that I am weakness itself. Allow me, O Lord, to place my lips close to that source of living water that flows from you, a source of life and grace, of strength and holiness, so that, quenched in this way, I can resume with renewed vigor the path that you point out to me.