Mother Teresa | 2. Holiness
2. Holiness
"Holiness does not consist in extraordinary things. It consists in accepting with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God."
Holiness is not the luxury of a few. It is everyone's duty: yours and mine.
In order to be saints, you have to seriously want to be one.
Saint Thomas Aquinas assures us that holiness "is nothing else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders to God."
And he adds: "Spontaneously we love God, we run towards him, we run towards him, we get close to him, we possess him."
Our willingness is important because it changes us into the image of God and likens us to him! The decision to be holy is a very dear one.
Renunciation, temptations, struggles, persecutions, and all kind of sacrifices are what surround the soul that has opted for holiness.
If we do the work for God and for his glory, we may be sanctified.
We should go out to meet people. Meet the people who live afar and those who live very close by. Meet the materially poor or the spiritually poor.
The fact of death should not sadden us. The only thing that should sadden us is to know that we are not saints.
To sometimes experience disgust is something quite natural. The virtue, which at times is of heroic proportions, consists in being able to overcome disgust, for love of Jesus.
This is the secret we discover in the lives of some saints: the ability to go beyond what is merely natural.
This is what happened to Saint Francis of Assisi:
Once, when he ran into a leper who was completely disfigured, he instinctively backed up.
Right away he overcame the disgust he felt and kissed the face that was completely disfigured.
What was the outcome of this? Francis felt himself filled with tremendous joy. He felt totally in control of himself.
And the leper went on his way praising God.
The saints are all the people who live according to the law God has given us.