HOLINESS IS A WORK OF THE SPIRIT.

There is a general illusion that holiness is the work of man, that one must have a clear program to achieve perfection and then carry it out gradually with courage and patience, and that this is what it is all about. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), it does not consist of everything… That it takes both courage and patience, that’s for sure. But that holiness would be realizing a life program you set out to achieve, certainly not. For several reasons, we shall now give the two main ones.
1. The task is beyond our power.
To achieve holiness in our strength is impossible. Scripture teaches us that it can be only the fruit of God’s grace. Jesus tells us: “Without me, you can do nothing with me” (Jn 15:5). And St. Paul: “…for to will good is near to me, but to do I do not do good” (Rom 7:18). The saints themselves witness this. Grignion of Montfort, for example, is known to the saint’s holiness, which is God’s plan for our lives; puts it this way: “Oh, how admirable work: dust turned into light, dung into purity, sin into holiness, creation into Creator, and man into God! Oh, marvelous work! I repeat, however, that work in itself is difficult and by the very nature of its nature impossible. Only God, through abundant and extraordinary grace, can complete the work. The creation of the whole universe is not equal to this work.” Try as we may; we cannot change ourselves. Only God can remove our shortcomings and limitations in love; only he can make a deep enough impact on our hearts. We will save ourselves many unnecessary struggles and frustrations when we realize this. We are not to become saints in our strength; 2 but we must find how God can make us so. This requires excellent humility (we must give up the presumptuous pride of wanting to do it ourselves and accept our wretchedness), but at the same time, it is very encouraging.
Indeed, our strength is limited, but God’s power and love are not. We are guaranteed means of getting His power and love to come to the rescue of our weakness. All we have to do is acknowledge it calmly and place our trust and hope in only the Lord. It is simple in principle, but as with all simple things, it takes years to understand and, more importantly, to put it into practice. The secret of holiness lies, in a sense, in the knowledge that we can receive everything from God, provided we know how to do it. It is the secret of the way of St. Teresa’s spiritual childhood: God has a father’s heart, and we can indeed receive from him all that we need if we can take him by the heart.3 I believe we can receive everything from God, St. Teresa from St. John of the Cross, who was almost her only teacher. He wrote in his Spiritual Hymn: “The power and steadfastness of love is great, for it conquers and fetters God Himself. Happy the soul that loves because it holds captive God, who yields to its desires. God is such’ that if we approach him with love and from the right side, he will do for us what we want” (Spiritual Song B, stanza 32,1).
This bold phrase is about the power our love and trust have over God’s heart and contains a beautiful and profound truth. St. John of the Cross himself expresses it in other words in another place: “A firm hope strikes and overcomes the heart of God.” Further, “God values so much the hope of the soul that continually takes refuge in him and relies on him alone, that it may justly be said that the soul attains all in what it hopes for” (Maxima 119).
Holiness is not a life program but something that is acquired from God. There are even reliable means for it. The whole art consists of understanding, that is… We all have the power to become holy simply because God allows us to be overwhelmed by our trust in him. What we will say next is to lead us to the right path.