All Men Are Called to Holiness

All Men Are Called to Holiness

If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. The Lord’s command seems difficult and painful: that anyone who wishes to follow him must deny himself. But his command is not really difficult or painful, since he himself helps us to do what he commands. For the verse of the psalm addressed to him was truly spoken: Because of the words of you lips I have abided by hard ways. True also are his own words: My yoke is mild and my burden is light. For love makes easy whatever is difficult in his commands.

What does it mean, let him take up his own cross? It means he must endure many things that are painful; that is the way he must follow me. When he begins to follow me in my life and my teachings, many will contradict him, try to stop him, or dissuade him, even those who wall themselves Christ’s disciples. It was they who walked with Christ that tried to stop the blind men from calling out to him. So if you wish to follow Christ, you will take these threats of flattery or any kind of obstacle and fashion them into the cross; you must endure it, carry it, and not give way under it. And so in this world that is the Church, a world of the good, the reconciled, and the saved, or rather, those destined for salvation, but already saved by hope, as it is written, by hope we are saved, in this world of the Church, which completely follows Christ, he has said to everyone: If anyone wishes to follow me, let him deny himself.

This is not a command for virgins to obey and brides to ignore, for widows and not for married women, for monks and not for married men, or for the clergy and not for the laity. No, the whole Church, the entire body, all the members in their distinct and varied functions, must follow Christ. She who is totally unique, the dove, the spouse who was redeemed and dowered by the blood of her bridegroom, is to follow him. There is a place in the Church for the chastity of the virgin, for the continence of the widow, and for the modesty of the married. Indeed, all her members have their place, and this is where they are to follow Christ, in their function and in their way of life. They must deny themselves, that is, they must not presume on their own strength. They must take up their cross by enduring in the world for Christ’s sake whatever pain the world brings.

Let them love him who alone can neither deceive nor be deceived, who alone will not fail them. Let them love him because his promises are true. Faith sometimes falters because he does not reward us immediately. But hold out, be steadfast, endure, bear the delay, and you have carried the cross.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings 
From a Semon by Saint Augustine

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