YOUCAT Question n. 132 - Part II. Why is the Church holy?
(Youcat
answer - repeated) The Church is holy, not because all her members are
supposedly holy, but rather because God is holy and is at work in her. All the
members of the Church are sanctified by Baptism.
A
deepening through CCC
(CCC 825) "The Church on earth is endowed already with a
sanctity that is real though imperfect" (LG 48 § 3). In her members
perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired: "Strengthened by so many
and such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition
or state - though each in his own way - are called by the Lord to that
perfection of sanctity by which the Father himself is perfect" (LG 11 § 3).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment)
Whenever we allow
ourselves to be touched by the Triune God, we grow in love and become holy and
whole. The saints are lovers—not because they are able to
love so well, but because God has touched them. They pass on the love they have
received from God to other people in their own, often original way. Once God
takes them home, they also sanctify the Church, because they “spend their
heaven” supporting us on our path to holiness.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 826) Charity is the soul of the holiness to which all are
called: it "governs, shapes, and perfects all the means of
sanctification" (LG 42). If the Church was a body composed of different
members, it couldn't lack the noblest of all; it must have a Heart, and a Heart burning with love. And I
realized that this love alone was the
true motive force which enabled the other members of the Church to act; if it
ceased to function, the Apostles would forget to preach the gospel, the Martyrs
would refuse to shed their blood: love, in fact, is the vocation which
includes all others; it's a universe of its own, comprising all time and space
- it's eternal! (St. Therese
of Lisieux, Autobiography of a Saint,
tr. Ronald Knox (London: Harvill, 1958) 235).
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