Faith and Holiness

Our Pastor started a new Adult Sunday School class today that will run for 4 weeks. I thought the class was on The Episcopal Church and our Traditions so Don and I made a decision to forego our usual class, which we LOVE, in favor of this one. Turns out the topic is more like "How to Teach your Children (and Grandchildren) About Your Faith", which actually is great, too.

We began this morning with two questions that we discussed in small groups: what is Faith and what is Holiness. Our Rector explained that we cannot pass on our faith and holiness unless we ourselves understand it.

After talking in our small groups, each group had an opportunity to share their ideas with the class. One of the groups used a definition that really struck me.

"Faith is God's gift to us. Holiness is what we give back to him."

Fr. David described faith as believing in the unseen, as in the scripture "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." He said the word holiness comes from the Greek and, literally, translates "whole or complete", meaning holiness is becoming more perfectly the person God wants us to be.

While I've always believed faith to be what the scripture above states and I find it comforting to think of holiness as "completeness", I'm struck by the explanation my classmates gave. It sure is worth thinking about.

If faith is the gift God has given to me, just how well do I offer it back to him? The road to holiness becomes steeper the further up the mountain you go, making you realize just how much more difficult it is to obtain the closer you get to obtaining it.

Seems to me I remember Mother Theresa commenting on sin and holiness once. She said something like, "The nearer you draw to the Lord, the more the battleground against sin moves from actions to the mind." As humans, it IS possible to reach a place of sinless action - according to Mother Theresa, anyway. (I can't comment on this personally, because I'm certainly not there!) But then you begin to realize just how difficult it is to purify the mind. Judgementalism, perfectionism, criticalness, negative thinking . . . these are the areas of sin that the purest amongst us deal with.

If the battleground of "the Holy" is in their minds, I'm far from holy. But I'm, at least, attempting to climb the mountain. Very often, it seems, I sit on a boulder, pull off my shoes and socks, and rub the blisters, and seem to take a short break from pursuing holiness. Then the Lord encourages me again to put them socks and shoes back on and return to the journey.

Sometimes I wish I could see the top. Maybe then I'd be encouraged enough to give that final push up the mountain. But I'm not exactly sure of what I'm asking. Perhaps the top of the mountain is Heaven and I will only reach it at the moment of death, in which case, I'll be happy to continue the climb for now, thank you, sir.

In any case, if I think of holiness as my gift back to God, I'm certainly more encouraged to pursue it - if I can but give him a small portion of what he's given me . . .