Personal Preface: I began to read the documents of Vatican II when I was a sophomore in college. They were not on any course syllabus at the secular university I attended. I found them on my own; I do not remember how. I read Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium in the Abbot translation, a paperback with a red cover. I read these little by little in an imposing nineteenth-century structure called the Scott Physics Lab, abandoned long before as a functioning lab, with three empty stories, empty of people, lab equipment, and any activity. Except the first floor functioned as an annex to the Music Department, to the extent that each abandoned classroom or lab had a grand piano in it, where piano students could schedule practice hours. Since that meant only one person at a time in each room, and of course, the doors were closed when people were practicing, the building had an eerie and lonely feeling. Besides Chopin and Scott Joplin, the Abbot translation of Vatican II accompanied me into this building, and in between twenty-minute practice intervals, I stole time to read around in the aforementioned documents.
I remember especially reading this chapter on the universal call to holiness, and I remember feeling challenged and thrilled by it, and that feeling has never really left me. Grateful for the company the texts seem to afford in a phantom-filled old building (as I imagined it), I felt a zeal to try to live up to this challenge, which I had never heard before. It was infinitely more interesting to me than anything I was reading in any of my classes. That interest is continuous until the present moment—even if I cannot say I feel I have lived up to the challenge. Somehow the document had such a positive spirit that it seemed to say always to me, “Keep trying! It’s worth it!” So I come to the exposition of this chapter with these memories and in that spirit.
Chapter 5 of Lumen Gentium comprises sections 39-42. Let us begin with the first sentences of section 39, paying special attention, as we have been doing, to how the chapter might help us to think about what “church life” is:
The Church, whose mystery is being set forth by this Sacred Synod, is believed to be indefectibly holy. Indeed Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is praised as ‘uniquely holy’ (Missale Romanum, Gloria in excelsis), loved the Church as his bride, delivering himself up for her. He did this that he might sanctify her. he united her to himself as his own body (cf. Eph. 5.25-26) and brought it to perfection by the gift of the Holy Spirit for God's glory (LG §39, translation from the official Vatican English translation).
These sentences remind us that not just the first chapter, but the whole of Lumen Gentium, is intended as an exposition of the mystery of the Church, or to put it another way, of the Church as mystery.
The document’s introduction of the universal call to holiness flows directly from this statement of the character of the Church as mystery, and thus the call to holiness itself arises as a direct consequence of the mystery of the Church: “Therefore [emphasis added] in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thess 4.3)” (LG §39).
This means that the “holiness” to which the document calls us cannot be understood simply as a moral or ethical category, though of course it is incomprehensible divorced from a moral dimension. But it is not the same as just “really excellent” or even “heroic” behavior, as though it were fully interpretable in moral categories derived from reason alone (i.e. philosophical ethics or even natural law).
Church life, as a response to this call, is a response to the spousal love of Christ exhibited in his complete self-gift or sacrifice, and therefore the “holiness” to which we are called is in some way a specification of, in each Christian life, the holiness of the Church. It is not simply a participation in the holiness of the Church, for that is granted, objectively speaking, at Baptism. That is what being a “member” of Christ’s Body means: it invests one’s identity and life with the holiness of the Head, which joins us to himself. The “holiness” to which we are called here is a life lived increasingly as an expression of, a reflection of, a witness to, the spousal love of Christ for the Church. It is a continual penetration, deeper and deeper, into the mystery of the love which constitutes our identity as a member of Christ’s Body and the living of our life as an ever clearer expression of that love, an ever more resounding echo of it, an ever more persuasive witness to it. That is “more” than simply morality or moralizing. Thus:
This holiness of the Church is unceasingly manifested, and must be manifested, in the fruits of grace which the Spirit produces in the faithful; it is expressed in many ways in individuals, who in their walk of life, tend toward the perfection of charity, thus causing the edification of others; in a very special way this (holiness) appears in the practice of the counsels, customarily called “evangelical,” . . . [which] gives and must give in the world an outstanding witness and example of this same holiness (LG §39).
The evangelical counsels are the example that par excellence reveals the essence of the holiness to which we are called as a response to and witness to a hope that is not “of this world” though in this world (as will be specified in chapter 6 on Religious).
Section 49 very forcefully wrenches the Council’s use of the word “holiness” out of a merely moral context, a context simply of our effort in response to some kind of universal moral imperatives, into a context of Spirit and power, grace and gift.
Reminding us that the Lord Jesus “preached holiness of life to each and every one of his disciples of every condition,” in fact calling us to “perfection” (LG §40, see Matt 5:4-8).
“Perfection” implies completion, and indeed the document takes it in this sense, the sense of completing a work initiated in us by grace and worked in us by the Holy Spirit:
Indeed he [the Lord Jesus] sent the Holy Spirit upon all men that he might move them inwardly to love God with their whole heart and their whole soul, with all their mind and all their strength (see Mark 12:30) and that they might love each other as Christ loves them (see John 13:34; 15:12). The followers of Christ are called by God, not because of their works, but according to his own purpose and grace. They are justified in the Lord Jesus, because in the baptism of faith they truly become sons of God and sharers in the divine nature. In this way they are really made holy (LG §40).
Here, the “holiness” to which we are called is a gift, based on no moral excellence of our own, indeed no merit or work, a calling first and foremost to baptism, and to a justice or righteousness which is not even ours—for all we have to show for ourselves is sin—but by the Cross. The mention of the justification, or being made righteous in the Lord Jesus, is an echo of 2 Cor 5:21, “For God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Christ’s taking on “sin,” meaning the penalty for sin, death, means he makes us his own, just as we are, mortal and steeped in sin, and thus, as his, we have his righteousness, his holiness, as ours. Church life is living in the Spirit so as to bring this holiness to its perfection.
“Then too, by God's gift, they must hold on to and complete in their lives this holiness they have received” (LG §40). This is Church Life as a response to the universal call to holiness.
We are:
Warned by the Apostle to live “as becomes saints” (Eph 5:3), and to put on “as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience” (Col 3:12) and to possess the fruit of the Spirit in holiness (see Gal 5:22; Rom 6:22). Since truly we all offend in many things (see James 3:2) we all need God's mercies continually and we all must daily pray: “Forgive us our debts” (Matt 6:12; drawing from St. Augustine and Pius XII Mystici Corporis)” (LG §40).
Note that this precisely reflects Chapter 1 where the mystery of the Church is specified as “at once holy and always in need of purification” (LG §8), and thus the individual Christian life participates in and corresponds to, and in a way makes present, this mystery, in the world: “Thus it is evident to everyone, that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity; by this holiness as such a more human manner of living is promoted in this earthly society.”
Section 40 ends by evoking an image of life in the Church as a journey, in the footsteps of Christ, towards the perfection of holiness, and connects it to the image of the People of God, populated as it has been by so many saints:
In order that the faithful may reach this perfection, they must use their strength accordingly as they have received it, as a gift from Christ. They must follow in his footsteps and conform themselves to his image seeking the will of the Father in all things. They must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history.
Chapter 41 specifies, for each state of life in the Church, the goal of holiness, first for the bishops, then for priests, then for deacons and lay persons “called by the bishop to give themselves fully to apostolic works” (what we might call today lay ecclesial ministers). These pursue holiness by serving the Church herself, specifically by their “pastoral charity,” the special virtue of the ordained ministry and of those layfolk who are called to a participation in the ministry of those who are ordained.
Next come Christian married couples and parents:
Married couples and Christian parents should follow their own proper path (to holiness) by faithful love. They should sustain one another in grace throughout the entire length of their lives. They should imbue their offspring, lovingly welcomed as God's gift, with Christian doctrine and the evangelical virtues. In this manner, they offer all men the example of unwearying and generous love; in this way they build up the brotherhood of charity; in so doing, they stand as the witnesses and cooperators in the fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church; by such lives, they are a sign and a participation in that very love, with which Christ loved his Bride and for which he delivered himself up for her (drawing from Pius XII, Casti Connubii, and John Chrysostom, homily 20 on Ephesians).
Note once again that the holiness specified here is not simply a function of a moral code, but is a very specific “witness” and “cooperation” in the mysterious fruitfulness of the Church as “mother,” and “sign” of, because “participation in,” the very love which is the spousal love of Christ that makes the Church in the first place, the heart of the mystery of the Church. It is its own special witness to that spousal love, making it, in a way, “visible” in a world which seems dominated by anything but the spousal love of a heavenly Bridegroom.
Widows, widowers, and single people are mentioned next, followed by those who engage in heavy manual labor. The poor, the infirm, and the sick are also mentioned as having a special place in the call to holiness.
Section 41 sums itself up in this way: “Finally all Christ's faithful, whatever be the conditions, duties and circumstances of their lives—and indeed through all these, will daily increase in holiness, if they receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and if they cooperate with the divine will. In this temporal service, they will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world (see John 3:16). The Church is the sacrament of God’s love for the world, and our living so as to bear ever closer witness to the holiness of the Church herself, to represent it and express it in our lives, makes more and more visible, in a way, the mystery of the love by which God formed the Church and called us as members for the love of the world.
The last section, section 42, nevertheless closes with a citation of 1 Cor 7:31 and an injunction to follow the Apostle’s advice to all of us “who use this world: let them not come to terms with this world; for the form of this world is passing away” (translation adjusted). The theme of the pilgrim church surfaces here briefly.
“God is love,” the beginning of section 42 reminds us, “and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16), but this love does not come from the world, or from our works, or from our reasoning. Rather, “God pours out his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (see Rom 5:5).” The life of holiness is the Spiritual life, life in the love that does not arise from us but from the Holy Spirit. It is thus a participation in divine life.
We can recall, from Chapter 1, that the plan of the Father from all eternity “was to raise human beings to a participation of the divine life” (LG §2), that the Church in Christ is the “sacrament” of this plan, its sign and instrument, and that when the work of Christ on earth was done, “the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that he might continually sanctify the Church . . . he [who] is the Spirit of Life, a fountain of water springing up to life eternal” (LG §4).
This life in the Spirit, the life of sanctification in and by the love poured out into our hearts, is nourished by Spiritual means:
Indeed, in order that love, as good seed may grow and bring forth fruit in the soul, each one of the faithful must willingly hear the Word of God and accept his Will, and must complete what God has begun by their own actions with the help of God's grace. These actions consist in the use of the sacraments and in a special way the Eucharist, frequent participation in the sacred action of the Liturgy, application of oneself to prayer, self-abnegation, [and from here extend to] lively fraternal service and the constant exercise of all the virtues.
But it is the love poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is “the bond of perfection and the fullness of the law (see Col 3:14; Rom 13:10),” that “rules over all the means of attaining holiness and gives life to these same means (drawing from Augustine, Enchiridion 121, and Thomas, ST II-IIae, q. 184, a. 1).” Charity so formed “guides us to our final end,” towards which we in the Church, and in a true but analogical sense, the whole world because of the Church present in the world, is on pilgrimage.
Thus, “it is the love of God and the love of one's neighbor which points out the true disciple of Christ” in the world. The greatest attainment of this love is neither marriage, virginity, celibacy, nor the single life, but rather, since “no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for Christ and his sisters and brothers” (see John 3:16; 15:13, translation adjusted), martyrdom is “esteemed as an exceptional gift and as the fullest proof of love (eximium donum supremaque probatio caritatis aestimatur).” Church life, lived as a response to the universal call to holiness, therefore bears witness in and to the world of a destiny to which the whole world is called, a destiny created by the love which “emptied itself, taking the form of a servant and became obedient unto death” (Phil 2:7-8), and which, “though rich, became poor for our sake (2 Cor 8:9).”
Since the evangelical counsels allow this obedience and poverty to shine more evidently, while virginity “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” bears witness in a unique way towards the hope for its final completion, perfected fully in the spousal love of Christ, the Christian life that embraces these fosters the life and holiness of the whole Church. These observations serve as a transition to chapter 6, on Religious, even as the chapter closes, as noted above, by reminding all Christians that all are called to holiness and thus to bear witness to a hope for the world even as its present form, disfigured by sin and death, is passing away.
