3.2. The Holiness of the Church

The Church is holy because, sanctified by Christ who has acquired her by giving himself up to death for her, she is maintained in holiness by the Holy Spirit who pervades her unceasingly: “We believe that the Church…is indefectibly holy. For Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is praised as being ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his bride and gave himself up for her, so that she might be made holy (cf. Eph 5: 25), and has united her to himself as his body and has filled her with the gift of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God. For this reason, everyone in the Church…is called to holiness.”⁴⁸ In this sense, from the beginning, the members of the Church are called the “saints” (cf. Acts 9:13; 1 Cor 6:1; 16:1). One can distinguish, however, the holiness of the Church from holiness in the Church. The former - founded on the missions of the Son and Spirit – guarantees the continuity of the mission of the People of God until the end of time and stimulates and aids the believers in pursuing subjective personal holiness. The form which holiness takes is rooted in the vocation that each one receives; it is given and required of him as the full completion of his own vocation and mission. Personal holiness is always directed toward God and others, and thus has an essentially social character: it is holiness “in the Church” oriented towards the good of all.

Holiness in the Church must therefore correspond to the holiness of the Church. “The followers of Christ, called by God not according to their works, but according to his own purpose and grace, and justified in the Lord Jesus, have been made truly children of God in the Baptism of faith and sharers in the divine nature, and thus are really made holy. They must therefore hold on to and perfect in their lives that sanctification which they have received from God.”⁴⁹ The baptized person is called to become with his entire existence that which he has already become by virtue of his baptismal consecration. And this does not happen without the consent of his freedom and the assistance of the grace that comes from God. No one becomes himself so fully as does the saint, who welcomes the divine plan and, with the help of grace, conforms his entire being to it! The saints are in this sense like lights kindled by the Lord in the midst of his Church in order to illuminate her; they are a prophecy for the whole world.