In the name of God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus
Wishing you all a happy and blessed new year.
You might be wondering why I am wishing you a ‘happy new year’ two months in advance. The Church, in accordance of its liturgical calendar, prepares for the Nativity of Christ and through a journey of almost two months and on the Sunday that comes on or after October 30th, it celebrates the beginning of a new liturgical year. The Church celebrates the beginning of a new year by sanctifying herself and reminding her children to sanctify themselves as well. This Sunday is known as “Koodosh Eetho”.
This year, the Church celebrated the Koodosh Etho on November 1.’. Through this blog, let us understand what is sanctification and why does the Church calls everyone to be sanctified.
‘Sanctification’ is an act or process of acquiring sanctity, of being made or becoming holy or sacred that is set apart for God. It is an act wherein a very ordinary and sinful person is made or becomes holy to radiate, emanate, and transform into the temples (or an indwelling place) of the living God. Though we become the temples of the living God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit during our baptism, we are called to clean ourselves and turn our lives back to God. But sanctification is not a one off event in the life of a believer but it is a process.
Sanctification happens through the gradual growth of personal faith and submission to the will of God. But why should we sanctify ourselves? We are to sanctify ourselves because we are called to be members of the Church who is the “Body of Christ” (Romans 12:4-21; 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:12) or the “temple of God” (1 Cor. 3:16). Just as a temple is an abode of the Living God, and through the grace of God resides in the temple, the human body also is a living Temple where God resides through the grace of the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. And since He resides in us, the whole person is destined to become the temple of God.
The Church is not just a building where the faithful gather together to have the Holy Eucharist and fellowship but it is a body of sanctified people, who are called out from the darkness in this world to His marvelous and awe-inspiring light to declare His wonderful deeds. Hence, as St. Peter says, we are called to be “living stones” which are built into a spiritual house.
Just as we give due respect to our place of worship and keep it neat and clean, we also need to respect our bodies and keep it clean as well. This cleanliness should not only be physical, but also comprises of moral and ethical cleanliness. You might ask me why should we bother about maintaining such a standard of cleanliness in our bodies. This is because it is a God-given requirement:
You shall be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy”
Leviticus 19:2
Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God, Keep my statutes, and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you.“
Leviticus 20:7-8
But just as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct…“
1 Peter 1:15
We are to keep ourselves, a living temple, clean because the God Who resides in this temple is holy. It is only through the grace of God that we can become holy like Him. Also we have a responsibility to maintain the sanctified status because Jesus, our Master, out of His great love for mankind offered Himself as a sacrifice for us and consecrated us (made us able to become holy). Also He along with the Holy Spirit intercedes with our Heavenly Father to sanctify us and through sanctification be consecrated in the truth. (Refer John 17:17-19).
Since Christ is the only “Holy One of God”, we become holy as we participate in the Holiness of Christ. In the Old Testament, Prophet Isaiah was cleansed by God with the burning coal of the sanctuary (Isaiah 6:6-7). But in and through Jesus Christ, God has granted us the true coal that cleanses, sanctifies and brings us to God blameless and holy. We have been washed and sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ and hence our sanctification is a gift of God in Christ.
Co-operation between Divine Grace and Human will (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16-26)
Even though sanctification is a gift from God and it is through sanctification that God resides within us, man is called to co-operate with the Divine Grace and make that sanctification his own. But how do we claim this sanctification as our own?
First, we need to recognize our weaknesses and believe that Jesus is the source of our sanctification.
Secondly, we need to live a virtuous, spiritual and sacramental life in order to be united personally with Jesus.
We can make the sanctification given to us our own by keeping in check our weaknesses and sinful nature with the help of God and allow the Holy Spirit to direct our life to live according to the will of God, to form the image of Christ in our soul which ultimately helps us in becoming Christ-like and an imitator of Christ in our daily life. We can gradually clean our hearts from our various passions and desires of this world through constant effort, reading, fasting, vigilance, prayer and tears of repentance. And through this gradual cleansing of our mind and heart, we will be able to attain the purity that was intended by God in the life of Adam.
When we attain this purity of our heart and mind, only one passion overflows from us, just like it overflowed in the life of Abraham, King David, the prophets and Apostles and the Holy Fathers of the Church who followed them: unbounded love for God and Jesus Christ, sacred desire to be in the presence of God. We would only have one prayer in our hearts throughout any day or circumstance in our life, “Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” This is a prayer that Jesus taught and lived by, even until the end moment of His earthly life, always desiring His Father’s will to be done on earth. When we attain His presence in our life, our whole life will be directed by and scented with the love of God for man and the love of man for God and for all His creation, particularly for our fellow human beings, no matter their color, creed, nationality, gender. (Refer 1 Corinthians 8:11; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:14)
As I write this blog, I am reminded of a hymn which I learnt as a child and is ascribed as The Prayer of St. Francis of Assissi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
A person impassioned with love for God does not separate themselves from God’s creation but they love His creation and tend to their needs as a shepherd tends to his sheep. They pray for all. They become instruments of God, loving the world as He loves the world. Through his/her love for Christ, they lose themselves in Christ, to the point of being crucified with Christ and they are able to say along with St. Paul, “…it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20) and it is no longer for themselves they live, but for Christ Who died for them and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:15). It is in such a life of faith, love, ceaseless prayer and communion with God that man reaches the state of sanctification. God condescends, visits His creation and man becomes a temple of God and the true dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
When man reaches the highest form of sanctity without ceasing to be human, s/he has transcended the measures of everyday life; man comes into real communion with God. The Holy Fathers who had this experience called it the theosis (deification) or glorification of man. God became man so man could become god. God became what we are so that we can become what God is. (Sts. Ireneaus and Athanasius)
Sanctification and Theosis in Christ
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, as we noted above, the sanctification and theosis of man was realized primarily in the Person of Christ and actually began with His incarnation. Our sanctification and theosis are realized in the mystical union between Christ and humanity. It is true that Christ saved us with His teaching, by revealing to us the True God, and by His sacrifice on the Cross. But when we examine closely, we shall see that Christ saved us, and He continues to save us, primarily by our mystical union with Him. The world is not saved so much by Christ as in Christ, when it is united mystically with Christ. For those who are saved in Christ, our whole life has its source in this union of ours with Christ, precisely as the branch lives from its connection to the vine.
The Holy Fathers of the Church, emphasizing on the truth of the Incarnation and of the two natures of Christ (divine and human), taught that the Logos (Word) of God assumed human nature (through Incarnation) which He received was sanctified and deified through the hypostatic union in the Person of the Incarnate Logos (Word), God. This deified human nature of God the Logos became the source of sanctification and theosis for all mankind, for those who through faith united themselves to Christ.
This union is accomplished primarily in the sacramental life of the faithful and especially in the Holy Eucharist where we relive our mystical union with Christ and become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). We become one with the body and blood of Christ; we partake in the newness of life which Jesus Christ has inaugurated.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come!”
2 Corinthians 5:17-18
Sanctification and Preparation for the Incarnation
As noted earlier, Christ saved and continues to save us through His incarnation. We celebrate His incarnation as Christmas when He came as a baby boy in the manger in the city of King David, Bethlehem. Koodosh Eetho is the commemorates the beginning of the Advent season when the whole church looks forward to this great and mystical event when God became man.
The Church calls her children to begin a new year through sanctification and leave their old self away and clean the living temple of God which can become befitting residence for the birth of Christ, so that we along with St. Peter would be able to address the new born baby as “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” and welcome Him to reside in us and make us His.
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. May this season of Advent fill you with abundant blessings and joy.
Your brother in Christ Jesus
Jobin George
