Quotes on Holiness and Sanctity

"Be ye holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy." - Lv 19:2

Your sanctity is God's will. This is your vocation. This is your duty. This is the object of all your desires and efforts.

Sanctity properly consists only in conformity to God's will, expressed in a

constant and exact fulfillment of the duties of our state in life."

- Pope Benedict XV

Pope Pius XI: Sanctity is For All "Let no one believe that sanctity belongs to a few chosen people, while the rest of humanity can limit itself to a lesser degree of virtue. Everyone is included in this law; no one is exempt from it. "Christ has called the whole human race to the lofty heights of sanctity... there are some who say sanctity is not everyone's vocation; on the contrary, it is everyone's vocation, and all are called to it... Jesus Christ has given Himself as an example for all to imitate."

St. Francis de Sales:

"All of us can attain to Christian virtue and holiness, no matter what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be." Bl. Louis Tezza:

"God's invitation to become saints is for all, not just a few. Sanctity therefore must be accessible to all. In what does it consist? In a lot of activity? No. In doing extraordinary things? No, this could not be for everybody and at all times. Therefore, sanctity consists in doing good, and in doing this good in whatever condition and place God has placed us. Nothing more, nothing outside of this." Bl. Edward Poppe: "Here is holiness in a nutshell: love God's will."

"Being holy is nothing more than accomplishing the Lord's holy will in everything." "To each one his job: your job is to become saints!"

"With both hands, let us hold fast to our resolve to become saints."

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen:

"Sanctification does not depend on our geography or on our work or circumstances. Some people imagine that if they were in another place, or married to a different spouse, or had a different job, or had more money, they could do God's work so much better. The truth is that it makes no difference where they are; it all depends on whether what they are doing is God's will and if done for love of Him." St. Dominic Savio:

"If I do not become a saint, I am doing nothing." Fr. Gabriel:

"Some [saints] we recognize easily ... but the vast majority are entirely unknown to us. They are humble people who lived obscurely in the accomplishment of duty, without display, without renown, whom no one here below remembers, but who the heavenly Father looked upon, knew in secret, and, having proved their fidelity, called to His glory. The honorable positions occupied by some in this vast gathering, or the mighty deeds accomplished by others, no longer possess any value of themselves: eternal beatitude is not determined by the great things here below. One thing only endures, for the humble and the great, the poor and the wealthy: the degree of love they had attained, to which corresponds the degree of glory which now renders them eternally happy."

"Conformity to God's will and the growth of grace in us are the two constituent elements of sanctity."

Mother Mary Francis:

“There is a great delusion of preferring to sanctify ourselves rather than to allow ourselves to be sanctified by God. It is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us, and efforts to achieve the effects of His divine ministry by our own blueprints and constructions will always be unavailing, however enticing. We can choose whether God shall sanctify us, or whether we shall exhaust ourselves and waste our lives in our own self-directed ‘sanctification.’ This is the oldest sin, ‘to be like God,’ to achieve our own sanctification not by seeking after God’s desires and the unfolding of His will, but in the achievement of what we have decided is our sanctification. We have only the terrible freedom of allowing ourselves to be sanctified by God, or of refusing.” (Blessed Are You Poor)

St. Paul of the Cross:

The essence of sanctity consists solely in perfect conformity of one's will with the will of God.

“If you correspond to the designs of God, he will make a saint of you.” St. Leonard of Port Maurice:

"Take my advice and in every Mass ask God to make you a great saint."

Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

“In heaven there will be only saints, and, in this sense of the word, each of us must strive for sanctity.”

St. Francis of Assisi

"Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society."

St. Catherine of Siena:

“O God, Your high, eternal will desires only our sanctification; therefore, a soul who desires to sanctify itself, strips itself of its own will and clothes itself with Yours. O my sweet Love, I think this is a true sign of those who have been grafted unto You; they fulfill Your will according to Your pleasure, and not according to their own, so that they become clothed in Your will.”

St. Theodore Guerin

"Let us never forget that if we wish to die like the saints, we must live like them."

Fr. Andre Jean Marie Hamon: "Let us enter with our whole heart into these two dispositions: the 1st, to determine to be a saint; the 2nd, to be decided to become one no matter at what sacrifice."

Archbishop Goodier, S.J. (1869 - 1939):

“It is a great thing to realize that in order to be saints we have only to be what God made us to be, and to do what God made us to do. If we are clever, then to be clever; if we are not clever, then not to be clever; if we are successful, then to be successful; if not successful, then not to succeed; if in good health, then to be healthy; if sickly, then to be sickly; and so on. Perfect simplicity with regard to ourselves; perfect contentment with everything that comes our way; perfect peace of mind in utter self-forgetfulness. This becomes easier the more we realize the utter greatness and goodness and allness of God. Then we realize our own utter insignificance and worthlessness and nothingness; a mere squeak of a mouse in the infinity of God. Therefore: first, make a great deal of God, forgetting, if we can, at times everything else in His presence. Secondly, make nothing at all of ourselves, whether we are clever or whether we are not, whether we are loved or whether we are not, whether we succeed or whether we do not, whether we get what we desire or do not. In the midst of it all we can rejoice (a) that we are what He made us to be, (b) that those things happen which He wants to happen; (c) that if all the world were to collapse and the very heavens were to fall, there would still be the great, living, loving God.” Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade:

“O God, How much I long to be the missionary of Your holy will and to teach all men that there is nothing more easy, more attainable, more within reach, and in the power of everyone, than sanctity. How I wish that I could make them understand that just as the good and bad thief had the same things to suffer, so also two persons, one of whom is worldly and the other whom is leading an interior and spiritual life, neither of them have anything different to do or to suffer. But one is sanctified and attains eternal happiness by submission to Your holy will in those very things by which the other is damned because he does them to please himself, or endures them with reluctance or rebellion. It is only the heart that is different. Oh! All of you that read this, it will cost you no more than to do what you are doing, to suffer what you are suffering, only do and suffer in a holy manner. It is the will that must be changed. Sanctity consists in willing all that God wills for us. Yes! Sanctity is a simple fiat, a conformity of your will with the will of God.”

"The Family That Overtook Christ:"

“If an abbot would only realize that for him sanctity consists not in being an abbot, but in being an abbot because being an abbot is the will of God in his regard; if monks would only realize that all they have to do to become saints is to be monks because being monks is the will of God in their regard; if fathers and mothers would only be fathers and mothers, not because of nature but because of grace and the God of grace, what a different world this would be. But no! We abbots think that we must build big monasteries, make large communities, perform extraordinary penances and be shining lights by our exterior deportment. Monks are worse; and the laity almost entirely forget the supernatural element in their natural roles in life. It is lack of simplicity that shortens the roll-call of the saints and swells the army of the mediocre.” “And that is why we get nowhere in the spiritual life with surprising rapidity. If God wants me to be a plowman, I'll never become a saint by aspiring to be a poet; and if He wants me to be a poet, the only way I'll become a saint is by being the very best poet I can possibly be. That is the lesson of the parable of the talents. We must work with what God gives us. If he has only given me one talent I'll never be excluded from Heaven for not having ten. That's what we've got to learn and remember. It's burying our talents that ruins our lives, and striving to be what we were never meant to be that ruins our loves. In short it's not being ourselves that prevents us from being saints; for that is being unsatisfied with the will of God in our regard. It's being what God wants us to be that makes us saints; fitting into the hole that He has fitted us for."

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There is one call for every human being on earth: the call to holiness. God has made us to grow toward spiritual maturity. Perfection is our goal. Mediocre goals in the spiritual life result in lukewarmness. Although we each have our personal journeys and variations

in our individual calls and vocations, there is still but one narrow Way.