CALL TO HOLINESS - part 1

“God calls all souls he has created to love him with their whole beings, here and hereafter, which means that he calls all of them to holiness, to perfection, to a close following of him and obedience to his will,” Charles de Foucauld said.

 All people are called to holiness, to be saints, to be contemplatives.

“Every Christian must be an apostle; this is not a counsel, it is a commandment. My apostolate must be an apostolate of goodness. On seeing me, people should say to themselves, since this man is good his religion must be good,” Charles de Foucauld said.

But what exactly is holiness? How can be become holy? Blessed Charles answers the question, saying we learn holiness from Jesus himself; and it has three stages:

    (1) to “come” to Jesus;

    (2) to “stay” with Jesus and to “watch” Jesus;

    (3) to “imitate” Jesus.

We must come to Jesus, sit with Jesus, observe Jesus, listen to Jesus in silence, stay in company with Jesus for a long time, until we hear him in the silence and solitude of our hearts. We must follow Jesus where he leads. We must take Jesus by the hand and walk with him, and never let go.

In the Gospels we often see Jesus calling: “come to me”, “come follow me”, “he that comes to me I will not cast out,” “let the children come to me,” and “when I am lifted up I will draw all things to myself.”

“Come to me and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart,” Jesus says. “Those who come to me I will in nowise cast out.”

Again and again he says “come to me… come to me… come to me.” Never does he utter an expression of rejection, “go away”.

We come to him, stay with him, we stay with him and watch him, and learn to love him, and to be transformed by that love.

 

When we come to Jesus, we leave the self, the ego, behind. “Whoever comes after me must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow after me,” Jesus said.

Charles de Foucauld calls this loss of ego “abasement” of the self: “Abasing ourselves is most powerful way of joining Jesus and doing good for souls. When we are able to suffer and to love, we can do much, all that is in our power to do in this world. We feel that we are suffering. but we do know that we want to love, and to want to love is to love. We find that we do not love enough. We shall never love enough, but god, who loves us more than a mother, has told us he will not reject the one who comes to him.”

Come to Jesus

“Watch and imitate him. Jesus himself suggested this very simple method of achieving union with him and perfection to his apostles," Foucauld said.

 “All perfection is to be found in the presence of God and of Jesus and in the imitation of Jesus. It is perfectly obvious that anyone doing as Jesus did is perfect. So we must throw ourselves wholeheartedly into imitating him (a task sweeter than honey to the loving heart, as an urgent need for a loving soul a need that becomes more compelling as love becomes more ardent) and watching him, the divine Spouse (a task to less sweet or indispensable to love).

“Anyone who loves, loses and buries himself in the contemplation of the beloved.”

 

A cave where Jesus meditated in Galilee

Come to Jesus in the Scriptures

After we “come” to Jesus, we must “stay” and “abide” with him.

Young apostle John saw Jesus by the Jordan River and followed him. Then Jesus turned and spoke to him “come and see (where I stay).” John followed him, and “stayed with him”. “It was about four o-clock in the afternoon.”

We can find Jesus in reading the scriptures, especially the four Gospels. “We must read and reread the gospels without stopping so that we have the spirit, deeds, words, and thoughts of Jesus before us so that one day we may think, talk, and act as he did,” Charles de Foucauld said.

  

“The Gospel showed me that the first commandment is to love God with all ones heart, and that everything had to be endured in love; ….. each of us knows that the first effect of love is imitation… I therefore had to imitate the hidden life of the poor, humble workman of Nazareth.”

  

“When one loves, one longs to be forever in converse with the beloved whom one loves, or at least be always in his sight. Prayer is nothing else. This is what prayer is: Intimate intercourse with the Beloved. You look at Him. You tell Him of your love. You are happy at his feet. You tell him you will live and die there,” Foucauld said.

Stay with Jesus and Watch Jesus

We can also “stay” with Jesus in prayer and meditation. 

 

The shepherds were the first to see Jesus, because they were “watching” in the night, keeping “alert” and “vigilant”, “guarding their sheep,” that is guarding their wandering minds.

The starry heavens opened to them and they were illuminated and heard the angles. They ran to see to the manger and they “saw Jesus”. They returned to their fields of meditation, “rejoicing for what they had heard and seen.”

Charles de Foucauld said we can encounter the living Jesus is to “stay” with him, and to “watch” him. This means to spend time “patiently enduring” and “abiding” in silent prayer, and “watching” in meditation and contemplation.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked his disciples to “abide here” and “watch with me”. When he came back and found them sleeping, he asked them, “could you not even abide awake with me for one hour?”

The words “abide” and “stay” and “watch” and “awake” seem to have deep meaning to Jesus.

Over and over again during his public ministry, Lord Jesus urged his disciples to “Be watchful! Be alert!” (Mk 13:33). “Watch therefore.. do not sleep. I say to you and I say to all: WATCH!”

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and anxieties of daily life…Be vigilant at all times and pray…” (Luke 21:34…)

 

The Sea of Galilee, viewed from Jesus' meditation cave.

“Be watchful! Be alert!” (Mk 13:33)

“Watch therefore…do not be sleeping…What I say to you all: WATCH!” (Mk 13:37)

“Wait here and keep awake with me…Why are you sleeping. Keep awake and pray.” (Mt 26: 36, 41)

Jesus was teaching his disciples and friends to “abide” and endure patiently with him, focusing their attention on him, leaving the world behind, adoring and loving him. He comes into their hearts and fills them with his presence and light.

When we watch with Jesus, we are struck by his withdrawal into obscurity and silence and solitude. We are impressed by his silence and his presence; by his stillness in contemplation in communion with the Father.

“And getting up very early, going out, he went into a desert place, there he prayed.” Mk 1:35

When we follow Jesus, we find ourselves following him into the desert, into the silence of the night.

 

A cave where Jesus meditated in Galilee

part 2: Imitating Jesus