What is holiness...
When we talk of holiness, we must be very explicit about what we mean, for as Pascal warns, "experience shows us an enormouse difference between piety and goodness." Perhaps you've noticed this difference in your interaction with other Christians. We feel God's redeeming love and grace when we get together with some believers. Their holiness is a warm hearth, a shelter that invites us to come in from the cold. Even though we sense an underlying strength that tells us sin and manipulation are not acceptable in their presence - and this can be somewhat fearful - we still find ourselves drawn to them.
There are others whose holiness seems to be a prison. It is forced, uncomfortable,and ragged at the edges. The biting edge of accusation and judgment pushes us away from them. When they talk about sin, their voices seem marked by fear, not understanding and wisdom.
The spiritual fathers taught that true holiness has at its root an overwhelming passion for the one true and holy God, not for rules, principles, or standards. This holiness is relational. Fenelon wrote, "It is not by fussiness that we become faithful and exact in the smallest things. It is by a feeling of love, which is free from the reflections and fears of the anxious and scrupulous. We are as though carried away by the love of God. We only want to do what we are doing, and we do not want to do anything at all which we are not doing. At the same time that God, jealous, urges the soul, presses it relentlessly in the least details, and seems to withdraw all liberty from it, it finds itself free, and it enjoys a profound peace in him."