A New and Divine Holiness

 

A “New and Divine Holiness” as spoken of by Pope St. John Paul II:

Saint Annibale Maria di Francia was the Extraordinary Confessor to the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarretta. He was founder of the Rogationists and Daughters of Divine Zeal.  In His Address to the Rogationist Fathers on the Centennial Anniversary of the Foundation of the Congregation of Rogationist Fathers of the Heart of Jesus, on May 16, 1997, Pope John Paul II said:

“The modern means that human sciences and contemporary technology make available and that you rightly try to use in your apostolic work will only be effective if they are sustained and guided by the original charismatic inspiration of the blessed founder, who saw in the "Rogate" the means God himself had provided to bring about that "new and divine" holiness with which the Holy Spirit wishes to enrich Christians at the dawn of the third millennium, in order to "make Christ the heart of the world".

 

A new type of Holiness – by Fr. Philipon in the Diary of Conchita de Armida

There is no question here of a type of holiness departing from the Gospel, but rather of a resource taken in view of a new application of this same Gospel.

To depart from the spirit of the Gospel and from the teachings of the Cross would be to deny Christ. We are speaking in the same sense Therese of Lisieux spoke of a "wholly new way." We are incontestably in a new era of spirituality.

What constitutes its newness is:

1)  A calling of all, even of the laity, even of married people, to the greatest holiness.

2)  Through transfiguration of daily life, the sanctification of the profane, divinization by faith, by love and by the spirit of sacrifice in ordinary life.

3)  The greatest holiness. Transcendence of the message of the Cross. Even the most banal actions are made of value to the infinite by the offering of love in union with Christ, in imitation of the last years on earth of the Mother of God, in the service of the nascent Church.

Pope St. Paul VI in his message Urbi et Obi, April 4, 1971 said: “The unity of the world will be.  The dignity of the human person shall be recognized not only formally but effectively.  The inviolability of life, from the womb to old age… Undue social inequalities will be overcome.  The relations between peoples will be peaceful, reasonable and fraternal. Neither selfishness, nor arrogance, nor poverty…(shall) prevent the establishment of a true human order, a common good, a new civilization.”