BE LIKE CHRIST:
THE GOAL OF OUR CHRISTIAN VOCATION.
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” St Paul urges us. And St John Chrysostom comments: “We say of two friends that one has ‘put on’ the other when there is great love and understanding between them, to the extent that one even takes on the appearance of the other. May Christ then be always manifest in us.”
Here is the goal of our Christian vocation to holiness . The struggle to achieve holiness is not centred on the fight against sin, although this will always be necessary. Rather it is a GROWING IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST, begun now by sanctifying grace and brought to fullness in the glory of heaven.
Supernatural life, which took root in our soul by the Holy Spirit’s grace and is strengthened continually by a contemplative life, shapes Christ’s image in us, the semblance of God’s children. We are led to become other Christs, ipse Christus – Christ himself. But we need to use all our faculties in the struggle to attain this identification. As St John Chrysostom says, “Christ has given you the power to be like him according to your strength. Don’t be frightened to hear this. What should really frighten you is not to be like him.”
ORIGINAL PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Villanueva Rodriguez
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