Lumen Gentium Chapter 5 Commentary

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Lumen Gentium Study Guide Chapter 5: Universal Call to Holiness

1. Summarize what the document means by “universal call to holiness.”


2. How are bishops called to exercise holiness?


3. How are priests called to exercise holiness?


4. How are deacons called to exercise holiness?


5. How are married couples called to exercise holiness?


6. How are widows and single people called to exercise holiness?


7. How does suffering and poverty lead us to holiness?


8. What is the “first and most necessary gift”?


9. Describe the practical plan the Council offers for exercising this gift, and therefore growing in holiness.


10. Explain why the Church considers martyrdom the fullest expression of love.


11. Explain why the evangelical councils are special expressions of love.

It was one of those moments from youth that for some reason just sticks with me. My mom and I were at a retreat planning meeting. My older sister, who was going through an especially hard time, was going to attend the retreat and my mom and I were going to work it. The retreat team drew names of the attendees to pray for. I drew my sister’s name. My mom asked the priest who was to be our spiritual director if he would exchange names with me so that he could pray for my sister.

“Would you please exchange names with Jeff? He got his sister’s name, and she really needs special prayers.”

What sticks with me was the priest’s response. He told me to keep my sister’s name, telling my mother, “My prayers are no more powerful than Jeff’s. God hears all of our prayers.”

My mom and I had both assumed that the prayers of a priest must be more efficacious (I love that word) than the prayers of a mere boy. Were my prayers really as good as the prayers of a priest? Priests were holy. I could never be holy like a priest, could I?

That was my first introduction to the truth of the “priesthood of all believers.” I slowly learned that holiness was a gift meant for everyone. In my master’s degree classes, I came to learn that holiness is a treasure worth striving for, and that it is a lot of work.

Why did the Council feel the need to devote an entire chapter of the Sacred Constitution on the Church to the idea of holiness? Why did the Church lose the truth that all of the followers of Christ are called to be holy? Protestants sometimes criticize Catholics for being so confused about holiness. However, the truth is that holiness can be confusing if you don’t know what it is. After all, biblical teaching on holiness is at first glance a set of contradictory beliefs. Holiness is a gift of grace, but we must persevere in holiness, which makes it seem like a lot of work. Only God is holy, but Christ calls us to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect so all of us are called to be holy. How can all of these beliefs be true?

The center of holiness is love – “Not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.” God desired from the very beginning to be united to us in love. Love requires that two people share in one another’s lives. God invited Adam and Eve to participate in His life by allowing them to share in His act of Creation by naming the animals and caring for the garden. Throughout salvation history, God invited human beings to participate in the covenant. God could have led the Hebrew people out of Egypt without Moses, but He chose to invite Moses to participate in His saving act. Christ called the Disciples to share in His ministry. After Jesus ascended into heaven, His apostles continued His work on Earth, filled with the Holy Spirit and united to Him in the Eucharist. The Holy Spirit is God’s love dwelling in us, but He also moves us to perform the action of God in this world. It is true that only God is holy, but we become holy by being united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and by becoming One Body with Him in the Holy Eucharist. In order to truly participate in God’s supernatural life of love, we must make the choice (love is a choice, after all) to keep ourselves open to His love. We must also make the choice to participate in His life by loving one another. As the Council says,
Finally all Christ’s faithful, whatever be the conditions, duties and circumstances of their lives – and indeed through all these – will daily increase in holiness, if they receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and if they cooperate with the divine will. In this temporal service, they will manifest to all men the love with which God loved the world.
That is what holiness is all about.

All of God’s people are called to holiness. However, we are called to holiness in very different ways. The priest at the retreat planning meeting was right when he told my mom that my prayers were just as efficacious (I love that word) as his. However, he would have been wrong if he had meant that there was no difference at all between us. This point was made in the previous chapter. It is made again here. There is a great line in this chapter: “Keeping in mind that they are doing and imitating what they are handling, these priests, in their apostolic labors, rather than being snared by perils and hardships, should rather rise to greater holiness through these perils and hardships.” Priests are called to a greater holiness, not because of their own merit, but because they are called to greater responsibility. They are called to “handle” Christ Himself, and to shepherd their flock to holiness.

However, we are all called to holiness no matter what our state in life or vocation. The last issue this chapter discusses is the Evangelical Councils. The Evangelical Councils are the “Gospel values” that help us to follow the footsteps of Christ, and free us to “store up treasures in heaven.” Most of the time we think of the virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience as vows that are taken for religious orders. However, even lay people are called to participate in these three virtues. For someone who took religious vows, poverty means that they promise to own no private property – to own everything in common with their community. Laity aren’t called to forsake all private property. However, we are called to live the virtue of poverty by not allowing material possessions to become more important than the spiritual goods in our lives. Religious orders calls priests, religious brother and religious sisters to live their vow of chastity by being celibate. They sacrifice the pleasures and intimacy of sex for the intimacy of God. Laity are not called to give up sexuality. Those called to marriage are called to channel their sexuality into their marriage in order to grow in intimacy and to create an environment of love, into which they will accept children to be nurtured and loved. Laity who are single are of course called to live celibately until they discern they are called to marriage. Religious who take the vow of obedience promise to obey the rule of their order as well as their superiors. Laity are not called to obey a specific rule or an authority directly over them. However, we are called to be obedient to God and to His Church. We are called to obey everything the Church teaches, and to obey the bishops and the Pope, who shepherd us to greater holiness. Poverty, chastity and obedience are acts of love that help us all to become less selfish and to love more perfectly.

Holiness is a lot of work. However, that work is a participation in the very life of God. Holiness means that we must deny ourselves, become less selfish. However, in doing so we truly find ourselves and begin to live lives that will lead us to true happiness.