 I want to begin by thanking you again for coming here because I recognize not only the expense, the sacrifices, but also the risk of going to a place and not sure of what you're going to get. My only regret is not being able to extend friendship to each and every one of you. It's really frustrating at times. I've been called away to different responsibilities in the middle of conversations with the line still there. And so I apologize to those of you. And I do hope to connect with more and more. But over the years, I find that the friendships you forge here are really the bonds that God blesses. So up until now, our theme for the conference has been hope and holiness. But the emphasis has been primarily upon hope in the presentations last night, as well as this morning and in a few of the workshops. So this evening, I want to shift the emphasis over to holiness and to focus on what it means and how we can grow in holiness. But before we do that, let's begin in prayer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Almighty God, our Father in heaven, we worship you for your perfection, in knowledge, in power, in goodness, but above all, for your holiness. You alone are holy, so you alone can make us holy. And more than everything else we desire, we long for you to make us saints. We also long for the grace that we need to respond to your mercy. Not just as sinners who are forgiven, not just those who are sick and injured by sin who need to be healed, but above all, since you have given to us your eternal Son to be our servant who suffered and died, may we as your sons and daughters grow in virtue, in love, and above all, in holiness, and so help us as we pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now, and at the hour of our death, amen, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. And Saints Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, pray for us. I want to begin with a passage taken from 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapters one and two, St. Paul says, Christ, whom God has made, our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, and redemption. For I decided to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We'll come back to that in some other verses, too. But what I'd like to do in laying a foundation is to build upon a foundation that I did a few nights ago. How many of you are left over from applied biblical studies? A little repetition never hurt. And so what I'd like to do is to pick up where we left off on Wednesday night, because on the one hand, it's something that most Catholics assume they understand. At least I did. But then the more you study it, the more elusive it gets. It's like what St. Augustine wrote about the notion of time. He said, I knew exactly what time meant until I tried to explain it. And so it is with holiness. We kind of assume that we understand what it is until we look at it more closely, and discover it's very elusive. It's easily confused with other things that are associated with holiness, but are not identical to holiness. And so what I think is sometimes helpful is let's begin by looking at holiness in terms of what it's not. And so as we do this, we can see that a lot of people assume that holiness is associated with people who perform miracles, like Moses, signs and wonders like Elijah and of course our Lord himself. And yet our Lord himself warns us at the climax of the Sermon of the Mount about those who say, Lord, Lord, and yet they're told to depart for I never knew you. But we did many mighty works in your name. We cast out demons and performed miracles. But what didn't they do? You didn't do the will of my father. And so the wise man is the one who builds his house upon the rock by doing all of the things that the father wills. And we'll look later on to see how the wise man building a house upon a rock is probably an illusion to the son of David, Solomon, the wisest of men who built the greatest of houses of the temple upon the foundation stone in Zion. So holiness is not identical with signs and wonders, though miracles are often the trademark that we look for before we finally canonize a saint. Holiness is also not reducible to the external practices and devotions and rituals that are described as holy, the holy mass, the holy rosary and so on. And no wonder because these things can become a form of checklist. You can approach this with a servile mentality sort of like God's employees who expect to be paid a decent wage because of the ritual and the devotion that we perform. And yet that is ritualism and devotionalism that Jesus warned against with regard to the Pharisees who were like whitewashed tombs, very bright and white on the outside but full of dead men's bones. And so we've got to be careful not just to perform the things on a checklist even though these devotions and rituals are an intrinsic part of our process of becoming holy. Thirdly, holiness is not to be confused with the feeling of wonder and amazement in the presence of God, in the presence of other people who are all holy. So Rudolf Otto wrote a book almost a century ago entitled The Idea of the Holy, and he equated holiness with what he called the Mysterium Tremendiment Fasinans. It is a mystery that, well, Mysterium Tremendiment causes us to tremble and yet we find it fascinating. And so we can approach the burning bush with awe and wonder and amazement. And this is holy ground so we take off our shoes like Moses but it doesn't mean that we're holy. It just means that we're amazed that we're feeling awe and wonder. And that is an appropriate response to holiness but it's not to be confused with holiness. And so this sort of raises the question then what does holiness feel like? What does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What does it sound like? And the fact is, holiness is off limits to the five senses. It doesn't give off an aroma. You might recall that certain saints had an aroma like when you got close to Padre Pio, you know, roses and that sort of thing but then this fraudulent successor, Brother Geno, actually engineered this aroma so that everybody would assume that he's a saint until he was exposed as a fraud. So it isn't reducible to the feeling that you have, the warm fuzzies that just make it seem as though we're holy even though we might not be. And finally, I want to say that holiness is not to be confused with just teaching or studying or learning sound doctrine as important as that is or personal piety and performing all of these things that really do enhance our striving for holiness. I guess I want to throw in one more thing because this perhaps is the most common confusion of all and that is the confusion that holiness is the same as righteousness. Like all of the other things, you have two things that are inseparably connected but clearly distinct. And so it's sort of the job description of the theologian. It's our task to distinguish for the purpose of uniting. So when it comes to teaching about God, we believe in one God and three persons so we distinguish three persons from one nature. When we look at the second person of the Trinity, we distinguish one person who is divine and eternal from the two natures, the one that's divine and the other that is his human nature. And you can also see the distinction between the old and the new and yet there's a unity to God's plan even though it's divided into this two fold structure of the old and the new. So I'm not distinguishing to separate holiness from righteousness or holiness from fear and trembling or holiness from signs and wonders. But what is holiness? That's the question. And I want to just point out that it's not identical to righteousness. Well, what's the difference? I want to just spend a couple of minutes identifying this distinction that Paul references in 1 Corinthians. Christ our righteousness and our holiness. Or isn't that just two ways of saying the same thing? No, it's not. Although for most Christians, Catholic and Protestant and American throughout the West, it practically is two ways of saying the same thing. So how do we distinguish between holiness and righteousness? Well, the easiest way to distinguish this is to identify which are the two of the greatest commandments. Well, when the lawyer asked Jesus, quote Deuteronomy 65, the greatest commandment is love. To love God, the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like unto it, he goes on to say, but the second is still second. And what is that? To love your neighbor as yourself. So the love of God, that points to holiness. The love of neighbor, that points to righteousness. This is sacred and this is social. Well, our social actions can also have a sacred quality and our sacred actions in pursuit of holiness are really also a matter of justice. So again, I don't want to divide. I just want to distinguish to get the unity right because Jesus couldn't have switched it up. He couldn't have said the greatest command is to love your neighbor as yourself. Oh, and the second is like unto it, love God above all things. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is just the symbol of the cross because what does the horizontal beam rest upon? The vertical beam. And what is the vertical beam? It's that which order orients our lives to God. That's holiness. And then from that grace, we receive the power to achieve righteousness. Another way of identifying this, especially in scripture, is to distinguish between the king whose province is justice and righteousness and the priest in the temple. His responsibility is holiness and sanctity. So understanding sanctification and justification, they're clearly united, but they're also distinct. Seeing the priest in the temple offering sacrifice and the king in the palace administering justice and perhaps also in the courtroom. This was the way that you distinguish to unite our lives together as the people of God. And this was the job description of the priest. We read, for example, in Leviticus 10, verse 10, where God through Moses gives Aaron his primary command. And what is that? As high priest, you are to teach the people the difference between the holy and the common and the clean and the unclean. Now, it would be tempting to dive into these two different categories that are distinct and yet complementary, but I would propose that holy and common, the holy is not opposed to the common, the holy is only opposed to the sin that we commit. And so the holy would belong to the priesthood, to the temple, whereas the common would be the laity. And so just as we distinguish between clergy and laity, so did they in ancient Israel as well. Now, I could go on and on, but I'm hoping that this is clear enough for us to move on. But just in case, I want to also point out that this is practically assumed whenever you look at the Ten Commandments, because what do we divide the Ten Commandments into? Two parts. And what do we call them? The first table of the law and the second table of the law. And how many commandments constitute the first table? Three. And how many constitute the second table? Seven. And what is the reference for all of the first three? To have no other gods before me, not to take my name in vain for the name of God is holy. And remember the Sabbath day to keep it? Holy, because it's the only time kadosh occurs anywhere in the decalogue. And then, of course, you shift over to honoring your father and mother, preserving and not, not, you know, preserving life and not murdering and so on. We're off to the races. But I want to emphasize the fact that our relationship to God is a matter of justice. Now, ordinarily, when we think of justice, we think of basically paying others what we owe them in the grocery store, the checkout line, perhaps here on campus. If students have paid tuition, I'm going to show up and I'm going to teach the course and do so as best as I can. That's a contractual obligation. And then there are other issues of equity and care for the poor, the orphans and so on. But there is a form of justice that goes beyond transactional justice. It goes beyond social justice because if justice is giving to others what you owe them, there are certain forms of justice that, strictly speaking, are irreparable. Can you ever give your parents what they gave you in order to pay them back? So you honor your father and mother. Can you ever really give to the nation of which we are apart as much as they've given us? No. So what do we do? We exercise the virtue of patriotism, and not just on the 4th of July, but here we are on the 29th of July. But then more than parents, more than the civil authorities, we owe immeasurably more to God. As a matter of justice, and not just in the Bible, though it's both the Old and the New Testament, but in classical ethics. Plato taught this. Aristotle taught this. Seneca and Cicero and other Greco-Roman philosophers teach that we owe divinity the greatest debt of all because everything, including our parents and our country, come from God. So what do you call that virtue whereby you repay the debt to God? It's called religio, religion. And religion is not just private and personal. It's public. It's social. And it was in Athens. It was in Rome. Granted, there were corruption. There were all kinds of superstitions. But there was that clear recognition as Aristotle admits in his commentary on the Athenian Constitution there is an important role for the orders and the sacrifices so that we can thank the heavens for the blessings. We don't normally think like that, even though every Sunday we should. Because what do we discover about? Well, lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just to give him thanks and praise, always and everywhere. And all of that is a build up to singing what? The Psalmtooth. Holy, holy, holy. Now, if this is meant to be more than just kind of rote memory, more than just rote ritual, we've got to reflect upon what it is we say so that we're saying it from the heart. The holy, holy, holy is the climax of that prayer that leads us into the Eucharistic prayer. And we're singing it with the angels and the saints. And so this reminder is a wake up call that that vertical beam needs to be preserved. Holiness, it is right and just, which implies that it would be wrong and unjust not to acknowledge God or to give him thanks and praise, not just personally and privately, you know, and for Catholics on Sunday. But it's public. It is social. It is an obligation of all humans and all human communities. And so picking up on Seneca, Aquinas called religion the virtue of virtues, the most important virtue of all. It's sort of like a master musician who can play all these instruments, but instead he conducts the symphony. He has a lot of other virtuosos, but he is the one who can coordinate all of the things. And this is why ordering our lives to the love of God above all else is basically what will bring order and unity to all of our activities that involve righteousness. But we still haven't defined righteousness and we still haven't defined holiness. And if you go in search of a definition, Ratsarach, the catechism comes the closest. In paragraph 2809 where we read, the holiness of God is the inaccessible center of his eternal mystery. Okay, that's good. But if it's inaccessible, how do we know what it is? It's off limits. It's peculiar. It's unique. It's proper to God and God alone. You alone are holy. What is it? The inaccessible center of his eternal mystery. Oh, okay. Then it goes on, not to define it so much as to describe it, what is revealed of holiness in creation and history, that's what Scripture calls glory, the radiance of His Majesty. So even there you're distinguishing between what is primary and what is secondary. The elusive mystery, that quality of holiness which is proper to God and to God alone. It's interesting because in Scripture we don't read God is mercy, mercy, mercy. I like that, but it's not there. You know, God is good, good, good. I like that too. God is power, power, power. The only three full repetition that we find in describing the one true God is what? Holy, holy, holy. Now in Hebrew you don't have good, better, best type of superlatives. And so repetition is to say holy, holy, holy is holier and then holy, holy, holy is the holiest of all. And what is that reminiscent of? The holy of holies in the temple, not in the palace, but that's even off limits to Aaron the high priest. His task is to distinguish the holy from the common in Leviticus 10 verse 10, but back up and look at Leviticus 10 verses 1 to 9 because that commandment to distinguish the holy from the common comes right after his two oldest sons go into the holy of holies with unholy fire and offer an unholy sacrifice. Why? What was it? It doesn't tell us. But oh, by the way, just by way of reminder do not drink any strong drink as you approach God's presence to offer sacrifice. Gee, I wonder why that prohibition is there and nowhere else. Priests weren't tea toddlers but when they entered the presence of God unholy fire, unholy sacrifice and they were dragging their corpses out of the tabernacle. Okay, so God means business but his holiness, this elusive, inaccessible quality is there in the holy of holies and we can't really approach it so I guess we shouldn't even bother trying to define it. Well, the primary meaning of holiness is what is proper to God alone. So he is good, he is wise, he is powerful but it's holy power, it's holy goodness, it's holy wisdom. Oh, okay, but we still happen to find holy. Well, the primary definition of holiness is inaccessible quality that is proper to God, elusive to our understanding to be sure but the secondary aspect of holiness is not just what God alone has objectively but what God does in setting things apart, in consecrating, in sanctifying because that's what God does throughout the Old Testament and even still in the new and what am I talking about? How God basically sets apart time. The only time holiness occurs in all 50 chapters of Genesis is in Genesis chapter 2 verse 3. Kedosh occurs when God has created all things in six days for the purpose of consecrating, hallowing the seventh day. What is that? The Sabbath. And what do you do? You keep it. You remember the Sabbath that keep it? Holy. Okay. So there it is. God has set apart the seventh day, the Sabbath as the time of prayer and worship where we approach God but he also sets apart places. Take off your shoes for the ground that you stand on is holy ground and you think of the holy land. You think of the holy city. You think of the holy building called the temple and the center of which is the holy of holies. You can almost sense that the overarching plot of all of creation and all of salvation history has to do with God communicating His holiness to us and that's the third level because God alone is holy so God alone consecrates time, space, and objects, the furniture, the vestments, the animals, the fire and all of these things. And then the third level of holiness is where God calls persons to be holy and not just human persons but before humans were made what other persons were there? The holy angels. And what happened to them? Well, some remained holy and were glorified because they were clean. Others fell because they were unclean. So clean and unclean is not just like dietary, ooh, pork is bad. I can't imagine what Israelites put on their pizzas. No bacon, no sausage, no pepperoni, no Israel for me, at least not the pizza shops. But all these animals in effect represented these unclean spirits. And so Jesus exhibits this power over the unclean spirits because they get us to do unclean things and take us out of the holy and the common and render us sort of off limits to God. At least that's the way the devil makes us feel. But there are holy angels in glory and there are also holy people in glory but in the Old Testament nobody was ever described as holy. They were only called to holiness as our first father was. So the seventh day, the Sabbath is called Holy in Genesis 2 verse 3 and God breathed into our first father's nozzle, the breath of life in Genesis 2 verse 7, just four verses after holy occurs for the only time. That breath of God is not just air, it is the Holy Spirit. It's what theologians call sanctifying grace. So original justice and original holiness are the result of our first father not just breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide but breathing in the very breath of God's Holy Spirit. That is so important because when you just read ten verses later the day you eat of the forbidden fruit you'll surely die. What do they do? They went ahead and they ate and they surely died except they didn't die because they didn't lose natural human life that pertains the body but because they committed a mortal sin, the original sin as it were, they committed spiritual suicide. They snuffed out the life of God and the soul. Physical death when soul and body separate, spiritual death when the Holy Spirit and the soul separate and that's what they committed, that's what all of us contracted as the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. We're not totally depraved like the Protestants taught but we are totally deprived of the divine life that our first parents had of and forfeited because they preferred the finite to the infinite, the physical to the spiritual, the human to the divine and we basically follow their bad example every time we commit mortal sin. We snuffed out the life of God's Holy Spirit within our soul. So taking stock of all of this is important but recognizing that Holy never occurs anywhere else in the other 48 chapters of Genesis, that's also noteworthy and no wonder because it's a subtle way of reminding the readers about the catastrophic effect of our first father's failure. We don't want to dwell on it but we don't want to mislead people and so Holy does not occur again until the next book, Exodus which is only 40 chapters long and yet Kadoch occurs in those 40 chapters 98 times beginning with take off your shoes the ground is holy and then when Israel is brought out of Egypt and bothered through the Passover and arriving at Mount Sinai keep my covenant in order to be a holy nation different than Egypt, idolatrous and dark different than all of the other nations you'll be a kingdom of priests in other words you will pursue justice and sanctity, holiness but did they keep the covenant? Well don't ask the golden calf that thing was lifeless they broke the covenant they forfeited that holiness and so they end up desecrated just like our first father was and so though holiness is the continual call of God to his people they never arrive at it he sets aside time, he sets aside place he sets aside objects like the furniture, the vestments the animal sacrifices and the feasts but who were the only ones to respond to Moses when he said who's on the Lord's side you'd think all of the first born would have said we are God redeemed us back there with the Passover but only the Levites responded and avenged God's holiness through the sword of the Spirit which ended up 3,000 idolaters died and Moses announces today my fellow Levites have become the priests and so what book follows Exodus? Genesis Exodus Leviticus because now the Levites are to the 12 tribes what Israel as a nation was supposed to be to all of the other nations a holy nation and a kingdom of priests now the Levites have the priests to it but not the kingship the kingship is later given to Judah and these are kept distinct but really even separate because after the fall nobody can be trusted with both the spiritual and the temporal power with the temple holiness with the palace and governance and jurisdiction all of that this continues to plague the people of God back then as it does today you know we speak of church and state which is understandable because of the secularization of society but you go back to the 12th and 13th centuries and you have King Louis who's King Louis the 9th the only monarch to be canonized in that line and then you also have the popes of that period but it wasn't church and state they never spoke they never thought that way it was clergy and laity and so King Louis who practiced poverty and helping the poor and all kinds of spiritual and corporal works of mercy he didn't consider himself a member of the state versus the church his whole identity was part of the holy Catholic church because laity are called to be holy not apart from the clergy but the clergy are to assist the laity in becoming saints but that doesn't exempt them from the pursuit of holiness either so the church is a sacramental organism and through baptism and confirmation we have a royal priesthood to sanctify the temporal order whereas through holy orders these priests have the power to bring down the bread of heaven to those of us on earth to give us what Aaron and his sons could never give to ancient Israel this movement from the Old Testament to the New is one of promise and fulfillment but honestly until I worked on this book holy is his name I didn't see it and my professors didn't both the Protestant and the Catholic professors it took me a Jewish rabbi to show me what should have been obvious to my teachers and to my pastors and what is that that in the Old Testament the people of God are called to be holy but they're never called holy the friend of mine Rabbi Joshua Berman whom I'm citing in holy is his name who obviously were friends and he has other friends who are Christians and he points out that in the Hebrew Bible nobody's ever referred to as a saint huh are you sure well he seemed to be and so I scoured the pages of the law and the prophets and the writings and sure enough well wait I found the one exception and I couldn't wait to show him to kind of set him straight well now I was trying to be humble but there in Daniel 7 you have people identified as saints and who are they well in Daniel 7 Daniel has a vision of the son of man coming on the clouds of glory back to the ancient of days and there in that glorious divine cloud he is as the son of man given an everlasting kingdom that is also universal but wait a minute that really doesn't disprove the rule does it because Daniel's not calling any of his contemporary saints he's only referring to what people will be after the son of man has become the suffering servant and risen and ascended and returned to the father who confers upon him what the kingdom of heaven that's extended to earth by the power of the Holy Spirit this exception proved the rule because it was pointing to what the Messiah would effect a seismic shift that once again I didn't notice until I was doing research and I'll be honest I have been studying holiness for 51 years going back to when I was 14 and I was newly converted and my mentor Dr. R. C. Sproul was teaching on the holiness of God it became his best selling book and he published it but he was describing holiness as righteousness as the awe and wonder and so I was able to figure out it's more than that it's different than that but none of us ever saw what a rabbi showed us that only when the power of the Most High will overshadow her will the child be the Holy One and that makes her the arch of the covenant the holiest object on the entire planet as far as ancient Israel was concerned and so suddenly all of the promises all of the prophecies all of the types all of the oracles are fulfilled in a quiet subtle backwoods town with a young teenage virgin bride and the offspring as the Son of God the Holy One becomes the Son of Man in order to take all of the prodigal sons and daughters of men and transform us into what? forgiven criminals healed patients in this holy hospital no sons and daughters of the Most High God a Muslim scholar explained why in Islam that is sheer blasphemy and rabbis have shown me that in Judaism it's a profound metaphor it's a figure of speech but there is no divine father who is fathering a son coming down to earth to make sons and daughters of men sons and daughters of God that's taking metaphor to an extreme level unless it's not and that's what we celebrate amidst crickets chirping and cradle Catholics yawning and Catholic converts also yawning because you know that we've always heard and professed in the Apostles' Crabble even God the Father Almighty you know and Jesus Christ is only Son our Lord but only after Jesus is raised from the dead in Matthew 27 are the tombs of the Holy Ones of Israel opened and for a few weeks these men and women were seen by the citizens of Jerusalem. What? Why? Because when Jesus descended into Hades he went down to liberate the souls of the faithful departed from Israel and the other nations so that when he ascends into heaven as Saint Paul explains to the Ephesians he's carrying captivity captive this is a greater exodus than Israel coming out of Egypt he's basically repopulating heaven and completely transforming and fulfilling the liturgy that we read about in the Testament where Holy Holy Holy is sung only by the angels because heaven is occupied only by the angels whereas Holy Holy Holy in Revelation 4 is being sung by the angels but also the saints the martyrs and all of the rest that we wish to join we want to be in that company right? When the saints go marching in. But I want to illustrate this because I've already referred to Isaiah 6 this is the famous vision of Isaiah when he got called by God to be a prophet in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1 we read in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple above him stood the seraphim each had six wings with two he covered his face with two he covered his feet and with two he flew and one called to another and said Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke and I said woe is me for I am lost I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell on the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts and then one flew one of the seraphim to me having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar of incense and he touched my lips ouch I mean third degree burn behold this has touched your lips your guilt has taken away your sin forgiven and I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us then I said here am I send me but not until I recover from the third degree burns of course parenthetically you probably know that in the early church the fathers referred to that burning coal from the incense that touched the lips and cleansed this man and empowered him to go forth with the word of God was a symbol of the Holy Eucharist the Blessed Sacrament that touches our lips but this is an important story not just because of the song sung by the seraphim but because of the background in the year that King Uzziah died might seem like just a time marker so we can get our temporal reference but it's not King Uzziah back in the 8th century reigned for over 50 years he stretched Israel's boundaries to the uttermost he was restoring wealth he was restoring power military supremacy you might say he was making Israel great again he even had these caps that the Jews wore no he didn't but he was a very effective politician as king up until a point because we'll read in 2 Chronicles 26 that this politician at the height of his success succumbed to, wait for it pride a politician succumbing to pride yeah so what did King Uzziah decide to do he went out for an afternoon stroll over to the temple which was as right as a layman and then he kept on strolling beyond the outer court, beyond the court of the Israelites into the holy place off limits king and he kept going closer and closer to the holy of holies after all I am the single most effective successful king practically since David and Solomon and as a riot the high priest is saying stop and he keeps going stop and he's moving closer to the altar of incense in the earthly temple of the earthly Jerusalem and as he's about to reach it as a riot got 80 priests who blocked him but as he turned around to object they saw leprosy had broken out all over his face in his forehead and at that point they had to use force to eject him from the temple lest he defile it and he spent the last remaining time of his royal career a half century long in a makeshift in a makeshift leper colony oh in the year that king Uzziah died this is more than just a time marker we discover who is the real king who is still enthroned I said the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the seraphim are singing holy holy holy and Isaiah is saying woe is me and why because God is holy the holy angels are but we're not holy yet we're unclean, gee I wonder why he thinks that way because of what our king did to himself, to his temple and to the people he defiled us and so the angel takes the call from the altar of incense and the heavenly Jerusalem in the temple up there not made with hands and touches his lips and then commissions him for 50 years of prophecy and so the distinction between sanctity and justice between holiness and righteousness suddenly took on a great significance and so for us we've got to distinguish between the justice that is righteous the ethical rectitude from the holiness which is just and right and not less just or less right but far more and so the idea that the one true religion is really a private matter that we should do personally and then maybe as a family but don't not be seen in the public square I mean this is not right and just that is wrong and unjust reminds me what happened 50 years ago and in Sweden these two bank robbers took five hostages because they couldn't get the money they came for and they held them for several days until finally tear gas and the police stormed the bank and took them out in chains and held this trial and then the whole world was shocked as the hostages accused the government of an excessive force and the hostages spoke in defense of the captors and why nobody understood but they had been trapped in the bank vault and they had to cope and so they found the coping mechanism was to kind of side with their captors what do we call that Stockholm syndrome because that's where the bank was that's where the case was held and a coping mechanism that we've all adapted is this idea that well we have to kind of privatize our religion, friendship but nothing more than that but guess what it's not just justice in the social order it's also holiness so the challenge that is before us is not only for us to become saints but to do so as laypeople who Vatican II reminds us we are to go out and sanctify the temporal order not sanitize it not just kind of clean it up like they did in the 40s and 50s when some Catholic priests would either okay the movies coming from Hollywood or not the decency guilt as it were we are to go out and sanctify the temporal order so what I would propose is that the greatest gift that we can give to this nation that we love and we're so concerned about is our faith lived out more fully and I would also say that this helps us to understand what holiness is now I quoted the catechism and I really like it but the theologian who I prefer over almost any other saint Thomas Aquinas and he defines holiness as the perfection of divine love the perfection of divine love yeah, God is love well we all know that but no, God is from all eternity perfect love so he didn't create the world because he was lonely he didn't kind of redeem the world to get these pets back in the home he created and they redeemed the world and gets nothing out of it that he was lacking before because he is a trinity of love a trinity of divine life and so the perfection of love is proper to God alone because God the Father eternally generates the son and the son eternally images the father not only by accepting divine life as an eternal gift of love but by imaging the father by loving the father with the same gift of love and life that he returns and what do you call the life the gift of love from the father to the son and back from the son of the father not what who it's the Holy Spirit and so it's the spirit of the father and the spirit of the son because he is the Lord and giver of life life, gift, love the father is not the son the son is not the father but both the father and the son are both Holy and Spirit pure Spirit so why do we call the third person the first two because the third person is the communion of the father and the son the perfection of eternal love life giving love and this is unimaginable this goes beyond what I have seen here has heard it's never entered the heart or the mind of man or angels for that matter and yet what if just what if the Holy Trinity the eternal love of the father son and the Holy Spirit is the only thing for which we were made what if I mean just kind of imagine hypothetically what if there's no what if getting home is not going to Rome don't get me wrong we're celebrating the 30th anniversary of Rome's sweet home in a couple of months yeah okay becoming Catholic was awesome becoming a saint is much different and so the journey home is not simply a pilgrimage to Rome it's a journey to heaven but we don't go to heaven to catch a glimpse of the Holy Trinity the Holy Trinity is heaven going all the way back to the primordial form of creation you have our first father in the Garden of Eden until he desecrates it and that's when he's driven out and what does God post as the guards there in the entrance of the Garden of Eden to cherubim wielding fiery swords what does that tell every Israelite reader in antiquity that the Garden of Eden is the Holy of Holies because that's where we know to cherubim are overshadowing the Ark of the Covenant the mercy seat which is off limits now that our first father failed so he goes out of the Garden of Eden into Eden and then when his oldest son Cain slays his younger brother he's driven east of Eden this is liturgical orientation this is a liturgical world view this is homilaturgicus man is a worshiping being for better or for worse so there was a three fold structure to the primordial tent the tabernacle the temple where we worship and then when the tabernacle is built there's the courtyard the holy place and the Holy of Holies oh cool and when they get out of the tent because they arrive in Jerusalem and Solomon builds the temple what is the structure? it's three fold the outer court the holy place and the Holy of Holies and when it's destroyed and it's rebuilt by Zerubbabel what is the structure of the second temple? it is three fold and what is it? the outer court the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies except for one problem and that is the vision that John has at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21 and 22 he captures this he's given this vision of the new Jerusalem as the bride of Christ adorned for her husband as a virgin bride decked out in splendor only John just mentions in passing in Revelation 21 verse 17 in the new Jerusalem up in heaven there was no temple what? what do you mean no temple I mean Jerusalem wasn't just a holy city with a temple built like the holy temple with the city built around it to protect it what do you mean in the new Jerusalem there's no temple for the temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb who sits upon the throne oh yeah and the living water that flows from the throne of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb so there is a temple but not exactly what is it? it's the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb that's the father and the son but don't forget the living water that flows from the throne of the Lord and the Lamb that's the Holy Spirit oh I see so the temple is the Trinity well take that back and you'll see why was it always the case that if you approach the presence of God to worship and offer sacrifice it's always a three fold structure the outer court where they had the tables that Jesus toppled you've made my father's house Jesus does into the holy place and continues on as the Christ to give us the christening the Holy Spirit and what is that are being invited into the Holy of Holies so that the lowest lay person in our midst will enjoy forever prerogatives that the high priest and ancient Israel could never ever enjoy talk about taking a lot of grace for granted this is who we are this is what we do in the mass and this is how God calls us to be perfect why? because his mercy perfects us be holy as I am holy be perfect as I am perfect be merciful as I am merciful well if we had the shoes I know what every one of us would choose mercy but through his mercy he gradually perfects us so that we'll end up being saints but nobody's a canonizable saint until they've drawn their last breath and what is the Holy Spirit described as throughout all of the Bible a holy fire as opposed to the unholy fire that those priests offered when they walked in drunk so the holy fire the consuming fire it's a fire but it didn't consume the burning bush it's a fire but it didn't consume the blessed virgin it's a fire but it didn't consume Jesus so what did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6 I saw the Lord high and lifted up lifted up yeah what does that mean you know that the Seraphim are holding him up no the Seraphim are flying over him enthroned what did the Seraphim see the Lord God Almighty full of majesty and glory and they had to cover their faces why John tells us because Jesus taught John the beloved disciple in John chapter 12 as Jesus imminent death is becoming apparent he announces that his hour has come now is the judgment of this world now shall the ruler of this world be cast out why because I'm about to be lifted up and when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to myself perhaps even more the ascension and John knows that so what does he add a parenthetical remark to explain he said this to show by what death he was to die ooh and the crowd doesn't get it they don't believe and Jesus said this is so that the word of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled Lord who has believed a report to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed Isaiah said this because he saw his glory whose glory but more particularly Jesus glory when he saw Jesus high and lifted up Jesus says I'm going to cast out the devil because when I am lifted up I'm going to draw all men and women to myself but he said this to show by what death he was to die what is the essential grandeur and greatness of God is the fact that he is stronger than any creature and can basically have his way and dominate creatures at his will because of his power no it's because I know more than all of you put together no it's because I am better and more good than all of you put together no what is it that makes God God he is love the perfection of love the consuming fire that amazes us but it also scares us and yet where is the all surpassing supremacy of God revealed and creation for sure you know at the Red Sea and other places but what did Isaiah see what does John say where do the seraphim cover their faces because they're looking upon the majesty and the glory of the holy God in a way that they can't even look at when he is lifted up this is why Saint Augustine says the Lord of lords and the king of kings reigns from the throne of the cross it's the wood of the cross that manifests that which is holy to God the perfection of love that is poured out so that when he died he didn't lose his life he made his life a gift of love I laid down my suke my human life so that I can give you eternal zoe eternal life it's sad that there in John 12 the English word life translates both Greek terms he pours out his suke his soul in order to impart his zoe his divine life the Lord and giver of life the holy spirit the only other time Isaiah speaks of seeing the Lord lifted up is in Isaiah 52 behold my servant shall prosper he shall be exalted and lifted up Isaiah 52 13 what did that look like well as many were astonished him because his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance you just said that the servant of the Lord like God himself is going to be lifted up and his appearance is marred yeah really yeah because he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and equated with grief despised we esteemed him not why because he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted but he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement they made us whole and with his stripes we are healed for all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all he was oppressed and afflicted yet he opened on his mouth like a sheep before its shears is dumb he was cut off from the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people they made his grave with a rich man and his death yet there was no deceit in his mouth yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him to make himself an offering for sin we think that the majesty and the glory of God is sort of like a top mount Sinai or there at the Red Sea but the greatest of the prophets confirmed what we know Elijah in the cave and what does he hear a mighty wind that splits the rocks just like the mighty wind that split the Red Sea and then there's this earthquake just like the earthquake that was a top mount Sinai when Moses and the Israelites got there and a fire as well but the Lord was not in any of them until a still small voice and suddenly Elijah covers himself with his garment it's one thing for God to just overpower us it's another thing for God to show that by the medicine of my mercy you're going to discover that mercy is going to make you holy and perfect perfect you for us, mercy and justice are at odds to the extent that I'm just no mercy to the extent that I'm mercy I suspend justice but there on the wood of the cross you see this plan fulfilled and what is it the marriage of humanity and divinity the marriage of justice and mercy where the son images the father by pouring out his spirit the water and the blood and by making his life a gift to us he didn't lose it on Good Friday if he laid it down on Holy Thursday in the Eucharist he's not the victim of Roman violence at Calvary he's the victim of divine love on Holy Thursday when he institutes the sacrament that transform the Roman execution into the consummation of religion of sanctity, of love this is what happens when you take all of the articles of the Creed and arrange them you have the hope diamond you have holiness you have a faith worth living and dying for you now in conclusion I want to give you some practical suggestions first of all the incarnation made all the difference no saints before we're all called saints now why? because of the sacraments circumcision only given to males who were Jews and free but baptism is given to all of us so there's no longer any Jew or Greek or female that's what Paul's talking about secondly the prayer life that flows from the celebration of the sacraments third again it's God's initiative so turning to the Blessed Virgin Mary turning to the saints not just the sacraments but to your sponsors to the clergy and to the others as well to live a life of love and sacrifice make your bodies a living sacrifice notice that bodies is the plural because we all have bodies but sacrifice is singular because there's only one sacrifice it's the Eucharist we receive his resurrected body to lead us to our own crosses to Calvary to the hour of death through which we pass and only then as we draw our last breath in a state of grace will we be numbered among the saints in glory this is who we are this is why we're here this is why the hope we seek is holiness and nothing less in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil holy Mary our hope seed of wisdom pray for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen real briefly I just the applause I appreciate but I don't need it anyway when I step down you can do whatever you want but I want to just encourage you to get hold of holy is his name I've never learned so much but I also want to encourage you to get another book a guest at this conference over the years Dr. Ralph Martin and we published a book that we all need to read a church in crisis pathways forward so instead of just complaining we can really do it in a way that is holy and transformative a church in crisis pathways forward is the most constructive way to respond to all of the scandals that we hear about clergy and laity it's a 30% discount for this conference only and likewise Father Gerald Murray who was the priest conference we held two weeks ago calming the storm navigating the crisis facing the Catholic church and society I have found great difficulty in dealing with the corruption of the state we live in as well as the church but I have also found great wisdom and consolation and practical guidance and I think we need that as much today as we ever have before thank you dear brothers and sisters and God bless you