Fr. Robert Maloney’s article “Models of “Being Holy” – A View toward the Past, the Present, and the Future ” is now available online.”From the lives of the saints, our tradition has distilled certain models. Models are concrete images. They are not metaphors like the classical “following of Christ,” “climbing the ladder of perfection,” or “ascending the spiritual mountain”; rather they give a clear, brief (even if incomplete) insight into the concrete reality of holiness and make us aware of what commitment to it involves. They are like “icons” of the gospel, symbols of Christian self-giving.
Models do not exhaust the reality; they are partial representations of it. They complement rather than exclude each other, as each places a particular emphasis on what it means to be holy. As symbols, they also arouse an affective response within us, drawing us toward the goal of holiness. ….
Below, I will describe a few of these models, with the hope that they will be helpful to all of us in seeing where we might fit.
For the rest of the reflection visit the Congregation of the MIssion web site
