The Response Needed to the Call for Holiness

Each of one of us is called to live out the universal call to holiness. Whatever state of life we pursue, whether married, consecrated, or single, we share the same vocation: holiness. It is a given fact, however, that in our desire to live a holy life, we are confronted with attendant challenges to our human conditions. How do we attain a life of balance in such a way that we will be able to fulfill our vocation?

Some advocate divorce for married couples in conflict. Others who think that population is the main hindrance to progress approve the reproductive health law. Those who feel their genders are different from what is normally perceived as man or woman clamor for equal rights, in which one of these is the legalization of same sex unions.

“Human beings, created by God as either male or female, are meant to complement each other in a union of the two intended from their creation. And human sexuality, characterized as distinctly masculine or feminine, is ordered by nature towards that union, of one specifically with the other,” the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines states in its Pastoral Response to the Acceptance of Homosexual Lifestyle and the Legalization of Homosexual Unions in August 20, 2015.

The document says that “as it (marriage) is ordered or directed to the union of man and woman, human sexuality is also ordered towards the procreation and education of children.” Thus, by its very nature marriage is intended to be unitive and procreative.

Marriage is not a human institution. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1603) states that “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws… God himself is the author of marriage.”

The Catholic Church acknowledges that this homosexual inclination constitutes for most of them, a trial. Hence, they must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition (CCC 2358).

The Catholic Church according to CBCP looks at her children who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies with motherly compassion and paternal love, even as she reminds them that in cultures that have lost sight of the richness and diversity of friendships that enhance the human condition, those who struggle with homosexuality are called to witness to the life-giving nature of virtue based friendships not ordered to sexual acts.

St. Peter when asked by our Lord if He also would leave him like the others who found his teaching difficult said, “Where do I go, Lord? You have the words of everlasting life.”

We, too, can follow the example of St. Peter. We do not just turn our backs on the Church just because it does not give us what we want but what we need.

Living a holy life is an invitation to respond to regardless of one’s human condition. We do not demand nor impose changes to our moral laws just so we can respond to that invitation. It is enough to acknowledge that “Our help is in the Name of the Lord who made heaven and earth (Ps 124:8).”