Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens: Holiness

Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens: Holiness:
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Excerpts from a talk given by the Cardinal to a Worldwide Retreat for Priests: 6000 priest attended the retreat at the Paul VI Audience Hall, Vatican City, Oct. 5-9, 1984. “Be Holy” God’s First Call to Priest Today. 1987 Greenlawn Press, S.B. Indiana.

“A Call to Holiness” is the theme of your retreat, and it is important to ask just what these words mean. Is holiness something rare and quite extraordinary, like climbing great mountains, or advancing against terrible odds to reach the pinnacle of a certain endeavor? Is that what our call to holiness is like! No, for me it is far simpler! The call to holiness is nothing more or less than a call to remain exactly what we already are, while fully aware of just what that is.”…

“To the question of a reporter and with only a second to seek from the Holy Spirit the right answer, I replied: “A Saint is a normal Christian, no more, no less. The only trouble is that the rest of us are far too abnormal!”

“Being holy is exactly what every Christian should normally be…. More than anything else, holiness is a Person, the divine Person called the Holy Spirit. This makes our “Call to Holiness” a call to the Holy Spirit; a call to surrender to the Sanctifier and Creator of all holiness. He is the Holiness of God, and the Sanctifier and Creator of all holiness. He is the Holiness of God, and he makes Christians normal by coming to them to make them saints!

“Our Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me” (Jn.7:37). Well, priests today are certainly thirsty, made so by a modern world that causes the exercise of their ministry to be so paradoxical. It is a paradox, and a great suffering as well, to offering the blood of Christ and the waters of life to those who admit no thirst. We know the thirst is there, but those suffering it only deny it. They not only refuse what we offer, but even fail to understand or show interest in what we are saying. …

“Explaining suffering is never easy. After reading thousands of learned pages on the subject, the closest I have come to a good answer is this single line: “Jesus did not come to explain our suffering, to take it away. He came to us to put it to use, and fill it with his presence.”…

“When I hear people saying that the Scriptures which tell them how to live are far too obscure, I always answer by quoting Mark Twain: “Most people are bothered by those passages in the Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those that I do understand.” The problem still remains: how to bring this incredible news, this sometimes obscure, sometimes cutting and far too demanding news, this gospel message of Christ’s way of living, to today’s world where the life-style is a total contradiction.

“For me, the only answer if that we must give witness. Our own lives must make the value and joy of this other way of life so evident that others are forces to ask the secret…. We can show that our strength comes from seeing our lives with eyes of faith…. A few months ago, I received in the mail a little card. On one side of the card were these words: Dear Jesus, I have a problem … it’s me… on the other side of the card were the words: Dear Child, I have the answer … it’s Me.”
George H. Kubeck, Posted in the early mornings www.cinopsbegone.blogspot.com