The Holy Mysteries: Sanctification of Life

Hi Soul 🌻 

Be still. Be open. Be consecrated.

“For all of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” — Galatians 3:27

Take a moment to pause before reading.

Bring before God the life you are living now.

Your relationships.

Your work.

Your body.

Your hopes for the future.

Your ordinary, everyday life.

Sometimes we can imagine holiness as something that happens somewhere else — inside a church, within a monastery, in a future vocation, or in the lives of people seemingly more consecrated to God than ourselves.

But the Holy Mysteries reveal something different.

God desires to sanctify the whole of our lives.

Through water and oil, bread and wine, repentance and forgiveness, marriage and ministry, sickness and healing, even death itself, the ordinary realities of human existence become places where God meets us with His grace.

And this has made me think differently about consecration.

Marriage can become an icon of Christ's sacrificial love for His Church. Monastic life can become a radical giving of oneself entirely to Christ. Repentance continually returns us to the new life begun in Baptism. And even our homes, work, relationships, creativity, and everyday responsibilities can be offered back to God.

Perhaps the question is not only, What will my vocation be?

Perhaps there is another question beneath it:

How is God asking me to give my life to Him — beginning with the life I have been given today?

I continue my journey through the Byzantine Catholic Catechism with Fr. Ed from St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church in New York.

This time I'm sharing from Chapter 5 — The Holy Mysteries: Sanctification of Life, which explores Baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist, Repentance as a “second baptism,” Marriage and Crowning, Holy Orders, Holy Unction, monastic consecration, and the Church's beautiful understanding that there is no aspect of proper human activity which cannot be sanctified by prayer and faithful stewardship.

Below, I'll share my reading notes, reflections, and the questions and conversations that emerged during this catechism meeting.