HOLINESS

 

          HOLINESS 

The word ‘holy’ is defined as sacred, pious, spiritually perfect, untainted by evil, sinless, sanctified, venerated, religious , devout, heavenly, divine, godly, godlike, angelic and blessed.

To categorize things as holy or unholy is difficult. There can be no consensus among the people who categorize a particular thing as holy or unholy.

There is another question : Has God made the same things as holy at one place and  unholy and at  another place?

Why are some rivers, hills, shrines, etc., considered holier than others?

I sometimes think that whatever God has made or created is holy. The sun, the moon, all the stars, every river, every hill, the whole earth, forests, the natural objects, animals and birds, fruits and vegetable, the plants and herbs all are holy. Likewise, every moment of time is holy. No moment is independent of the full stream of time.

Rain is holy everywhere and in every season. The autumn is as holy as the spring.

There is a diversity of things but all of them are sacred by themselves. It is people, their users, who misuse them and affect their holiness.

People are born holy. They become unholy by their evil deeds.

The English divine Philip  Henry  (1631-96) said “Holiness is the symmetry of the soul.”

According to F.D. Huntington, the American clergy (1819-1904) : Holiness is religious principle put into action. It is faith gone to work. It is love coined into conduct; devotion helping human suffering, and going up in   intercession to the great source of all good.

German humorist Jean Paul Richter (1763-1826) had this to say: Everything holy is before what is unholy ; guilt presupposes innocence, not the reverse. Angels, but not fallen ones, were created.  Man does not properly rise to the highest, but first sinks down from it, and then afterward rises again.

The fact is that holiness is a creation by God, un-holiness, by human beings.

Finally, here is a bit long quote: Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man. No attribute of God is more dreadful to sinners than His holiness. The world calls for, and expects from us simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment, and self-sacrifice.     

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G.R.Kanwal

19 February 2025