Helping people to become holy

Now let us take a swimming society as an example of what a society can do for its members.  As you know a swimming society devotes itself, as we say, to swimming and diving.  Its purpose is not only to get people interested in swimming, but to see that new members learn to swim really well.  Some who belong to it may not be able to swim very much, but if they are keen and are willing to be taught and to practise, they have every opportunity of becoming good swimmers.

In the same way, one of the purposes of God’s Society, the Church, is to help its members to become holy like Jesus.  No doubt there are some who have not made much progress in holiness.  If, however, they really want to be holy and are prepared to try hard, through the Church they will receive the power they need.  For in the Sacraments we receive the life and strength of God himself.

In our last session we saw how the Church fights to overcome evil, but that is only half of the matter.  Fighting evil is like rooting out weeds in a flower garden, and there is not much point in doing that unless we intend to grow some fine, strong plants instead.  So the Church’s other work is to help us to have fine, strong, holy characters like Our Lord’s.

Only the Church, then, can rightly be called holy because only the Church, which Our Lord Jesus Christ founded, has the means to make its members holy.

SUMMARY

1. The Church or Family of God which Jesus founded can be recognised today by its family likeness, that is to say, it is still One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

2. Holy means set apart for God and separated from all that is evil.

3. The Church is holy because it has been founded by God and has his power to help its members to become holy.