When I was doing my theological studies, we were required to read a book on the notion of holiness, a kind of classic on the subject. My feeble memory hasn’t retained too much of the writing, but I do recall a few salient points. Among them was the admission that holiness is a hard thing to define. Most everyone who has had some experience of holiness can’t say just what it is. In the holy, there’s a perception that one is faced with a tremendous an awe-inspiring mystery that infinitely transcends oneself. Holiness is what we attribute in the proper sense to God alone, being overwhelmed before His majesty, power and glory. This holiness of God, though, for all its magnificence, isn’t an entirely terrifying thing; it’s also peaceable, reverent and alluring. We are fascinated with God even as we fear him.

Fear of the Lord is, as you may recall, the lowest ranking gift of the Holy Spirit: lowest in the sense that it is the essential beginning, the foundation, without which one cannot climb to the heights of divine wisdom. This salutary, good kind of fear is what makes us recoil, not so much at God’s omnipotence, but at our own sinfulness before His utter purity. Such was the reaction of Isaiah when he was given a vision of God: seated in lofty splendor, with attendant angels crying out their anthems in His praises, with that mysterious smoke, much like our incense, partially veiling His sublime majesty. Isaiah’s reaction to this was: "Woe! I’m doomed!" Death was the first thought that came to him because no one can see God and remain alive. The admission of Isaiah’s sinfulness is relevant to us. One cannot know how truly vile he is, how sinful and imperfect, until he’s made to stand before the utter purity of God. Isaiah (whom we may well presume to have been a righteous man) could only admit, "I am a man of unclean lips...yet my eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts!"

Were God to wield his might and perform a little terrifying display, a few convincing miracles, everyone might then become religious. Unless one is a total fool, overpowering strength induces submission. When defeat is certain, the only reasonable thing to do is to yield. Yet it does not appear that we are so reasonable, that we willingly yield before the awesome majesty of God.

You may recall the myth of Prometheus, that legendary human figure, who is an exemplar of modern man standing in proud defiance against God. Not surprisingly, in the end of his original story, God wins. The Prometheus myth is about the enduring contention of humanity and God, as if the two were meant to be in everlasting conflict. But, ?is that how it truly is with God and man? Is it right that man should toughen up and take on God, knowing full well that although God is the stronger and will inevitably win, the only honorable thing for a man to do is to fight his hardest and at least gain glory for his valorous efforts?

This pagan way of looking at life (that God and man are in conflict) is not confined to antiquity alone. It has been promulgated in the writings of many highly influential authors in modern times which have been deforming the minds and hearts of youth for several decades. In many places of so-called higher learning, this literature is required reading. Marxist literature, for example, had, until recently perhaps, been the benchmark of a modern secularist education. Whether or not this is changing I cannot say. But I fear that the once strident forms of rebellion in Marxist political ideology and social upheaval have been supplanted by the softer forms of erotic preoccupation (which is also a manipulative tactic of Communism, by the way, desensitizing the masses through sensuality so as to render them readily and easily conquerable).

Over and against this depraved model of humanity-before-God is the simpler, natural, harmonious, civilized and rational one presented to you by your Catholic faith. This sees man as he rightly is, a creature who does not stand before His Creator either in defiance nor in humiliated defeat, but as a sinner who kneels humbly before his loving God who can forgive him, cure him and elevate him to share in the divine nature. And so, fear and trembling is exchanged for reverent and confident hope. That ought exactly to be our posture before God. But this filial piety, this loving sort of fear of the Lord, is fast fleeting from the souls of people of our time.

I would like to identify what, I think, is the reason for this. Irreverence before the holy is an indicator of the loss of innocence. Many of us have lived through two generation of rebelliousness that have been characterized both by the gross violation of modesty and chastity as well as the accompanying impiety, scorn and ridicule of what is holy. And these two things are related as cause and effect. When we transgress our innate sense of modesty, our fear of transgressing certain moral bounds, that right feeling of taboo about yielding to many forms of wrongdoing, the holiness of God, the sacredness and goodly kind of fear of God is overcome, conquered, rebelled against, in order for one to be enabled to persist on his evil course. The unlawful unveiling of the flesh, the transgression of the body’s sacredness, has its spiritual counterpart in the unveiling or undoing of the holiness of God. And so, there’s mockery of what is holy, sacrilege and blasphemy; there are books written and movies produced that flout our holy faith; there is rebellion against the Church’s doctrines; there is a falling off of devotion to the holy Mary because she’s too pure and humble to endure; there’s the eclipse of religious (in their habits) in the world (our own nuns being a notable exception). You may remember that it was only when the Israelites abandoned themselves to lust and luxury that they fashioned the golden calf. The pursuit of perverse living requires idolatry and the defilement of the holy.

Humility before God, submission to His commandments, adoration of His divine majesty is the way of liberation and real exaltation for humanity. The greatest saints in heaven now were once the humblest people on earth. In the end, the least become the greatest.

Let us invoke the holy angels and follow their example of their obedience, their purity of life, and their adoration of God’s awesome majesty: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Sabaoth!