The Essence of Holiness!!!!!!!!

A considerable amount of prejudices concerning the extraordinary life of the saints can be eliminated thanks to an exact understanding of that which is the nature of grace. Many people make the holiness coincide with the ability to perform miracles and other gestures that inspire wonder; they are a person if he is able to drive out demons, cure illness, read in thought or perform some other spectacular feats. The holiness, however, is not nothing of all this. A saint is not necessarily a "miracle worker". It is true that there were saints, such as St. Martin of Porres, who knew how to speak to animals or others, like Saint Anthony of Padua, who, according to what was handed down, had the gift of bi-location. These gifts, however, are completely charismatic and go beyond human power: it is God himself who performs these miracles by using certain creatures.

 Extraordinary gifts, such as the ability to be in two places at the same time, to drive out demons, to foresee future events and so on, are secondary to holiness as such. God gives them freely to some people, not so much to make clear their holiness as to induce good Believers, in the gospel of Matthew Jesus says: many will tell me that day: Lord we have not prophesied in your name? In your name we have not cast out demons and we have not made many prodigy in your name? So, I told them: I've never met you. Go away from me, operators of iniquity The words of Jesus want to mean that even evil people sometimes receive the gift of prophecy or the power to drive out demons, but this does not necessarily make them pleases to God. In holiness, there is indeed something more important than the power to perform miracles. : it is living divine life through grace.

 What exactly is sanctifying grace? The catechism of the Catholic Church defines it as a habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to make it possible to live with God and to act for his own. It is the gratuitous help that God, without taking care of our merits, gives us because we respond to his invitation to become children of God, sons, and adopted daughters, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life. In other words, grace is a participation in the life life of God himself.

 From this perspective, grace is not simply something that gives the right to eternal life. It is rather something that perfects and elevates our nature without destroying it. Sanctifying grace allows us to live not just the natural life, but the life of God himself.

We do not know what grace is actually because we do not have a direct knowledge of the essence and life of God, of which grace is participation. What we know is that grace is the beginning of the eternal way in us, the seed of divine life planted in our soul. This life of grace, belonging to the supernatural order, is that of men or angels. This is why St. Thomas does not hesitate to say: the good of the grace of one is greater than the good of the nature of the whole universe.