There is a specific incarnational dimension to holiness. Something is said to be holy when it is “set apart” and “made through” by God and for God. Some things we refer to as “holy” are the holy Bible; the holy Sacrifice of the Mass; the holy Eucharist; the holy Priesthood; holy Matrimony; sacramentals such as medals, salt, and water after they have been blessed. The souls of the just in Heaven (the saints) are holy since they are perfected by God and set apart for Him alone, and the holy souls in Purgatory undergo purification for the purpose of being made through perfectly by God so that they can enjoy Him in beatitude forever.

What a vocation for the soul to be set apart and thoroughly made through. For a person to be truly human (with everything that is meant to entail) is something marvelous and glorious to behold. Consider the Christ-child in the manger: he who is true God and true man. If we are to be truly human, set-apart in a properly understood and ordered way, we must look upon Christ and know him intimately by grace. It is in the Catholic Church, and by means of a robust practice of it in virtue, that the human person reaches his highest potential and goal. In other words, when the soul is engaged in what is authentically Catholic, authentic humanity is incarnated and divinized by Christ, in Christ, and through Christ.

Consider the beautiful words of the poem “Minuit, chrétiens” which inspired “O Holy Night”:

Midnight! Christians, this is the solemn hour

When the God-Man descended to us,

To erase the stain of Original Sin

And to stay his Father’s wrath:

The whole world trembles with hope

On this night that gives it a Savior

People on your knees, await your deliverance.

Christmas! Christmas! Behold the Redeemer!

May our Faith be filled with burning light,

Guide us all to the cradle of the Child.

As in days gone by, a bright star

Lead the leaders of the East there.

The King of Kings is born in a humble manger.

Mighty ones of the day, proud of your grandeur,

It is from there that God preaches to your pride,

Bow your heads before the Redeemer!

The Redeemer has broken every chain,

The Earth is free and Heaven is open.

He sees a brother where there was only a slave.

Love unites those whom iron had bound;

Who can express our gratitude to Him?

It is for us all that He is born, suffers, and dies:

People, arise! Sing of your deliverance.

Christmas! Christmas! Let us sing of the Redeemer!

The “night of our dear Savior’s birth” is set apart from all other nights of the year. It is the night that is quintessentially divine and quintessentially human. Perhaps this is why more Catholics attend Mass at Christmas than at Easter. Christmas is relatable precisely because it is so human. Divinity is enveloped in humanity, and yet humanity is caught up in divinity. In the Christ-child (the God-Man), the mystery of divinity and humanity is inseparable and indistinguishable. He who is Holy does not become less so in his condescending into the realm of the profane, but opens the door to the soul’s deliverance from that which is profane to share in His divinity. Without Christ how infinitely far our humanity is from holiness, but because of Christ and in union with him our humanity is transformed, elevated, and divinized. Being authentically Catholic brings us to the precipice of being truly and fully human, and when, by grace, we see and know the God-Man intimately, our humanity shares joyfully in the glorious divinity of His holiness.

Just as water cannot become more wet, neither can the Divine become more holy. But that which is human will always become more (or less) human and, by extension, more or less holy. The soul can either descend by sin into a state of darkness, chaos, and an ever-growing “lessness” of what it was created by God to be; or by the grace of God it can be distinguished, pervaded and filled with Him so that by cooperating with the Divine Initiative, it becomes more fully, perfectly, and divinely human. Saint Irenaeus puts it thus: “From the beginning the Son is the Revealer of the Father, since from the beginning he was with the Father: prophetic visions, diversities of gifts, his ministries, the glorification of the Father, he has shown forth all that to men for their benefit at the right time, like a well-composed and harmonious melody. Where there is composition there is melody; where there is melody it is at the right time; where there is the right time, there is benefit. And because the Word became the dispenser of the Father’s grace for the benefit of the men for whom he made such great ‘economies,’ he showed God to man and man to God, preserving the invisibility of the Father so that man would not become a despiser of God but would always have a goal toward which to advance, and at the same time making God visible to men through his many ‘economies’ so that man might not be totally deprived of God and perish. For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God. If the revelation of God by the creation already gives life to all the beings living on earth, how much more does the manifestation of the Father by the Word give life to those who see God!” (Adv. Haer. 4.20.7).

What joy holiness brings! What a gift (and how human!) to be set apart and made through by the grace of God in Christ. This is your vocation, so answer the call!