A person obtains holiness, whatever his state of life may be, by loving God above all else.

God’s life is holy because it is lived with love. The Father and the Son forever give Themselves to each other in one eternal infinite act of love. From this mutual love proceeds the Holy Spirit, their infinite, eternal union; the total sharing of their one divine Being and nature.

Jesus teaches us that holiness consists in being “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). We achieve this perfection by means of both the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the infused virtues. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit fill us with the light of Christ’s truth. The infused virtues, especially the Theological and Cardinal Virtues, fill our hearts with the power of Christ’s grace.

In prayer (cf. Mt 7:7), we must continually ask for the light of Christ’s truth and the power of His grace. Then, empowered from above, we must imitate Christ in prayer, in the ascetic life, and through our involvement in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. We must reproduce in our lives the mysteries of Christ’s life, especially those presented to us in the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Imitation of Christ includes our efforts to promote the true development of our whole human person and the whole human person of our neighbor as well. It includes increasing everyone’s ability to respond to his vocation and call from God.

When we cooperate with God’s plan for our lives and for the lives of others, God can complete the good work that He began in us through His grace in Baptism. For it was in Baptism, our birth from above by water and the Holy Spirit, that God conferred on us His first gift of the Holy Spirit, the infused virtues, and our vocation in life. Through these we became God’s adopted children (cf. Gal 4:5), sharers of His very own divine nature and life (cf. 2 Peter 1:4) and of the communion of divine Persons (cf. 1 Jn 1:3).