The love which is at the heart of Christian life is not a mysterious something hidden in the depths of one’s inner self. Rather, it is the disposition to total fulfillment in divine and human life. Charity rules all the means of attaining holiness, because it organizes and enlivens the whole of Christian life, which is communion in divine life, and this very living and flourishing whole is holiness (see S.t., 2–2, q. 184, aa. 1, 3).

The perfection of Christian life is perfection of the whole interpersonal relationship with God, with other persons, and with the remainder of creation. God initiates a friendship with creatures; holiness is the blossoming of this friendship. In this blossoming, nothing of divine goods is held back by God, and nothing of created goods may be held back by those who love him. All one’s life, all society, everything good, beautiful, and true must be drawn into this friendship. Charity excludes no human good, but rather requires the cultivation of every good of the human person: “By this holiness a more human way of life is promoted even in this earthly society” (LG 40). The idea that the perfection to which Christians are called in this life is exclusively spiritual and religious—that holiness has little to do with the body and secular human goods—is radically mistaken. Indeed, this idea is at war with Christianity, which is centered upon the Word made flesh.

In Jesus the mystery of humankind takes on new light. Jesus, “by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (GS 22). For Jesus makes clear that the new law of love can be fulfilled by the Spirit’s power, that human persons are called to integral human and divine fulfillment, that the way to this fulfillment requires love and service also of bodily goods, that the way leads through death to resurrection, and that heavenly fulfillment will enhance individuality and every aspect of human potentiality (see S.t., 2–2, q. 25, a. 5; 3, q. 56).

Vatican II confirms this conclusion by explaining how holiness can be reached in diverse conditions and states of life and summing up: “All of Christ’s faithful, therefore, whatever be the conditions, duties, and circumstances of their lives, will grow in holiness day by day through these very situations, if they accept all of them with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father, and if they cooperate with the divine will by showing every man through their earthly activities the love with which God has loved the world” (LG 41).

John Paul II builds upon the teaching of the Council about vocation and also treats personal vocation as an essential principle of Christian moral life. We must remember, he teaches, that efforts at renewal are authentic only insofar as they are “. . . based on adequate awareness of the individual Christian’s vocation and of responsibility for this singular, unique and unrepeatable grace by which each Christian in the community of the People of God builds up the Body of Christ. This principle, the key rule for the whole of Christian practice—apostolic and pastoral practice, practice of interior and of social life—must with due proportion be applied to the whole of humanity and to each human being.” After exemplifying the principle with respect to several states of life, he adds: “It is precisely the principle of the ‘kingly service’ that imposes on each one of us, in imitation of Christ’s example, the duty to demand of himself exactly what we have been called to, what we have personally obliged ourselves to by God’s grace, in order to respond to our vocation.”¹