In this intimate union, we are able to love perfectly as God loves. By perfectly holy, then, we mean intimately united to the Trinitarian God (the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit) so much so that there is a oneness of heart, mind and will. People are holy to the degree that they are united to God. Holiness depends on one’s relationship with God. They are made holy by God as a gift, and their efforts are their acceptance of, appreciation of, and cooperation in this gift. Saints are not holy by their own efforts. A saint is one who is made holy, or sanctified.

All holiness comes from God, and it is given to humanity as a gift. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. “You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. And she wondered why all Christians didn’t feel the same way, why they all didn’t love their neighbor as themselves, and why they did not act on those feelings. She understood it as simply her duty as a Christian to care for the needs of her brothers and sisters. They are happy to call her a saint for serving the poor, because then they don’t have to, since they would never presume themselves to be that holy.īut Dorothy didn’t want her work with the poor to be dismissed as something extraordinary. Her remark is directed at those who see sainthood as something extraordinary that can then be dismissed by the average person as something out of reach. Yet, her attitude toward sainthood is exactly what makes her so relevant for us today in the post-Vatican II church. Indeed, there are those in the Catholic Worker Movement that she co-founded with Peter Maurin who do not support her cause for canonization, claiming she would not want it, and that the money spent on the process should be given to the poor. One of Dorothy Day’s better known quotes, some interpret it to mean that she didn’t think much of the saints and of sainthood in general.

Mother angelica degree quote