Living Holiness

By Fred Vilbig

Americans are obsessed with freedom. If you look at religion as a set of rules or practices designed to reach your ultimate happiness, Americans treat freedom as a kind of religion. We are our own god in this religion since we say we are free to do whatever we want to make us happy. For that reason, we do not like rules.

To the extent we don’t just ignore them, we tend to resent the 10 Commandments or any other “Church” rules that limit our “freedom”. We see them as preventing us from being “happy,” instead of looking at them as a kind of owner’s manual designed to help us reach our ultimate happiness.

But breaking a commandment rarely brings us happiness. We get caught in our lies. The things we steal bring us misery, guilt, and ultimately unhappiness, the opposite of the happiness we seek. Adultery does not make people feel fulfilled, just cheap. The happiness sin promises is a lie. The impression that sins will bring us happiness is one of the empty promises of Satan that we reject in our baptismal vows.

It seems that sin also has “real” consequences as well. When we push God away, we bring chaos and destruction into our world. In God, there is truth, unity, beauty, and all the other perfections. Away from God is chaos, loneliness, lies, and deformity. When we push God out of our lives through sin, we bring on the darkness.


In our lives, we can hold off this darkness. In the Old Testament, we hear the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. When the angels met with Abraham, they said that the sins of those cities cried out to heaven. Abraham pleaded for the safety of his brother, Lot, and the angels assured him that they would not destroy the city so long as even one righteous person was there. The cities were only destroyed after Lot and his family left.

More recently, G. K. Chesterton foresaw the onset of World War II because of the pride (one of the 7 deadly sins) of the nations in the early 20th Century. Looking at the arrogance and self-assuredness of the world in his day, he saw great evil coming. And it came.

I wonder what Chesterton would say if he could see our world today. Promiscuity is not only rampant, but it’s glorified in our books, movies, advertisements, and social media. The wealthy oppress the poor for their own ends, treating people as objects to enrich themselves. And through abortion, we sacrifice our children for our convenience, comfort, and security – in that way, abortion is like the pagan human sacrifice in the Canaanite worship of Moloch in the Old Testament. I think Chesterton would wonder why God has preserved us this long.

Thinking about this, I am reminded of a scripture verse. In Romans 12:2, St. Paul says, “Do not conform yourselves to the present generation.” We are called to be the light of the world. Matt. 5:14. By our actions, our lives should be a beacon to those around us because holiness is attractive - maybe annoying, but attractive nonetheless.

And by living a holy life (following the Commandments), and calling others to live a holy life, we bring God into a sinful world that is trying to push Him away to their own destruction. Just like Lot in Sodom, we can help to hold off destruction. We can be a beacon to those around us and help them to hold off destruction.

There are a couple of disquieting verses in the Bible. One of those is 1 Peter 1:16: “Be holy for I am holy.” Peter is quoting from Leviticus 11:44 and 19:2. God is holy beyond anything we can imagine … beyond anything we are capable of achieving. Yet we are called to that. It’s a big order, but we shouldn’t ignore the call.



Be holy!