Universal Call to Holiness and Apostolate is a teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that all people are called to be holy. (See Lumen Gentium, Chapter V.) This Church teaching states that all within the church should live holy lives.
Living a holy life, as defined by the Catholic Church, has little to do with perfection (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Chapter Two.) Rather, it is a lifelong process of seeking God himself, through the person of Jesus Christ.
The universal call to holiness in the Roman Catholic Church is rooted in baptism, a sacrament which configures a person to Jesus Christ who is God and man, thus uniting a person with the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, bringing him in communion with intra-trinitarian life.
John Paul II states in his apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, his master plan for the new millennium, a "program for all times", that holiness is not only a state but a task, whereby Christians should strive for a full Christian life, imitating Christ, the Son of God, who gave his life for God and for his neighbor. This entails a "training in the art of prayer". According to the Pope, all pastoral initiatives have to be set in relation to holiness, as this has to be the topmost priority of the Church. The universal call to holiness is explained as more fundamental than the vocational discernment to particular ways of life such as priesthood, marriage, or virginity.
The universal call to holiness is an important element in the spirituality of Opus Dei, which emphasizes the sanctification of the lay people. It is also fundamental to the Pro-Sanctity Movement.
Famous quotes containing the words universal, call and/or holiness:
“Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it.... He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature, and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“We call the intention good which is right in itself, but the action is good, not because it contains within it some good, but because it issues from a good intention. The same act may be done by the same man at different times. According to the diversity of his intention, however, this act may be at one time good, at another bad.”
—Peter Abelard (1079–1142)
“In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”
—Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)