Holiness is the purpose of human life. The Lord God Himself declared: “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 20.7). in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to the heavenly Father for His disciples: “Holy Father.. keep them in Your Name. .sanctify them in your truth” (Jn.
17.11, 17).
The lives of the saints are very helpful for the attainment of this purpose. Being human, bearing the same flesh, and subject to the same passions as we, saints serve as models, examples of those who overcame the flesh and evil of this world and who attained the award of victory – sanctification. The saints adorn the life of the Church and strengthen the journey of each believer. They are the ones who, after being cleansed of evil passions and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, defined the sacred doctrines and set the sacred canons to serve as the rudder of the Church. Saints are the ones who struggled mightily to proclaim and establish Christian truth, and to defend this truth. Oftentimes they signed their faith with their own blood. Saints helped formulate ecclesiastical worship, so that devout believer can transcend, through its symbolic formulations, to the essence of what is said and done, and make the spiritual ascent to heaven. Moreover, saints are friends, ambassadors, mediators, father, mothers, teachers, and prototypes of sanctified life throughout the ages.
The most beautiful lives of saints are the ones written by saints. Usual y it is a saint who can best speak about another saint. For example, we have excel ent lives of saints written by St. Athanasios the Great, St. Basil the Great, St. Jerome, St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain. The purpose of these lives is to spiritual y edify those who read them, or who hear them in church or in the monastery. In early Christian centuries, the lives of the saints were read at the graves of martyrs, where the Divine Liturgy was also celebrated. The day of martyrdom, or the day of fal ing asleep in the Lord, was considered a birthday. It was the day of ascent into heaven, a day of joy and thanksgiving. Various collections of lives of saints – menologia, leimonaria, synaxaria, lausiaca, and gerontica – constitute didactic material that has been instructive and beneficial for the souls of thousands of monastics and lay people throughout the centuries.
A saint is one who has been sanctified – one who is blameless, undefiled, pure, separated from sin, total y dedicated and consecrated to God, a faithful observer of God's commandments out of love. A saint is one who by grace partakes of the holy nature of God – who alone is truly Holy, absolutely holy, holiness itself.
God the Father is holy, God the Son is holy, God the Spirit is holy, the Trinity is holy. Angels are also holy, as wel as prophets, apostles, martyrs, saintly monastics, those equal-to-the-apostles, ordained martyrs, monastic martyrs, neo-martyrs, confessors, and the righteous.
God is by nature holy, while man becomes holy only with the help of God. Holiness is a free gift of God, available to al without exception. Holiness is poured out as abundant light, which some accept with gratitude and joy, while others reject, out of fear, hesitation or ignorance. Receptiveness varies with each person. Progress in sanctification is attained through the Mysteries – Baptism, Chrismation, Repentance and the Holy Eucharist. Perfection comes with constant awareness of the presence of God, the memory of God, the fear of God. This ongoing, beneficial fear of God reminds the soul of God's abiding providence, His righteous judgment, and His great love.
Sanctification precedes holiness. Sanctification is the way, holiness is the goal, the ultimate purpose.
Sanctification is the beginning of the attribute given to us when we are created in the “image of God.” Holiness is the achievement of the ultimate goal – to be “in the likeness of God.” The first Adam was deceived and he went about seeking to reach this goal in a rash and unlawful manner. The new Adam -Jesus Christ – became incarnate to restore to man the ability to ascend, with Christ's help, from where Christ descended, and thus to be deified (St. Gregory the Theologian).