I just finished a careful reading of Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and be Glad) On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World by Pope Francis. It is one more instance of this pope’s inspiring, prophetic, hope-filled and occasionally controversial teaching. I believe the Holy Spirit is with Pope Francis as he stirs up those who are too comfortable and settles down those whose anxieties have caused them to abandon all hope. 

Like his immediate predecessor, who now calls himself “Father Benedict,” Pope Francis makes it very clear that holiness is not something that only a saint can achieve. All are called to holiness and all have the potential—aided by God’s grace—to become holy. “These witnesses may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones,” the pope says. “Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord” (#4).

A beautiful example of Pope Francis’s view that holiness is accessible to all is his reflection on “the holiness of the Church militant.”

I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness.”

Here Pope Francis rejects what might be called “the elitism of sanctity” and calls attention to its presence (not perfectly or completely but truly) in ordinary people, the middle class of holiness. This emphasis on what the Second Vatican Council called “the universal call to holiness” is not unique to Pope Francis, but, as always, this pope uses vivid images and gestures to reinforce his teaching. 

Critics accuse Pope Francis of sowing doubt and confusion by urging flexibility in the application of traditional Church teaching to concrete situations. Gaudete et Exsultate will not silence those who question the pope’s orthodoxy. In fact, the Holy Father uses this apostolic exhortation to challenge those whom he considers “subtle enemies of holiness” to cast off their “narcissistic and authoritarian elitism” and embrace a more open, loving and forgiving attitude toward the struggles of ordinary people who seek to follow Jesus in spite of their weakness, selfishness and sin. 

When somebody has an answer for every question, it is a sign that they are not on the right road,” the pope says. “They may well be false prophets, who use religion for false purposes to promote their own psychological or intellectual theories. God infinitely transcends us; he is full of surprises. We are not the ones to determine when and how we will encounter him; the exact times and places of that encounter are not up to us. Someone who wants everything to be clear and surepresumes to control God’s transcendence (#41).

These are challenging words—addressed to those who claim that the teaching of this pope causes “confusion” among the faithful who long for clarity and certainty in the Church’s teaching. 

Perhaps the most serious issue for many of the pope’s critics is his statement that defense of the unborn and other social justice issues are “equally sacred.” 

Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty (#101).

This is the both/and of Catholicism. While it’s undeniably true that defense of the unborn is a grave responsibility for Christians and all who affirm the dignity of human life from the moment of conception to the point of natural death, we cannot be faithful to the Gospel if we neglect any of the issues of morality and social justice which the pope calls to our attention. We must be both radically pro-life and uncompromisingly firm in our opposition to all forms of injustice. 

As always, the words of Pope Francis make us uncomfortable even as they assure us of God’s mercy and encourage us to find both hope and joy in the life of missionary discipleship to which we are called by virtue of our baptism. 

Read Gaudete et Exsultate and judge for yourself whether this pope is right about the blessings and challenges of the call to holiness today. 

We must remember that prayerful discernment must be born of a readiness to listen: to the Lord and to others, and to reality itself, which always challenges us in new ways. Only if we are prepared to listen, do we have the freedom to set aside our own partial or insufficient ideas, our usual habits and ways of seeing things. In this way we become truly open to accepting a call that can shatter our security, but lead us to a better life. It is not enough that everything be calm and peaceful. God may be offering us something more, but in our comfortable inadvertence, we do not recognize it. 

This is the consistent message of Pope Francis: God calls us out of our comfort zones to go out to the margins of society bringing the Joy of the Gospel to the most vulnerable, neglected and abused members of the human family. May God bless Pope Francis as he challenges us and gives us hope!