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<When the scriptures say "holy" they mean "separate" or "different" and set apart. The word implies being healthy and whole in a world where much is un-healthy and fragmented. The English phrase "hale and hearty" sums up true holiness. Holiness includes such concepts as humor and laughter, compassion and understanding, and the capacity to forgive and be forgiven, to love and be loved. That’s holiness. Holy families are not free from conflict, nor do they never hurt one another. Holiness in families, rather, comes from learning to forgive and to be reconciled, and learning to face our problems and do something about them. In family life, holy means striving to surrender to God’s light within us when the darkness around us seems overwhelming. It means struggling day after day to bring creative order—if only a bit of it—to the chaos in the world as it encroaches on our lives. When we work at cultivating forgiveness, reconciliation, and community, we embody God’s holy will in the context of family life. A family embodies holiness by striving to be ‘hale and hearty,’ not by trying to be ‘perfect’ according to a set of other worldly standards.>
- Mitch Finley, CATHOLIC DIGEST, Jan. 1993, p. 39
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