Our gospel passage for today comes from what is called Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” for his disciples at the Last Supper. He prays that God will “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. . . and for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” To sanctify is to set something (in this case, Jesus’ disciples) apart for God’s service. In our lesson from Acts, for example, we see those same disciples realizing the need for a twelfth companion to fill their ranks, calling Matthias to join in their ministry and apostleship, and thereby sanctifying him as a witness to Christ Jesus.

William Sydnor in his book More than Words (p.125) describes God’s work of sanctification in our lives today. “Sanctify means to make holy, to set someone or something apart for God’s special purpose. Only the Holy Spirit can make us holy. God does not force himself upon us, however. We are free to refuse the influence of the Holy Spirit. God begins the work of making us holy when we are baptized, but we must be willing to have it happen. We must let the Holy Spirit work within us to help us. Through the Spirit we become mature men and women, measured by Christ as a standard (Eph.4:11-16). . . . The Holy Spirit works to sanctify us through the Church’s sacraments, through other people, through Christian groups to which we belong. [The Holy Spirit] works to bring our plans and actions into agreement with God’s holy will.”

Being open and available, welcoming and accepting, ready to cooperate with God’s work of love in the world, along with praying for and expecting God’s transforming grace to bring us into the imago dei that God created us to be, is our part in the sanctification process. We can trust the Holy Spirit to do God’s part in making us whole and holy. Are we living into our part?