Of Sanctification
This sanctification, although imperfect in this life, is effected in every part of man’s nature.
Sanctification is the process by which we, as believers, are transformed, slowly but surely, into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a lifelong process—even longer than that— for it culminates at the judgment seat of Christ. “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” (1 Corinthians 3:13)
Although he is talking about purgatory, these words from Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) are helpful in understanding the purpose and scope of sanctification:
Purgatory is not…some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where one is forced to undergo punishments in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints. Simply to look at people with any degree of realism at all is to grasp the necessity of such a process….Man is the recipient of the divine mercy, yet this does not exonerate him from the need to be transformed. Encounter with the Lord is this transformation. It is the fire that burns away our dross and re-forms us to be vessels of eternal joy.
