Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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SANCTITY

In an absolute sense, the Divinity. The sanctity of God is his total transcendence or total otherness. It is in this sense that the Church prays in teh Gloria of the Mass, "You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High." All other sanctity is by participation, so that a creature has as much sanctity as it shares in the Divinity. Essentially it consists in the possession of sanctifying grace, although the term is usually applied to persons who practice more than odinary virtue, especially the love of God and their neighbor.