The saint of the ordinary life

THAT’S how St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei,whose feast is celebrated on June 26, was often dubbed. And that’ssimply because he popularized the idea that everybody is called toholiness and for most of us, this quest for sanctity is done for themost part in the ordinary circumstances and events in our daily life.

 In a way, he brought the high and sacred ideal of personalsanctification with its inseparable duty of doing personal apostolateto the mundane aspect of our life without neglecting, of course, thesacred aspect.

 It’s like saying that God is not only found insidechurches and other holy, sacred places. He is found everywhere, andfor the most part of our day, he is in the little ordinary things.

 Thus, at one point, St. Josemaria said, “God is callingyou to serve him in and from the ordinary…There is something holy,something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is upto each one of you to discover it.”

 In other words, the dynamic of love, which is the essenceof sanctity, need not be reserved for some special occasions. It canbe done and lived, and in fact it should be done and lived, in theordinary and usual events of our day, composed mainly of little,mundane concerns and affairs.

 This thrust of his preaching, which sprang from a specialvocation he received from God, somehow made a kind of revolution inthe world of spirituality. That’s because with the way Christianitydeveloped historically and culturally from its beginning—what with allthe persecution of the early Christians and the aggressive paganism ofthe world—spiritual life was associated more with the attitude of the“contemptus mundi” (contempt for the world).

 St. Josemaria promoted the idea of passionately loving theworld instead, because in the first place the world is a creation ofGod and so it is good in itself before it is corrupted by our sin.

 Secondly, St. Josemaria pointed out that it is in theworld that God has placed us to test us, to see if through the thingsof the world we can make the proper choice of loving God rather thanof loving our own selves.

 We should therefore understand that our mundane andtemporal affairs are no obstacle in our relationship with God and withothers. In fact, for most people, these matters and affairs are thevery occasion, material and motive for developing the love for God andfor others, and thus, they also serve as the means for their ownsanctification.

 While we have to take utmost care in carrying out oursacred duties of praying, offering sacrifices, having recourse to thesacraments, availing of the spiritual means of formation, etc., weshould not forget that our ordinary secular duties andresponsibilities play an important role in our spiritual life.

 It’s in these latter duties that most people have theirusual encounter with Christ. It’s in them that most people have theopportunity to correspond to God’s continuing work of creation andredemption on them.

 This was what St. Josemaria highlighted in his preaching,for which he was misunderstood by many people, even by those whom heconsidered to be “good people.” But in all of those misunderstandings,he said he never lost his charity for everyone.

 It was with this heroic integrity and consistency betweenhis word and his life that, I think, enabled him to accomplish manygreat things in the lives of many people and in the Church itself. Heis, in fact, considered as the precursor—or, at least, one of them—ofwhat is now known as the lay spirituality in the Church because of themission that he carried out with total self-giving.

 I believe that St. Josemaria can greatly help many peoplefind sanctity with its duty of personal apostolate in the middle ofthe world. May the devotion to him grow!