God calls you through the everyday, your work, your problems, successes and failures

Some books of the lives of the saints have omitted the weaknesses of their protagnosist, probably because they fear that we will be scandalized upon knowing that they were men and women such as ourselves.

But precisely that it is good to see that those that are on the altars are not of wax, nor  plaster, nor plastic, but rather, are all mortal of flesh and bone, suffered pains, had their burdens: are common persons that have to take medication or did not sleep well or were distracted in prayer.

Many books have put the canonized so distant from us, that the only thing we can do is to admire them. They put them so far, so high, so covered in uncomfortable ostentatious clothes, to away from us, that there is no way of imitating them. These biographies convince us that the holiness is not for us.

But the true biographies of the Christian heroes are like our lives: they fought and won, fought and lost and then they return to the fight.

In the life of the souls of the saints there are some times extraordinary things supernatural happenings, clear interventions from God. But they are not that which brought them to be saints, for the actions were not of them, but rather of God. That which made them saints was the generosity in the correspondence of the love of God in their ordinary life, in all the days, the months, the years in those that there were not ordinary things.

It is good to know that St. Teresa of the Child Jesus had invincible stubbornness from childhood; that St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori had a wicked temper; that St. Augustine was a great sinner before his conversion and that St. Teresa of Jesus confessed that she had never be able to pray a complete rosary without being distracted.

It is admirable to look at the saints: hombres very male and women very female, with great virtues, heroic accions and blunderous failures.

Holiness does not consist in raising a palm frond in the hand and a crucifix in the chest. the saints are not inactive, always they move doings things so simple as worrying for the sickness of a brother, giving food to the dog, finishing their work and doing their responsibilities with happiness.

These are the saints of today, those that are going on the metro, praying to the Virgin, working in the field, writing by machine, resting during the weekend and returning each monday to the same job, worrying alone about doing extraordinarily well that which they have had to do.

Jesús Urteaga Loidi

translated from Spanish