Personal sanctification in our daily activities

In this way our work becomes supernatural, because its end is God, and we do our work with him in mind as an act of obedience. We must not leave that place where the Lord’s call has taken us by surprise. We must, instead, turn our whole life into God’s service: our work and our rest, our tears and our smiles. In the fields, in the workshop, in the study, in public life: we must remain faithful to our habitual way of earning our living and turn everything into an instrument for sanctification and an apostolic example. And we do so without ever making use of the Church or the Work, but rather each of us personally takes responsibility for our own actions.

In our ordinary work, in the heart of our family and of society, we have a personal commitment to seek sanctity. We are called to this simply by being Christians, for the words of the Master are clear: You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48).

Look at what St John Chrysostom wrote: “Everyone has to climb to the same heights; and what ruins the whole world is that we think that only monks are obliged to this greater care, and everybody else can live as they please. No, no, it is not so!”³