Call to sanctity in the midst of the world

To those who say this is utopian, I answer with my experience of many souls and with these words of St John Chrysostom: “Where are now those who say that someone who lives in the middle of the city cannot live a virtuous life, but they have to go off and live in the mountains? Or that someone in charge of his household, who has a wife and attends to his children and servants, cannot be virtuous?”⁶

In all states of life and in all honest tasks, we do not need to flee from the world in order to acquire holiness, unless we have a vocation to the religious life. We are comfortable just where we are. I am certain that the specific call that I have been talking about in this letter is meant for many people, because in the Work there are no class distinctions and we are interested in all souls. Therefore all kinds of instruments are needed. Iterum simile est regnum caelorum sagenae missae in mare, et ex omni genere piscium congreganti (Matt 13:47); again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.