Striving for holiness in the world

This does not mean that there have not also been souls who have tried to dedicate themselves to fulfilling God’s will perfectly without leaving their ordinary occupations or their situation in the world. There have been such people, though usually acting in isolation, and the Church has raised some of them to the altars.

The great majority of these souls, however, have remained unnoticed, in obscurity and silence, and so it is hard to know how much their holy lives have been an example for others and have helped to manifest the holiness of the Church.

Together with the example of these special people, semi-obscurity has also enveloped – at least in practice – the clear doctrine that all the baptised, even when they continue their normal life of work in the middle of the world, can and ought to become holy, and be a powerful leaven of Christian life.²⁹