The saint of the ordinary life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

 

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

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

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

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

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

This thrust of his preaching, which sprang from a special vocation he received from God, somehow made a kind of revolution in the world of spirituality. That’s because with the way Christianitydeveloped historically and culturally from its beginning—what with all the persecution of the early Christians and the aggressive paganism of the 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 the world 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 the world that God has placed us to test us, to see if through the things of the world we can make the proper choice of loving God rather than loving our own selves.

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

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

It’s in these latter duties that most people have their usual encounter with Christ. It’s in them that most people have the opportunity to correspond to God’s continuing work of creation and redemption on them.

This was what St. Josemaria highlighted in his preaching, for which he was misunderstood by many people, even by those whom he considered 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 between his word and his life that, I think, enabled him to accomplish many great things in the lives of many people and in the Church itself. He is, in fact, considered as the precursor—or, at least, one of them—of what is now known as the lay spirituality in the Church because of the mission that he carried out with total self-giving.

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

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com