St. Josemaría Escrivá, Founder of Opus Dei

Today we observe the memorial of St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei. I may be a Dominican, but I will always have a closeness to the spirituality and teachings of St. Josemaría. I think he spoke to me at a particular time in my life characterized by mounting frustration with the Church's intersection with Daily Life, both in my life as well as in the lives of those around me. It was a good period of maturity. The call to holiness is universal, something our Church emphasizes, particularly in the person of our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II. But more than that, you don't have to live a lofty life, be ordained clergy, or even be connected to a religious order to be holy. It is the unfolding and work of God's grace in the ordinary work of life, precisely where God has called you to live and serve.

From Passionately Loving the World:

On the contrary, you must understand now, more clearly, that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.

From Christ Is Passing By:

Let's not deceive ourselves: in our life we will find vigor and victory and depression and defeat. This has always been true of the earthly pilgrimage of Christians, even of those we venerate on the altars. Don't you remember Peter, Augustine, and Francis? I have never liked biographies of saints which naively -- but also with a lack of sound doctrine -- present their deeds as if they had been confirmed in grace from birth. No. The true life stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray.

From The Forge, #846:

Constantly call to mind that at every moment you are cooperating in the human and spiritual formation of those around you, and of all souls — for the blessed Communion of Saints reaches as far as that. At every moment: when you work and when you rest; when people see you happy or when they see you worried; when at your job, or out in the street, you pray as does a child of God and the peace of your soul shows through; when people see that you have suffered, that you have wept, and you smile.