The majority of us will never have the opportunity to serve The Lord by giving our lives in martyrdom. Most will not be able to preach to thousands of people or spend our lives in contemplative prayer. Very few, if any of us, will encounter a personal apparition of The Lord or The Blessed Mother. However, all of us have some sort of daily routine to perform. Some are students, some work in the home, others work in offices, some are ill and confined to bed. For each of us, this is our unique path to Heaven.
We are called to imitate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph by living our ordinary lives in a holy way. Turning to Sacred Scripture, very little is written about the daily life of the Holy Family. St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, had this to say about St. Joseph, ?St. Joseph was an ordinary sort of man on whom God relied to do great things. He did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do, in each and every event that went to make up his life.? It is that spirit of humble obedience that we should all strive to imitate.
St. Escriva, who Pope John Paul II referred to as ?the Saint of Ordinary Life?, made the following statement that can be used as a guide for us, ?The ordinary Christian can seek holiness in and through the ordinary circumstances of life. Ordinary life can be holy and full of God. And in everyday life, the Christian practices all these virtues: faith, hope and charity, and the human virtues ? generosity, industriousness, justice, loyalty, cheerfulness, sincerity, and so on. In practicing these virtues, a Christian imitates Jesus Christ. The Supernatural value of our life does not depend on accomplishing great undertakings suggested to us by our overactive imagination. Rather it is to be found in the faithful acceptance of God’s will, in welcoming generously the opportunities for small, daily sacrifice.?
