Evangelization.
Cathy of Recovering Dissident Catholic has a post which relates well to the topic of Evangelization. Her thoughts reminded me of St. JoseMaria Escriva’s famous homily “Passionately Loving the World”. Here is a snippet from that homily:
“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.
I often said to the university students and workers who were with me in the thirties that they had to know how to “materialise” their spiritual life. I wanted to keep them from the temptation, so common then and now, of living a kind of double life. On one side, an interior life, a life of relation with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life, full of small earthly realities.
No! We cannot lead a double life if we want to be Christians. There is just one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is this life which has to become, in both soul and body, holy and filled with God. We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things.” - St. JoseMaria Escriva
The teachings of St. JoseMaria seem to me to be complimentary to those of St. Therese of Lisieux and her “little way” - a sort of practical expression perhaps. At any rate - they are extremely compatible.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Terry: It sounds like St. Jose could teach me a lot. I should read some of his work. You are not the first person to tell me he is worth reading.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Yes, he can teach all of us a lot. But in your case, I think he would be a sort of Eureka moment wherein you would say, “Yes! Yes! That is what I was saying, thinking, etc.” Your post immediately reminded me of that. The interesting aspect about Opus Dei is that they have a strange reputation for being covert - secretive, when in fact, they are very Pauline, simply leading “hidden” Christian lives amongst ordinary people, in ordinary circumstances. They do not hide their faith, but they don’t shove it down people’s throats either. Your example of the B&B is much like that.