God has planted us where we are — for our holiness

This is a really long quote but it holds together so well in reflecting on the particular circumstances of our own lives and God's desire for us to grow in holiness — so we're reading it all!

All times are good times for entering into the depths of sanctity; all circumstances are opportune for loving God more, for our interior life feeds, as plants do, on the stuff of the circumstances in which we are immersed. Growth is the work of the Holy spirit. Plants do not choose the ground in which they are nourished; the sower lets the seeds fall to the earth, where they prosper, converting the useful elements in the soil, with the help of rainwater, into the substance of the maturing grain. And so what is sown ripens and reaches up and grows strong.

With even greater reason we will grow in strength, because it is our Father God who has chosen the terrain and gives us the graces necessary for us to bear fruit. The plot of earth where Our Lord has planted us is the particular family of which we are part, and not any other. We grow up among those who form our initial immediate environment, with all their virtues and failings and idiosyncrasies. The rich mould we are rooted in is our work, which we must love so that it will sanctify not only us, but also our colleagues, our classmates, our neighbours ... The earth from whose nutrients we have to produce fruits of holiness is our country, our own country, our city, our town, the prevailing social or political system, our own condition of life and no other. It is there, in that environment, in the midst of the world where the Lord says we can and must live all the Christian virtues, developing them with all the demands they make on us and not allowing them to be stunted or to wither. God calls people to holiness in every circumstance: in war and in peace, in sickness and in health, when we think we have triumphed and when we face unexpected defeat, when we have plenty of time and when time is at a premium, so that we seem barely to manage to do what we must. Our Lord wants us to be saints at all times. Those who do not rely on grace, and habitually see things with a completely human outlook, are saying constantly: this now, is not the right tim for sanctity ..., later ... perhaps ...

Let us not think that in another place, in another situation we would be ready to follow Our Lord more closely and carry out a more fruitful apostolate. Let us leave that mystical wishful thinking to one side. The fruits of sanctity Our Lord expects are those produced in and from the environment in which we find ourselves, here and now...

Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Volume Three: Eleventh Week, Tuesday