By Anthony Barich
THE holiness that God has prepared for us is not too far from us, Opus Dei priest Fr Joe Pich said at a 19 June Mass commemorating the feast day of the movement’s founder St Josemaria Escriva at Holy Spirit Church in City Beach.

Fr Pich, who visits regularly from Sydney to provide spiritual formation for laity, said one of the key teachings that St Josemaria, who Blessed Pope John Paul II canonised in 2002, promoted was the universal call to holiness in everyday life.
“We are often content plodding along in our lives, but we are called to be missionaries in our lives,” Fr Pich said.
The Gospel of the day – Luke 5:1-11 in which Jesus steps into Peter’s boat to preach to people standing on the shore in Gennesaret – was the saint’s favourite. He knew it by heart and it was the foundation of much of his teachings.
“Jesus stepped into Peter’s boat without even asking permission” as Peter had come back from fishing – which was his work, Fr Pich noted. This shows that Jesus is willing to help us be holy in the very midst of our daily work – be it in the professional world or, just as importantly, in the home. “That’s where God is calling us,” he said.
He said St Josemaria pre-empted what the Second Vatican Council preached – that holiness is not just for priests and Religious, but for everyone; and lay people can offer even the most menial of tasks each day up to God for the sanctification of the world.
“The holiness God has prepared for us does not exist in a monastery somewhere – it is here and now, without ‘wishful thinking’ – like thinking ‘to be holy I need to be a priest or a monk’,” Fr Pich said.
“We need to ask St Josemaria to help us, because holiness is not easy, but at the same time it is not far from us; it is in our everyday lives.”
He related a story when St Josemaria was asked in Rome which chapel he liked most, and he answered, “the street”, because “that’s where we pray, where we live our lives, where we become holy,” Fr Pich said.
Even the day’s First Reading from Genesis 2:4 and 9.15 described how man was “made to work” – “The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it.”
Therefore, Catholics are called to give to the Lord their best.
“We sometimes wonder where Catholics are in society; we need to be the best we can in our professional lives and at home,” he said.