There is a quote attributed to Catherine of Sienna: 'Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire'. In this brief period between the feast of All Saints and the beginning of Advent, many of us look to the lives of the Saints for inspiration and wisdom on our Christian journey. It would be easy to persuade ourselves that they were always going to be Saints with a capital 'S'; people of faith who were destined to do great things, but if we look closer at their lives and legends, we might be consoled by the mundane struggles they too faced in life and faith. Many saints were happily living their lives when God came along and disrupted their neat plans; others wrestled with who they were, how to find meaning, and how their faith and values interacted in decision-making or even prompted a change of career.

Vocation is not just for clergy, it is for the whole people of God. We each are given many gifts and, through our baptism, we each have a Christian vocation too: we are called to use the gifts we have to share the love of God which we have received with the world. Just as the Saints before us, we have a 'distinctive service' God has given to us and none other as John Henry Newman puts it. And when we are engaged in that work, knowingly or not, the Holy Spirit can work through our mundane, muddled, and marvellous lives to kindle the fire of God's love in this world; just as through the lives of the Saints before us.