By Justin McLellan
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — The saints are not unreachable “exceptions of humanity” but ordinary people who worked diligently to grow in virtue, Pope Francis said.
It is wrong to think of the saints as “a kind of small circle of champions who live beyond the limits of our species,” the pope wrote in the catechesis for his general audience March 13 in St. Peter’s Square.
Instead, they are “those who fully become themselves, who realize the vocation of every person.”
Pope Francis told visitors in the square that due to a mild cold an aide, Msgr. Pierluigi Giroli, would read his speech.
Continuing his series of catechesis on virtues and vices, the pope wrote that a virtuous person is not one who allows him- or herself to become distorted but “is faithful to his or her own vocation and fully realizes his or herself.”
Reflecting on the nature of virtue, which has been discussed and analyzed since ancient times, the pope said that “virtue is a ‘habitus’ (expression) of freedom.”
He added, “If we are free in every act, and each time we are called to choose between good and evil, virtue is that which allows us to have a habit toward the right choice.”
