A practical first step toward holiness -- as well as for assuring peace in one's family and in the world -- is to pray for a person who has caused offence or harm, Pope Francis said.
"Are you merciful toward the people who have harmed you or don't like you? If God is merciful, if he is holy, if he is perfect, then we must be merciful, holy and perfect as he is. This is holiness. A man or woman who does this deserves to be canonized," the Pope said on February 19 during an evening parish Mass.
"I suggest you start small," Pope Francis told members of the parish of St Mary Josefa on the extreme eastern edge of the Diocese of Rome. "We all have enemies. We all know that so-and-so speaks ill of us. We all know. And we all know that this person or that person hates us."
