“That martyrs and saints are considered holy does not mean that they were gentle, nice and easy to be with. On the contrary, they were tough and oftentimes very difficult to get along with. Just ask yourself — would you really want to have Saint Paul for a friend?

Paul’s unrelenting passion for the Gospel, his unwillingness to compromise, his judgmental attitude about how we should live, his refusal to let the threat of death deter his mission, I suspect would, for many of us, make him a rather tiresome companion.

Paul does not seem to understand that most of us have to get on with the everyday business of life – and get along with other people. Or consider Saint Francis. We celebrate his preaching to the birds, but his rigorous commitment to poverty was, at the time, seen for what it was — that is, a profound challenge to the riches of both the Church and the world.”