Who knew that in the quest toward holiness there'd be a word like "longanimity" -- but there is.

One finds it in a very good book called Sanctify Your Daily Life, by Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, who is the described as John Paul II's mentor.

Much of it has to do with transforming work into a source of strength, holiness -- and joy.

In his book the cardinal discusses: how to avoid burnout -- at home or the office. How to pray at work, instead of merely laboring. How a job can reveal hidden character flaws (and help you overcome them). How we can develop inner peace, even amidst the din of phones and machines and kids.

How to make even the worst job bearable, and find sanctification through it.

Spiritual deliverance by way of a job?

Image result for sanctity God has a plan in what you do, no matter how humble that job may be. There are great spiritual people at all stations of life. Elevate all work to the Lord. Let no job attach you to worldliness. He who loves the world has enmity toward God (James 4:1-10). Listen to Fatima: "Flee from riches and luxury." Heaven is drawn by humility.

Longanimity? Don't be dissuaded by a polysyllabic term. It's quite straightforward (as is the book): it is persistence in the pursuit of what is good, the virtue that helps us endure work, it is forbearance and longsuffering.

As the brilliant Cardinal writes, "Almost every sort of work consists of a series of acts, of tiny acts performed in succession, which together build up a new good.

"In almost every type of work there is room for such an approach -- not haste, which hurls us into the work without reflection, but deliberation, tranquility, and prudence, which bid us, in all our work, to remember not only its beginning but its end. In sum, we need an intelligent, balanced distribution of strength. We must not waste it by the crazy speed with which we start work; we have to conserve it to the end."

Okay: who are we to argue with the mentor of John Paul the Great?

Seek peace in what you do. Choose the correct pace. It's God's Way. Did you ever note how excessive, unmeasured fertilizer can cause a plant or tree to shoot up too fast, and thus be weakened, budding fewer leaves and bearing less fruit or flowers?

Take corn, says Wyszynski: "Human impatience would like to speed it up with artificial light and heat so that in one season it might yield a double, even a triple harvest. But meanwhile the unhurried action of God gives time and energy to the development of the roots and the formation of the ear. We ask what all this is for. And yet does not the whole strength of the plant, enabling it to withstand great storms, come from this fact?"

Patience, patience. Don't we all need that? Love is patient. Love is drawn to humility.

"In the slow development and ripening of fruit, in the growth of a baby, and in the seasons of the year," he writes, "we can see the Divine scheme of things."