We often hear the wonderful stories of saints who did great,big miraculous things. While these are truly amazing, we are called to sainthood by living lives filled with everyday holiness. Saint Dominic Savio (Feast Day May 6) is the youngest non-martyred( meaning he did not die defending the faith) canonized saint. He was given this honor on the basis of his having displayed “heroic virtue” in his everyday life.

As a boy, Dominic was a cheerful young person who enjoyed the company of his friends and who could endure the discomforts of walking 5 kilometers back and forth to school four times a day with a smile and a cheerful word. His parents and home gave Dominic a deep sense of his own self-worth and fostered his deep awareness of God.

He was the leader of a group of friends and he knew how to stay loyal and how to protect even the most troublesome ones from the consequences of their mistakes, like the incident where Dominic was punished for putting snowballs in the stove and managed to avoid his friends getting expelled. Don Bosco (in italian Don is the title used for priests) recognized these relationships as a key field for Dominic’s growth and development and encouraged him not to neglect the moments of recreation and to spend time supporting and encouraging his friends in their games as well as in their work and in chapel.

For Dominic, friendship was worth taking risks for so he was prepared to put himself as the barrier between two friends who were about to battle out their differences by stoning each other.

What can we learn from the brief life of Dominic Savio? That he was full of promise, that he was a great friend, that he grew in confidence and became a leader, and that he was truly a great human being and became a great saint. All of this could be said about so many young people. What made Dominic different was that he responded so completely to the graces that God gave him that what was ordinary and common place became extraordinary.