A universally--recognized saint...
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A universally--recognized saint in our day is Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. From her seemingly foolhardy labors for "the poorest of the poor" have come more than a thousand workers scattered in dozens of countries, tending the world's poor.
The center of all this compassion and caring is still Calcutta where Mother Teresa and her followers gather the dying so they leave this world in peace among their friends. They rescue abandoned babies in barbage dumps, nurse them back to health if possible, then find them good homes. The image that sustains them in their labors is that their ministry is given to Jesus himself. Mother Teresa said, "We have nothing. The greatness of God is that he has used this nothing to do something."
By all standards of earthly greatness and achievement, Mother Teresa has done nothing worthwhile and is foolish for trying to minister to the poor. They might well be saying of her, "She is beside herself," -- a polite way of saying she is out of her mind.
When Jesus ministered to the crowds of sick and needy in his day, and called his disciples around him to do the same, they said of him, "He is beside himself." But servanthood is the way to divine, if not human, approval.
-- Raabe
