mediocrity

It is because Christ is greater than us that he makes us grow; with an ideal cut to our own measure we should remain dwarfs. Whoever abandons himself to mediocrity inevitably descends lower than he had bargained for; inversely, as we always fall short of the best that we have resolved to reach, we have necessarily to set our sights higher. An author of the seventeenth century wrote very truly: 'If I am pressed to say why, although there are so many people who think of serving God, there are so few saints, I will reply that the true reason is that none of them take high enough standards'