You are a writer. You’re just not writing yet.

Or maybe you are writing, and have a good habit of writing every day. Maybe you’ve published a book. But whether you’ve done these things or not doesn’t make you a writer. You already are a writer. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you publish a single book, or if anyone else reads a single word of what you write. God will read it, and you will read it, and that is a great audience.

God has given human beings the ability to write. He has made us writers. So here is some advice on writing: The hardest thing is getting started. It is the beginning that is excruciating. Once you have momentum you can write your heart out—and you need to, because that’s what great writers do. They write their hearts out. It is the getting started that has so many writers around the world stuck right now, at this very moment, as you read these words.

You might be wondering when I’m going to get to today’s saint. Why I haven’t started writing about him yet. Maybe because it’s difficult to get started. 

But there’s one thing you probably can guess by now: Saint Oengus was a writer.

Oengus is most famous for his Félire Óengusso ("Martyrology of Oengus"). This is a poetic devotional book on the saints, with a saint for each day of the year and a paragraph describing that saint (much like the resource you are reading right now). 

Apart from his writing, we do not know much about Saint Oengus. And perhaps that is how it should be. His writing brought out his holiness, just as our writing can bring out our holiness.

We are all writers. We just need to start writing. Start today by putting pen to paper, or typing in a note document, or whatever is easiest to get the habit going. Choose a time to write for ten minutes a day. Use this time to plan your day, journal about what is happening in your life, clarify your thoughts, or simply to talk to God.

And remember: Just get started.

Feast Day: March 11

Feast Day Shared By: Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem