39. December 30

Meditations no. 34 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The joy of the Redemption and the sorrow of the Cross are inseparable in the lives of Christ and his Mother.

For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne.

Several days have passed since the happy night when the Good News of our Redeemer’s Birth filled the earth with light. And now we remember Simeon’s prophecy to our Blessed Lady: Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also).

The joy of the Redemption and the sorrow of the Cross are inseparable in the life of Jesus and his most holy Mother. When Mary’s joy was at its fullest, as she contemplated the blessings which her Son’s birth brought to mankind, God revealed to her that her Child would have to suffer and that a sword of sorrow would pierce her own motherly soul. It is as if the Lord wanted to teach us that in this world happiness can never be far removed from the Cross.

That is clearly the hallmark of Jesus’ life, as it is of the lives of Mary and Joseph too. There is joy at our Lord’s Birth, but there are also the poverty and the privations of a stable. The joy at seeing the shepherds and Magi gathered round the crib is soon followed by that hasty flight to a strange country and the martyrdom of innocent children. Joy alternates with grief, consolation with suffering. The Evangelist St John provides an explanation: The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.

The most holy Virgin well knew that her Son was to suffer and that she herself would share in his sufferings. But Mary also knows she is co-redemptrix, and she lovingly accepts God’s will.

Here on earth suffering is the salt of our lives; boldly facing up to this fact.

It is very common for people to try to avoid suffering and adversity. Sometimes they do so out of excessive love for comfort. At other times they are spurred on by a noble desire to see justice done. Sharing as we do in the same problems and the same noble aspirations as other people around us, we need to show them Christ, the King of Justice, the Light of the Nations, who teaches us the way of love and sacrifice.

From his infancy onwards, he shows us the value and meaning of setbacks and suffering. He teaches us that although the things that people strive for are good, they should not be centred on material comfort or on self-interest, but rather on a kingdom of justice and peace. He also teaches us to recognize and love the divine value of human things, and to fight against our human shortcomings, our self-love and our tendency to comfort.

He who is the fairest of the sons of men lovingly accepts, even from his earliest years, the suffering that comes his way. He, the Just Man without equal, the only man without sin, accepts suffering. At his side, our most pure Mother also experiences the immense sorrow of seeing her Son suffer, without a single complaint or reproach.

On one occasion, when some of us had been singing Christmas carols before an image of Baby Jesus, our Father, looking at the Child, said to us: See how lovely the Baby is: defenceless, as he is.

These sons of mine have sung: “He has come to earth to suffer”; and I add: “to suffer and to prevent others from suffering”. He knew he was coming to the Cross, and yet nowadays there are certain theories, a false kind of asceticism which presents our Lord as being angry on the Cross, and saying to mankind: “I am here on the Cross and so I’ll nail you to it as well.” It’s not true, my sons, it’s not true! Our Lord opened his arms out wide, in the gesture of an eternal Priest, and he let himself be nailed to the wood of the Cross so that we should not suffer, to ease our sufferings, and even make them sweet and lovable.

On this earth, love and suffering are inseparable; in this life we have to expect the Cross. Whoever does not expect the Cross is not a Christian. Whoever does not look for the Cross, will encounter it anyway, and furthermore will find that it brings him despair. If you look for the Cross, with Jesus Christ on the Cross, you can be sure that at the hardest moments, if they come, you will be in the best company, happy, strong and secure. But you need to be contemplative souls for that.

My children and I must be contemplative souls in the world, in the middle of the street, in the middle of our professional work - the work which each one has to do. We must be souls who are constantly talking with our Lord, when faced with what seems good and with what seems bad: because, for the children of God, everything is arranged to work out for our good. Other people find it all too much, when things don’t work out well for them. For us, when we are close to Jesus, when we are on intimate terms with Jesus Christ, our

Lord and our Love, there can he neither setbacks nor misfortunes: omnia in bonum! (everything works for good).

The Cross: source of true joy.

The limited, miserable happiness of the egoist, who withdraws into his ivory tower, into his shell, is not difficult to attain in this world. We can make our hearts insensitive; we can make them indifferent to suffering and sorrow. But that is just a caricature of happiness, and is simply not worth achieving. True happiness has Cross-shaped roots. In our life, just as in the lives of Christ and his Mother, joy and pain are inseparable.

The Cross of Christ is the reason for our unfailing joy. God wanted to adorn and crown Opus Dei with the Cross from the very outset. My dear children, our Father has written, do not forget that the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the Cross. When difficulties come, if we have acted with a good intention, then believe me: after the Cross there will come a great fire, a great light, a great harvest. Ad te, Domine, levavi animam meam; to you, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul. Over the years, this has been our prayer, when people plotted against us, dreaming up incredible and often brutal slanders. In the midst of tears (because we sometimes shed tears, but that doesn’t matter), we never lacked joy and peace, gaudium cum pace.

This is how the Work came about in our Father’s own life. It was marked from the very start by the sign of God’s special love, the Holy Cross. Anyone who truly wishes to be Opus Dei must take up the Cross that Christ wants us to carry, with gratitude and determination, with love. Doing God’s work is not just a pretty phrase. It is an invitation to spend ourselves for Love’s sake. We have to die to ourselves and be born again to a new life. Jesus Christ obeyed in this way, even unto death on a cross, mortem autem crucis. Propter quod et Deus exaltavit ilium. That is why God exalted him. If we obey God’s will, the Cross will mean our own resurrection and exaltation. Christ’s life will be reproduced step by step in our own lives. It will be said of us that we have tried to be good children of God, who went about doing good in spite of our weakness and personal shortcomings, no matter how many.

And when death comes as it undoubtedly will, we will greet it with joy, as I have seen so many people greet it in the ordinary circumstances of life. With joy: for if we have imitated Christ in doing good - obeying and carrying the Cross, in spite of our personal deficiencies - we will rise like Christ: Surrexit Dominus vere, for he has truly risen!

Jesus, who became a child, overcame death. Just think of it. Through his annihilation, through his simplicity and obedience, by divinizing the everyday, common life of men, the Son of God conquered.

That is the triumph of Christ. He has raised us to his level, the level of children of God, by coming down to our level, the level of the children of men.