63. January 9, Birth of Our Father (I)
Meditations no. 419 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Our founder was the most faithful instrument that God used to found the Work.
Today there come to our mind those words that Jesus Christ pronounced in one of his parables: there was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press near it and built a tower.
Our Lord, making use of our Father as a most faithful instrument, has planted a vineyard in the world of select vines - select, because God made them good when he chose them - and protected it with a solid, secure wall that wild animals would not be able to scale. This vineyard of the Work has already yielded delicious fruits, thanks to the mercy of God, and has spread prodigiously through a multitude of nations, embracing thousands and thousands of souls who have been able to drink that good wine, old as the Gospel, and like the Gospel new, that God himself has fermented.
When we contemplate this panorama of blessings, united in thanksgiving to the Trinity in heaven and the trinity of the earth, our thoughts and our heart fly to our most beloved Father, who - seconding the will of God - planted, fenced and constructed this fertile vineyard, the Work of God. On the anniversary of his birth we, his sons and daughters, raise our souls full of gratitude to our Lord for having given us a Father and Shepherd who engendered us in our vocation to the Work, surrounded us with immense affection while he was on earth, and now cares for each one of us from heaven, with the tenderness of a mother and the vigilance of a father.
This new anniversary is an excellent occasion to listen to what our Father wants to suggest to us in the intimacy of our soul. On a day similar to the one we are celebrating today, he said to us: I have to tell you, in the first place, that years give you neither wisdom nor sanctity. On the other hand the Holy Spirit puts these words into the mouths of youths: super senes intellexi, quia mandata tua quaesivi (Ps 118: 100); I have more wisdom than the elderly, more sanctity than the elderly, because I have tried to keep the commandments of the Lord. Donât wait until old age to be saints; it would be a great mistake. From right now, seriously, joyfully, cheerfully, through work. . , sanctify this task you have, sanctifying yourselves in the process, knowing that you are sanctifying other people.
These words of our Father speak to us of the necessity of struggling constantly to be saints, and of carrying out - with the enthusiasm and the faith that little children have in their parents - the apostolic mission that our Lord has entrusted to us. To renew these resolutions would be a good way of wishing our Father a happy birthday: the best gift that we could offer him.
What our Father saw on the 2nd of October has become a reality.
I can remember now an old priest from Valencia who died in the fame of sanctity. When they used to ask him how old he was, he always answered: âPoquets!, very few: those that I have spent serving God.â I, unfortunately, have been serving God for only a few years, but I want to serve him a lot, a lot, a lot, in order to love him a lot also - as I love him already, though in a different way - with the plenitude of love.
Few years of service, little wisdom, little plenitude of sanctity; so little that I feel the urge to say to my God who listens to me, to this God who is going to come down now upon the altar, those words of Jeremias: a, a Domine Deus! Ecce nescio loqui, quia puer ego sum (Ier 1: 6); Lord look at me, I am a child who prattles on, I donât know how to speak.
And then there come to my memory as well, those dreams that I have had since I was young, dreams that have become a reality. Then I used to say: What will happen when I am old? Do you know what I used to think was old? About forty!âŚ
But despite all that, some of those who are here will remember what I used to say to my sons - there were only a few of them then - who were around me, foreseeing this extension of the Work from one pole to the other, this expansion, this forming a familyâŚ
I used to say to them: My sons, donât put my name on the slab when you bury this poor mortal body. And what will we put? they would say. Put: genuit filios et filias; he engendered sons and daughters, like the Patriarchs. And it wasnât just a dream. Canât you see how these dreams have become a reality? Today the Work is a family to which there are no limits of race, language or nationality; and it has a wonderful fraternity, both real and supernatural, which is a marvel, in which each one of us has a great love for freedom and personal responsibility.
A seed of God, a family that keeps on getting bigger after having broken up the dry ground, because it had to break up my uselessness, my inefficacy; because it had to break through so much brutal opposition⌠The things of God start that way, small; they come with a gentle violence, opening a way for themselves with pain and abnegation. After the seed dies the shoot is born, and then the flowers, that shine with marvellous colours and intoxicating aromas; and the fruits, the fruits are you and your sisters. Dream. I am sixty six years old, and the dreams have become reality; and I donât feel old either. Donât you see how, with the grace and blessing of God and the protection of our Blessed Mother Holy Mary - Spes Nostra, Sedes Sapientiae, Filios tuos adiuva!; Stella Maris, Stella Orientis: how much I love to address her like that - the Work has penetrated, has taken root, has produced flowers and aromas and abundant fruits the world over?
We have to be very united to the intentions of our founder and the Father.
It is only right that - especially today - we lift up our hearts to God in filial recognition, because, thanks to the prayer and sacrifice of our Father we have been born in Opus Dei, we persevere and we enjoy its supernatural fruits, because our Lord has given us so many brothers and sisters; in a word, because the fidelity of our Father has made this joy which always accompanies us on our way, possible.
Our Lord wants the presence of our Father, of our founder to be always constant within us; he wants us to speak a lot about him. Donât think that this is a psychosis, wrote Don Ălvaro. Itâs only logical in a deeply united family where the father, who was so well loved, dies and where he is remembered with the affection of sons and daughters. More so in our case when he is the Father of our souls.
If before us now - but this has to happen always, until the end of time, if we and those who come after us want to please God - there arises continually the example of our founder, and he comes back to our memory, our imagination and our thoughts, with his teachings, with his loveable countenance, we have to make use of this gift of the Paraclete so that it helps us to have presence of God, so that it leads us to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, his great loves, and thus we will serve the Holy Church, the Roman Pontiff and all humanity faithfully.
Our gratitude has to be operative: it ought to be manifested in real deeds of faithfulness to the spirit and the way we ought to live that spirit, which our Father passed on to us. Today, as well, we can make a sincere effort to be especially united to our founder and to the Father. To unite ourselves to the intentions of our Father is a good prayer at any time. Because in heaven he still has intentions, and he keeps looking after us and the Work and the Church. Pray for what our Father wants: in addition, there, with the divine light which illuminates him, he sees everything more clearly than he did on earth, he wants it more and he asks for it more efficaciously.
We all have a Father of the Work in heaven, and you also have another Father here on earth⌠Be united also to the intentions of my Mass, each day, pray to our Lord for the things that I pray for.
This would be a good resolution from our prayer today: to be very united to the intentions of the Father, which are the same as those of our Father; to give new life to putting into practice - today, now - what our Lord expects from each one of us.