64. January 9, Birth of Our Father (II)
Meditations no. 420 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
God prepared our Father from the time he was very small.
Our Father was the instrument chosen by God to open up a new way of sanctity in the middle of the world, at the service of the Church and of souls. His most faithful correspondence to the Will of God, sealed as it was throughout his life by the Cross, has made it possible for us to receive the call of our Lord, to be born to the life of the sons and daughters of God in Opus Dei. As we commemorate today a new anniversary of his birth, we want to show our most sincere gratitude to the Blessed Trinity.
As on so many other occasions, the personal prayer of our Father is like a channel for our own prayer. One day, on a feast of the Work, he said: When I pray aloud it is, as always, so that you may follow on your own and we may all profit from my seeking to discover the root-cause of my life. For God Our Lord prepared things so that my life would be normal, ordinary, without anything exceptional.
He caused me to be born into a Catholic family, such as homes tend to be in my country, with exemplary parents who practised and lived their faith, giving me great freedom right from my very childhood and yet at the same time carefully watching over me. They tried to give me a Christian education, and I acquired it there at home with them rather than at school, although when I was three they took me to a school run by women religious, and then after I was seven to one run by religious men.
It was all normal and ordinary, as the years went by. I never thought of becoming a priest, never thought of dedicating myself to God. The problem had not arisen, because I did not think it was for me. But the Lord was preparing events, giving me one grace after another, overlooking my defects, my errors as a child, and my errors as an adolescentā¦
The way God has led me has made me feel repugnance for whatever seems a show, for anything that is out of the ordinary; and this has given rise to one of the characteristics of our spirit, namely, to be simple, not to attract attention, not to show off, not to hide anything. This is illustrated by that anecdote I have told you so often: whenever I had to put on a new set of clothes, I would hide under the bed and stubbornly resist any attempt to make me go outdoorsā¦ My mother would tap gently on the floor with one of those walking sticks my father used, and then I came out - for fear of the stick, and not for anything else.
I was never beaten at home. Only once did my father slap me on the cheek, and it must have been only lightly. They never imposed their will on me. I was kept very short of money, very short, but free. The Lord and Father in heaven, who looked upon me with still greater affection than my parents did, allowed that I would also suffer humiliations, such as could be suffered by a child who was no longer all that little. I was then twelve or thirteen years old.
Our Lord made use of the grandparents to form our founder.
My little children, for whom I suffer birth pangs for the second time, until Christ is formed in you. Just as St Paul could say these words to the Galatians, so too our Father can repeat these words to us, because to make the Work go ahead has cost him innumerable pains. My children, I have engendered you as mothers do, he once said, suffering, as mothers do.
From the time he was very small our Father had suffering as a constant travelling companion. A suffering which he bore joyfully, with human and supernatural elegance and which his parents - the grandparents - and his brother and sisters were very much a part of. This is why we can never thank them enough for what they did for our Father and the Work.
I have always made those around me suffer very much, he used to confide to us as he opened up his heart. I have not provoked any catastrophes, but the Lord, to shape me who am the nail - forgive me, Lord - gave one blow on the nail and a hundred on the horseshoe. And I came to see my father as Job personified. They lost three daughters one after another in consecutive years, and they also lost their fortune. I felt the claws of my little schoolmates, because children have no heart or no head, and perhaps lack both head and heartā¦
And on we went. My father carried on, in a heroic way, after he had contracted that classical illness - it is now I realise it - which doctors say is produced in those suffering inordinate stress and worry. He had been left with only two children and my mother; and he willed himself to be strong, and did not forgo any humiliation to see us through in a decent and seemly way. He could have kept up a prominent position for those times if he had not been āa Christian and a gentlemanā, as they say in my country.
I do not think he is in need of our prayers; if he is, I offer them this very moment. I saw him suffer cheerfully, without showing it. And I saw his courage. It was a constant lesson to me, because afterwards I have felt so often the ground giving way beneath me and the heavens falling on top of me, as if I were about to be crushed between two steel plates.
With these lessons before me and the grace of God within, I may perhaps have lost my serenity on some occasions, but they have been few and far between.
Thanksgiving to our Father who suffered so much to open up the way for usā¦
As time went on there came those first manifestations from the Lord: those inklings about something, something wanted of me. My brother was born when my parents were already worn out through lifeās cares. I was seventeen when my mother called me to tell me I might be having another brother. With this I had actually touched the grace of God. I saw the Lordās hand in it. I did not expect it.
My father died exhausted. He had a smile on his lips and a special lovable quality. I am not blinded by filial affection, for I was not an exemplary child: I rebelled against that situation then. I felt humiliated. And I ask for forgiveness.
God Our Lord wanted to make out of that poor creature, who did not allow himself to be worked on, a first stone of this new ark of the covenant, to which people from many nations, many races, and all the tongues, would come.
Like all good children we havenāt needed to learn to love our Father; itās an affection which is born and grows from inside, at times without our realising it, as we have gone about doing Opus Dei. To love our Father like children of his is a necessity that God himself puts into our soul. Nevertheless, we can never be satisfied: we want this filial affection to grow continually, because we understand - with increasing clarity - how much our Father loves us, with what generosity he received all sorts of contradictions, how he embraced the Cross for love of God and for love of his children, both those that he had at his side then and those who would come later, as the years passed by.
Many, many years ago, he once told us, when I was living in Lagasca, one night, when I had lain down and was beginning to fall asleep - when I slept I slept very well; I have never lost any sleep because of the calumnies, persecutions and fights of those times -the telephone rang. I picked it up and heard: āJosemarĆaā¦ā It was Don Leopoldo, the then bishop of Madrid. His voice was very warm. On many other occasions he had rung me at this time because he used to go to bed late, in the early hours of the morning, and celebrated Mass at eleven in the morning.
What is it? I answered. And he said: āEcce Satanas expetivit vos ut cribaret sicut triticum - Behold Satan demanded to have you so that he might sift you like wheat (Luke 22: 31). He will create a stir around you, he will shake you like they shake wheat in order to sift it.ā Afterwards he added: āI pray so much for youā¦ Et tuā¦ confirma filios tuos! (cf.Ā Luke 22: 32). You confirm your sons.ā And he hung up. Isnāt that beautiful? Well, even now that so many years have passed, I still use it: Confirm your sons.
Do you know why the Work has developed so much? Because they have treated it like a sack of wheat. Itās been beaten and battered about. But the seeds are so small that they havenāt broken. On the contrary, theyāve been scattered to the four winds; theyāve landed wherever there have been hearts hungry and ready for the Truth. And now we have so many vocations and we are a very large family, and there are millions of souls who admire and love the Work because they see in it a sign of Godās presence among men, and recognise the inexhaustible riches of his mercy.
We can finish our prayer with some words that our Father used in a homily: We must give thanks to God Our Lord, who has done everything very well, for I have never been an appropriate instrument. Join me in asking our Lord, through the merits and the intercession of his Mother, who is our Mother, to make us all into good and faithful instruments.