117. Easter Sunday (II)
Meditations no. 163 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Our Lordâs solitude during his Passion is followed by his glorious Resurrection.
Havenât you suffered seeing our Lord all alone these past few days? In the meditation this morning, I reminded your brothers on the General Council of this fervent promise made by St Peter: Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. He proclaimed this with all his heart and soul, but then came his human weakness, his denials and his flight. And how many other disciples did the same thing as Peter! Many had eaten the bread and fish multiplied by Christ; others had received life into their paralyzed limbs and were part of the huge crowd which followed him because his doctrine was divine and touched their hearts. But after the hosannas of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the time came when Christ was left alone, nailed to a piece of wood to die.
Our Lord is all alone and his disciples flee. And who stays by his side? Mary, with a small group of faithful women and one young man: all the others have turned coward. My children: right now - you in your youth, and I who am already starting to grow old - letâs make a firm resolution to be humble. And as we tell our Lord fervently that we will be faithful, that weâre ready to make any sacrifice, letâs say to him: Lord, with your grace; Mary, my Mother: , I need your help. I am so weak, I make so many mistakes, I commit so many little errors that if you leave me alone I feel I would be capable of committing great big ones.
As Iâm speaking, pray to our Lord on your own, in the silence of your heart, and go back over your past life. For I am sure that in spite of your youth you have already had some experience of your pride, your sensuality, and of the blindness caused by your shortcomings, just as I have had even sadder experiences than you because I am older and have more defects. But in spite of everything we dare to say to God our Lord: I am ready for anything; I want to become what you called me to be when you gave me this vocation: not just alter Christus, another Christ, but ipse Christus, Christ himself. Nevertheless I am so weak, so prone to error that unless you help me Iâll just waste my life.
We too may experience Christâs loneliness on the Cross.
As time goes by people sometimes experience loneliness in their professional, social and even interior lives - the loneliness of Christ on the Cross. But if they realize that they are ipse Christus, Christ himself, they are able to overcome that loneliness by seeking help from this Lord of ours who has conquered death and now reigns victorious over all things. And with his help they too are victorious, and go on to live their vocation even more effectively.
My children, love Christ and his loneliness. And donât let your mistakes get you down, as long as you try to pick yourself up and start again. For, I repeat, if we feel that we really are ipse Christus we will seek help from Christ on the Cross.
It is a good devotion both for you and me (I am sometimes moved interiorly to practise it) to stretch out our arms in the form of a cross and to kiss our Lordâs feet. This devotion is based on humility and shows our love for Christ, for his Cross and for his Sacred Passion.
In the liturgy of todayâs Mass we read a marvellous passage: Haec est dies quam fecit Dominus, exsultemus et laetemur in ea. This is the great day which the Lord has made, this is the day of his victory. Where are the soldiers whom the authorities had commanded to guard the tomb? Where is the seal they had placed on the stone closing the entrance to the sepulchre. Where are the men who crucified Jesus? Today it is Christâs enemies who are fleeing, for he never loses battles.
My children, during these thirty-one years of living my vocation to Opus Dei, our Father told us in 1959, I have often had to ask our Lordâs forgiveness. At the same time, however, I can assure you that I have given you the best of myself. I have tried to pass on to you with the utmost faithfulness all that God our Lord has given me; and when I didnât do my job properly, I have asked our Lord, and those who were at my side, for forgiveness, and I tried again. In spite of all this I can also remember times when Christ clearly conquered in this poor flesh of mine.
The Work has also had its Crosses, but Christ has always come out victorious. You were not aware that we were persecuted for many years, even by good people. You were not aware of this because the Father forbade anyone to write or speak about it.
It was persecution like the persecution our Lord suffered at the hands of the chief priests: slander, lies, deceit, insults, in the press, in private conversations⌠We were everyoneâs whipping-boy. Everyone felt they had a right to spit on us. And yet we were happy in our isolation. We could see our Lordâs hand in this persecution and we knew he was with us. So we kept our mouths shut, and we smiled and worked and prayed. I didnât even defend myself until I received instructions from the Holy See that I shouldâŚ
Yes, my children, thatâs how the Work was accomplished - with no money, and no virtues. All I had was twenty-six years of age and a sense of humour. The Work was accomplished through the holy lives of your first brothers, with their constant smile, with their prayer, their work and their silence. Thatâs how Opus Dei was accomplished, through its silent but wonderful Cross and Resurrection. And now, like another Pentecost, we can hear different languages, a manifestation of the Spirit of God and the catholicity of our spirit.
Christâs Resurrection is a victory for us. Renewing our inner dispositions.
Earthly things are only as important as we make them. If we are immersed in God nothing will disturb our interior peace. When, out of weakness, we make a big deal out of these insignificant events and let them get us down, itâs because we want to. If we stay close to our Lord, however, we feel secure. If we unite ourselves to Christâs Cross and his glorious Resurrection, there is no obstacle we cannot overcome.
Of course, sometimes sufferings can last somewhat longer and our body can give out on us and fall sick, so that we have to drag it around like a tired donkey. Nevertheless you and I have the perfect remedy for this. Not only do we have the sacraments like any other Catholic, but in addition we have all the means of sanctification offered by the Work, and among them, the confidential chat. We must open our hearts and let Godâs grace in!
When Sacred Scripture says that a faithful friend is a treasure, that is no exaggeration. Friends are few and far between here on earth, but there is no better friend than your brother or sister. Open your heart in the weekly talk and you will see how much fortitude, peace and serenity our Lord will give you. You will see things in their proper proportion, and will not attach undue importance to the things of the earth. This will give you such serenity, even humanly speaking, that your understanding will be made clearer and your will strengthened.
Haec est dies quam fecit Dominus: exsultemus et laetemur in ea, this is the great day which the Lord has made: let us rejoice and be glad. In the Epistle to the Corinthians St Paul writes: Expurgate vetus fermentum, ut sitis nova conspersio: cleanse out the old leaven that you may be new dough. And in another passage he invites us to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, in novitate sensus. Now is the time to make a change, my children. Holiness means being reborn every day, starting anew every single day. Donât let your mistakes get you down, as long as you have good will and begin again each time.
There was once a poor priest - perhaps he was more than a priest - whose defects weighed on him very heavily, possibly with good reason. Every day in his monastery he had to place the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance, where it was exposed for adoration, but he was constantly assailed by scruples. Until one day his Superior told him, with a lot of supernatural sense: âSo you have many, many shortcomings? And not just small ones? Well, collect them together and put them all underneath the monstrance, so that our Lord will be raised that much higher.â
My children, be faithful to our Lord at every moment of your life, and when you feel that you arenât being faithful, give an extra push in your struggle, with a cheerful, sporting spirit, and you will be victorious. Take all your failings, all those obstacles on the road, and place them at Christâs feet, so that he will be raised on high and triumph - and you will triumph along with him. Donât let anything bother you; rectify your intention; try and try again; and in the end, if you yourself canât manage, our Lord will come and help you to leap the hurdle, the hurdle of holiness. This is the way to be renewed, to conquer ourselves: getting up again every day in the certainty that we will make it to the end of the road, where love awaits us.
My children, love Jesus and his Blessed Mother. For, like Jesus, we have always kept very close to his Mother Mary, the Mother of God, who has also been the Queen of Opus Dei, our loveliness⌠Joined in filial love to the Mother of God, we have never been without the help of her tender smile in any of the difficult times we have had to go through. You will always be safe and secure if you show just a little bit of good will. You will find protection in the victory won for us by Christ through his Resurrection. The key is never to allow ourselves to stray from our Lordâs presence.