216. Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 570 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The strength of the Christian is in God.

BE FOR me the rock of refuge, the firm fortress of my salvation, we pray at the Antiphon at the entrance of the Mass. God is our strength and security in the midst of so much weakness that we find around us and in ourselves; He is the firm grip at every moment, at every age and in every circumstance. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord is his trust, the prophet Jeremiah tells us. He will be like a tree planted by the water, which spreads its roots to the stream, does not fear the heat; and its leaves will remain luxuriant, it will not be restless in a year of drought, nor will it fail to bear fruit.

On the contrary, cursed is the man who trusts in man and puts his support in the flesh, while his heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush of the steppe that will not see happiness coming, for he dwells in parched desert lands, in brackish and inhospitable land.

The teaching of this passage of Sacred Scripture is evident: all the strength of the Christian rests in his union with the Lord. When we do not count on Him, our efforts to have an interior life, to carry out the apostolate, and even to perform the duties proper to our state, are in vain. This is very often the cause of our failures: pride, St. Josemaría always preached. We throw ourselves into battle, without counting on God, trusting only in our own strength. It is logical, then, that defeat should come to bring us to reality, to remind us that without Him we are nothing and can do nothing. Let us never forget to think, in battles against our enemies, that our strength is borrowed. Let us ask for that strength and, shielded by God, filled with the vigor that He will place in us, let us fulfill His Will without the slightest hesitation. Our hope should not be confused if-putting our effort into the fight-we trust only in the power of the Lord.

Our Father’s holy life is a clear example of the exercise of the virtue of fortitude. Not only did he preach it, but he lived it and taught it to practice. The path of the Christian, that of any man, is not easy, he warned us. Certainly, in certain times, it seems that everything is fulfilled according to our forecasts; but this usually does not last long. To live is to face difficulties, to feel in the heart joys and sorrows; and in this forge man can acquire strength, patience, magnanimity, serenity.

In the strength of St. Josemaría, so many souls relied throughout his life, while our Father leaned on God. Now, as then, feeling that we are good children of our Father, let us also cultivate this virtue in daily life, so that we do not remain dwarfed by difficulties or lower the demands of love. Because he is strong who perseveres in the fulfillment of what he understands he must do, according to his conscience; he who does not measure the value of a task exclusively by the benefits he receives, but by the service he renders to others. The strong sometimes suffer, but he resists; he cries perhaps, but he drinks his tears. When contradiction intensifies, he does not bend.

If there are difficulties, there is more God’s grace, as Don Alvaro wrote to us: “If difficulties arise, God’s grace also comes more abundantly; if more difficulties arise, more God’s grace comes from Heaven; if there are many difficulties, there is much God’s grace. Divine help is proportionate to the obstacles that the world and the devil oppose to apostolic work. For this reason, I would even dare to say that there should be difficulties, because in this way we will have more help from God: where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more (Rom 5:20).”

Leaning on the Lord: Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat.

THE RECOGNITION that the Lord is the solid rock on which to lean must give us complete security. Humility and trust in God always go together. Only the humble seek their happiness and strength in the Lord. The proud find themselves alone, fruitless, dissatisfied and without peace. It is interior simplicity, the knowledge that we are small and needy, that leads us to feel that we are children of God. When we imagine that everything is sinking before our eyes, nothing sinks, because you are, Lord, my strength (Ps 42:2). If God dwells in our soul, everything else, however important it may seem, is accidental, transitory; on the other hand, we, in God, are what is permanent. In the midst of our weakness - whatever form it takes - we feel close to God with an indestructible firmness. That is why the humble person is strong, because humility attracts divine mercy and his strength, which we make our own.

How many times have we experienced that with God we can do everything! This is what our Father told us. Where did St. Paul get this strength from? Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat! (Phil 4:13), I can do all things, because only God gives me this faith, this hope, this charity. It is very difficult for me to believe in the supernatural efficacy of an apostolate that is not supported, solidly centered, in a life of continuous contact with the Lord. In the midst of work, yes; in the middle of the house, or in the middle of the street, with all the problems that arise every day, some more important than others. There, not outside of there, but with our hearts in God. And then our words, our actions - even our miseries! - will give off that bonus odor Christi (2 Cor 2:15), the good smell of Christ, which other men will necessarily notice: here is a Christian.

In fact, it is enough to lean on God, to count on Him, so that apostolic possibilities may multiply, the horizons of God’s love in work may be broadened, supernatural realities may be united with human realities, in a divine synthesis.

There are, however, our Father warns, those who, after having implored God’s help and put their courage and strength into the fight, are defeated again and again. Some end up, after successive defeats, by becoming discouraged, and are invaded by the desire not to face the fight. What is to be done then? Is it that God has not calculated to the last degree of endurance and strength of our muscles? Is it that he does not know us fully? Let us fight, then, full of perseverance and confidence, our Founder answers, without being discouraged by not being able to uproot from ourselves such a defect or accustomed ourselves to the practice of such a virtue, knowing that God will not allow our strength to be exhausted without achieving what we have undertaken for his glory alone. When we are most discouraged, are we not already achieving victory? If we have responded to the test, which wanted to test our patience or our hope, and we have tried our best, the triumph is undoubtedly already approaching our hands.

There is a practical humility which, by making us aware of human weakness and of God’s immense power, makes us holily bold, because it impels us first to a continual request for God’s help, and thereby opens us to his grace and to identification with God’s plans for our lives, well assured that under no circumstances will we lack this help from Heaven.

This is the assurance that the Responsorial Psalm gives us: “Blessed is the man who does not follow the counsel of the wicked, nor stop in the way of sinners, nor sit with pretenders, but takes pleasure in the law of the Lord, and meditates night and day on his law. He will be like a tree planted on the edge of the ditch, which bears fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wither: whatever he does prospers. … For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but that of the wicked ends in perdition.

Knowledge of our weakness helps us to lean on the Lord alone.

Although it may seem paradoxical, we grow in strength precisely when we experience our own fragility and know the “bad stuff” of which we are made. This was also the experience of St. Paul, who confesses to the Corinthians: I take pleasure in weaknesses, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions and anguish, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. Weakness impels us to go to the Lord with trust: all our strength borrowed. But we must seek it where it is found, in Jesus Christ, who always awaits us in the Tabernacle. There we will go to ask him to give us his grace and not abandon us, to recognize once again that we are pure frailty, that there is nothing good in us that does not come from him. The asceticism of the Christian, St. Josemaría writes, demands strength; and that strength is found in the Creator. We are darkness, and He is the clearest radiance; we are sickness, and He is robust health; we are scarcity, and He, infinite wealth; we are weakness, and He sustains us, for thou art God, mighty mea (Ps 42:2), for thou art always, O my God, our strength.

With the clear awareness that our strength is borrowed, “let us put on the armor of faith, protect ourselves with the helmet of salvation, and defend ourselves with the word of God as with a spiritual sword. Whoever provides himself with these weapons,” says a Father of the Church, “must not fear the disconcerting present or the future judgment.”

Let us be attentive to walk at the pace of God, without haste, but without pause. Let us take care of the Norms of the plan of life, so that we may always count on the Lord in our daily activities and ask him to open new horizons to our love. Assiduous recourse to supernatural means is an exercise of fortitude, for the pride of relying only on our effort would incline us to make merely human calculations; to rely on our poor strengths, possibilities and talents; and in this course we would succumb to discouragement. If, on the other hand, we go to the Lord, even the very difficulties become a source of joy: rejoice in that day and rejoice, for your reward will be great in heaven.

In the history of the Work, pages have been written and will continue to be written in a simple but very eloquent style: they narrate God’s action in the world, through the holy life of men and women who, trusting in God and united to our Founder and the Father, fought to turn all the moments and circumstances of their lives into an occasion of love and service to God and to souls. With the light and strength of our vocation, “the smallest realities become battlefields, where marvellous deeds take place, full of transcendence because we know how to convert daily prose into hendecasyllables of heroic verse.”

“God does not ask us for impossible things, when he expects us to put Christ at the top of all human activities. He asks us to decide, trust, abandon: to put into practice what the spirit of the Work teaches us; with fidelity - heroism - even in the smallest details. Then, in spite of the obstacles, in spite of the sorrows - our personal miseries, in the first place - God will repeat in this world of ours the ancient deeds, in which it is very clear that He does everything, when the creature, on His part, also does all that He can: even if this everything is practically nothing.”

Say: My Mother-yours, because you are His by many titles-may your love bind me to the Cross of your Son: may I not lack faith, courage, or audacity, to do the will of our Jesus.