257. Tenth Friday of Ordinary Time
Meditations no. 247 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Our need for spiritual formation.
The Gospel readings for this week are taken from the Sermon on the Mount. Irresponsible behaviour often denotes poor formation or a lack of intelligence, rather than want of good spirit, our Father says; and we see our Lord, the Teacher, dedicating patience and constancy to the task of instructing his listeners, who have shown their good dispositions by following him: You have heard that it was said to the men of old ⌠but I say to youâŚ
Within the broad sweep of Christâs catechetical instruction, the Apostles are marked out for a more intensive kind of training. He gathered a small group of rough men around him and set about forming their spirits, with infinite patience. Little by little he started to reveal the highest mysteries to them, teaching them as only God could. At the same time, as tenderly as a mother and as forcefully as one holding the highest authority, according to need, he gradually polished and purified their rough spirits, which were as yet insensitive towards the truths of heaven.
By calling us to the Work, our Lord has set our feet on the only path on which we can be happy and effective. It is a path that has its own specific obligations and ways of doing things. And we have to travel along this path with the wholeheartedness that is asked of us by God himself. Our Lord wants us to seek after Christian perfection and do apostolate with some very specific, well-defined means. Accordingly, we need to be formed in our particular ascetical spirit. To put it even more precisely, the exclusive task of the Work as such is the forming of its members.
Our desires for sanctity and apostolate would be insincere if we did not thirst for teaching and guidance. A doctrine may be a marvellous one, with the power to save, but it will all be pointless if there is no one who has been taught how to put it into practice. The Work is ceaselessly giving us the specific training we need to make us consistent and effective, so that God our Lord wonât have to renew his lament: My people is like a flock that was scattered all over the face of the earth, because there was no one to search or seek for them.
Your formation is never over; throughout the whole of your lives, in marvellous humility, you will need to go on improving your human, spiritual, doctrinal, apostolic, and professional training.
Apart from any other reasons, all this is a consequence of your secularity. You are to practise our God-given spirit with ease and confidence, not stiffly or awkwardly. By its very nature, this spirit is not bound up with any particular time or place, but will always respond to the most diverse changes and situations that may arise in society as the centuries go by.
The fact that we lead our lives in the middle of the world, immersed in secular activity, will never take us away from the one thing needful, because the training given by the Work enables us to keep our heart and our eyes fixed on God precisely through our work and our position in society.
Spiritual formation gives us our common denominator, while fostering our individuality.
Uniting peopleâs daily work with ascetical struggle and contemplation is something that might seem impossible, but it is necessary if we are to help reconcile the world to God. Doing that, turning ordinary work into an instrument for peopleâs own sanctification and apostolate - isnât all this a great, noble ideal, well worth giving up our lives for?
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul writes that Christians all have the same spirit of faith, even in the widely differing circumstances in which they live. To ensure that this is so, we need spiritual guidance, which covers every single aspect of our lives and brings about that unity which is a sort of common denominator for us, while the numerator can be very different for each one of us.
Our Father reminds us that constant spiritual guidance will lead us to maintain our supernatural point of view in all our actions, and never to lose it at all. We do not lead a double life, but a unity of life, which is simple and strong and in which all our actions are united. This spiritual training forms the setting for the other facets of our doctrinal, professional and apostolic training. And the unity between the various aspects of our life grows stronger as we learn to turn our specific circumstances into means of holiness and apostolate, while enjoying full freedom in professional, social and political matters.
In the Confidence we need to talk about the concerns, sufferings, joys and projects that make up our spiritual life and apostolate. We need to set out our difficulties and lay open the whole of our inner life, because we desire to give ourselves completely to the Work without leaving any hidden corners. Then we will receive light and orientation to make our lives conform to Godâs Will and develop our personality steadily and constantly. The more effort we put into this task, the more grace our Lord will give us. St Irenaeus says that God always grants his gifts to those who belong to his household. The more their love of God grows, the greater the gifts he bestows on them ⌠God is absolutely perfect ⌠whereas man needs to journey onwards little by little towards perfection ⌠And God never tires of enriching man with his gifts, so long as man does not get tired of receiving them. We only need to have good dispositions: a willingness to receive what is offered, and to put ourselves in the Directorsâ hands - that is the way God wants us to follow.
Docility to the formation we receive.
We need a rich inner life, which is a sure sign of friendship with God and an indispensable condition for any apostolate with souls; we urgently need to acquire doctrine and live by faith in order to be able to pass it on. And to acquire this inner life, this operative, apostolic faith, we have to open up our hearts. We came to Opus Dei to allow ourselves to be moulded, formed, and polished. We came to conform our lives to Christâs life, in accordance with the spirit of the Work.
We have to have an open, trusting disposition, like sick people who allow themselves to be handled and operated on because they want to recover their life and health. Our Founder tells us this in words from Scripture. We have to be, in the Directorsâ hands, sicut lutum in manu figuli, like clay in the potterâs hand: faithful and malleable. Then the ugly coarse surface of the clay can become smooth and finished, capable of reflecting the clear light of the spirit of the Work. But for this to be able to happen, the clay must put up no resistance of any kind, but must be good-quality material, pliable and docile.
My dear children, let me remind you once again that you have come to Opus Dei in order to let yourselves be formed, ready to be leaven in the great mass of humanity. This formation improves your personality at the human level, with its own proper characteristics. But beyond all that it gives you a common denominator, our family spirit, which is the same for everyone. For that to be so, I insist, you must put yourselves in the Directorsâ hands and let them give you a supernatural form, like clay in the potterâs hands.
My children, see how we are all inside the same net, and the net is on board the boat which is Opus Dei, in a wonderful attitude of humility, self-giving, work, and love. Isnât that beautiful? Do you really think you deserved it? God just picked you up in the road as he was going by! We are nothing special: weâre no elite. He could have found other people who were better than us. But he chose us, and to remind ourselves of that fact is not pride but gratitude.
Our Lord wants to use us to bring many souls to eternal happiness. For him to be able to, we must fight against our own pride, which is capable of blighting Christâs fruits in us. Pride may lie hidden under a habit of neglect, or a failure to take an active, responsible interest in making good use of the means of formation -Confession and the fraternal chat, the Circle, the recollections, fraternal correction, and so on. Rejecting these means, or just not receiving them effectively, is tantamount to coming to a halt on our journey towards holiness.
Our response should be: âI will let myself be known more fully, guided more, scraped down and remade! May I never rebel out of pride, when I receive some indication intended to improve my inner life. May I never give more weight to my own judgement -which cannot be correct because no one is a good judge in their own case - than to the Directorsâ opinion. I will not let myself get annoyed by the loving indications the others make me when they help me with fraternal correction.â
Let us entrust our Lady with our resolutions from this time of prayer. She will teach us to make better use of the means of spiritual formation every day, and she will turn us into effective instruments in the service of the Holy Church.