280. Thirteenth Monday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 264 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The new order Christ established on earth leads us to give ourselves unreservedly.

Today we find Christ surrounded by a crowd of people who have brought those who are sick in body or soul for him to heal them. After granting their requests, when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

We do not know whether the scribe who heard these demanding words from our Lord, requiring absolute detachment, persevered in his intention of following Jesus closely. What we do know is that all of us, whom our Lord has called to his Opus Dei, have been chosen to give our entire life, holding nothing back for ourselves, as beloved children, who serve with all their heart.

Our beloved Father wrote these words to us a year before he went to heaven. It was the third time he had rung the great bell within the space of a few months, to encourage us not to slacken off from our total self-giving in God’s service. We can use his words for our prayer today.

Seeing the example of Christ who came to give his life for us, we should be encouraged to respond with the same generosity as Thomas showed when urging the other Apostles to follow Jesus at the risk of their lives: Let us also go, that we may die with him.

My children, God teaches us to abandon ourselves completely. Look where Christ is born. Everything there speaks to us of unconditioned self-giving. Joseph, whose life is a succession of hardships mixed with the joy of being Jesus’ guardian, risks his honour, the serene continuity of his work, his tranquil future. His entire existence is ready availability for whatever God may ask. Mary shows herself to be the handmaid of the Lord, who by her fiat transforms her entire existence into an acceptance of the divine plan of salvation. And Jesus? Suffice it to say that our God reveals himself to us as a child. The Creator of the universe presents himself to us in an infant’s swaddling clothes, so we may never doubt that he is true God and true Man.

Simply calling these scenes to mind should fill us with shame and provoke holy and effective resolutions. We must steep ourselves in this new logic brought down to earth by God. In Bethlehem, no one reserves anything for himself. There we hear nothing of my reputation, my time, my work, my ideas, my preferences, my money. There everything is placed at the service of God’s marvellous adventure with humanity, the Redemption. Surrendering our pride, let us tell God with all the love of a child: ego servus tuus, ego servus tuus, et filius ancillae tuae: I am your servant, I am your servant, the child of your handmaid, Mary: teach me to serve you.

Directing our whole life towards the apostolic aim of our vocation.

Before he got on board the boat, another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

In this rather harsh-sounding phrase, Jesus Christ reminds the disciple that those who wish to follow him closely must be detached from everything on this earth, without exception. This is how our Lord’s words should be understood. If Jesus forbade him to do it, commented St John Chrysostom, it is not because he is commanding us to neglect the honour we owe to our parents, but to make us understand that there must be nothing which takes priority over the things of heaven for us. We must dedicate ourselves to them in all fervour, and not put them off even for a second, however inescapable or urgent other duties may be.

Pause for a moment, my children, and consider your own life, our Father asks us. Perhaps we have already sensed the tolling of the bell, heaven’s grace, in the depths of our soul Our Lord, with his unconditional self-giving, shows us that authentic Christian conduct is woven of both divine and human threads: man’s will intertwined with God’s will. To loosen a thread, even a seemingly unimportant one, is to begin to undo the tapestry. What a sad failure, a good tapestry that has come unravelled. What a shame, a child of God who would dare to reclaim his own will, after surrendering it to the service of this Work wherein reigns the salvific Cross!

I write to warn you against the assaults of the devil, who perhaps attacks at “the eleventh hour”, almost at the end of our journey here below, stirring up once again the claims of the prudence of the flesh. Never forget that you and I have come to surrender our entire life. Reputation, money, professional success, talents, possibilities of positions of influence, family ties: in a word, everything that normally accompanies the career of a mature person, all has to be submitted - yes, submitted - to a higher interest: God’s glory and the salvation of souls.

We have been called to serve God and him alone. Responding sincerely to this choice means, in Opus Dei, directing our entire life to the apostolic goal of our vocation. If we were to withhold something from this aim voluntarily, it would be a clear sign that we had begun to stray from the path, to live for ourselves. As St Augustine says, mortui sumus illi, quando viximus nobis: we are dead to Him, when we live for ourselves. Unity of life, so necessary - indispensable - in our spirit, is the clearest sign that we are truly striving to make our self-giving complete.

Consider your unity of life when, as the years go by, you find yourself completely caught up in your professional activity. You should feel the responsibility of remaining more immersed in God than anyone, making of your work a continuous occasion for apostolate. If in later years someone’s profession were to start becoming an isolated preserve, where apostolic concerns enter only with difficulty, it would be a clear sign that one’s unity of life was collapsing and had to be re-forged. That person would need to become spiritually vibrant once again: to return to being pious and sincere, sacrificing himself - either joyfully or with difficulty - for the things of the Work and the apostolate, talking about God without embarrassment or human respect.

Fruits of a life given unconditionally to God.

I give thanks to God for his great goodness, because my daughters and sons have given me so many reasons to be joyful in this now almost half-century. I have seen their firm adherence to the faith, their upright Christian life, their complete availability - within the duties of their personal situation in the world - to serve God in the Work. Young persons and those not so young have gone from one place to another with the greatest naturalness, or have persevered faithfully in the same spot without growing tired. When needed they have completely changed their work, leaving behind what they were doing and undertaking a different task of greater apostolic interest. They have learned how to do new things. They have joyfully accepted to hide and disappear, letting others move past them: going up and coming down.

It’s the divine adventure of self-giving, which my children have embraced, well aware of their responsibility before God to bring the Work forward for the good of souls. And our Lord has shown forth his power, pouring out upon your generosity his sanctifying action: conversions, vocations, fidelity to the Church in every corner of the world. Thus blossoms forth the supernatural fruit of an unconditional self-giving. And in the Work, this is asked of everyone: it must always be the ordinary, the natural thing in our family.

What a shame were a daughter or son of mine ever to lose the “agility” needed to walk at God’s pace, with the passing years becoming comfortably installed in their temporal career, resting on a poor human pedestal, and making room in their soul for interests other than those enkindled in our hearts by God’s love! In short, it would cause great sorrow if someone over the course of the years were to give in to the temptation to condition his self-giving.

Our Father’s words invite us to make a courageous and sincere examination of conscience. Anything that could condition our self-giving is an obstacle, however small it may seem, because, as our Founder also pointed out, here begins the path of pride. Soon the heart becomes chilled for piety, for fraternity, for apostolic tasks. Odd character traits emerge, over-reactions to ordinary events. The soul becomes gloomy, and places barriers between itself and others, distancing itself from what, in times of fidelity, was very dear. We witness the coldness of a creature who has not accepted supernaturally a humiliation, or a mistake, or a small defeat

Were I ever to find a child of mine in this situation, I would say: return to the piety of a small child of God, to fraternal sincerity. Humbly admit - you, who thought yourself above so many things - that your heart shelters the most vile miseries. Pray, speak out, be concerned once again about souls. Thus you will find yourself struggling and winning anew, as God expects of you. Your wounds will be changed into medals.

Realize that you are made of clay, and never again be surprised to find in your heart an abyss of wretchedness. Cry out, beg, follow the steps of the prodigal son. Your Father God comes out to meet you the moment you admit you have sinned, in that thing which your pride blinded you from seeing as sin. Then begins a great feast for you, the deep joy of repentance, and you put on a clean suit: a deeper charity, more divine and more human, because you now have the assurance that comes from humbly accepting your own littleness.

Jesus Christ gives himself to us every day in Holy Communion. Let us take advantage of those moments to ask him, with the Church’s liturgy: grant, Lord, that we may have a share in your life and bring your love to the world: that we may bear lasting fruits of personal sanctity and apostolate. Our Lady will obtain this for us as a reward for our total, absolute, unconditional self-giving.