290. Fourteenth Tuesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 272 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Compassion for souls who are like sheep with no shepherd.

Today we watch our Lord going from village to village, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

By divine vocation we too feel the same pity as Christ for the crowds of people who do not know him, but who wander through life without ever hearing that the divine Shepherd came to ransom them from their sins. No one can rest content in Opus Dei without feeling troubled by the anonymous crowds: a drove, a flock, a herd, as I once called them. Under their apparent indifference there are so many noble aspirations, so many possibilities! We must serve all of them. We must lay our hands on them one by one, as Jesus did, singulis manus imponens (he laid his hands on every one of them), so as to bring them back to life, heal them, enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, so they can become useful! That is how we will turn the drove into a levy, the flock into an army, and bring out of the herd those who do not want to be unclean.

Zeal for the salvation of all souls is an essential characteristic of God’s children in Opus Dei. We have to fan it into a flame every day by following the example set by Jesus, who calls us to co-redeem with him. We may at times be tempted to dissociate ourselves from other people, and refuse to get involved boldly in their lives. Against such moments we have our Father’s warning: If you were to fall into the temptation of wondering: “Who’s telling me to embark on this?” we would have to reply: “Christ himself is telling you, is begging you.” The harvest is plentiful enough, but the labourers are few. You must ask the Lord to whom the harvest belongs to send labourers out for the harvesting. Don’t take the easy way out. Don’t say, “I’m no good at this sort of thing; there are others who can do it; it isn’t my line.” No, for this sort of thing, there is no one else: if you could get away with that argument, so could everyone else. Christ’s plea is addressed to each and every Christian. No one can consider himself excused, for whatever reason: age, health or occupation. There are no excuses whatsoever. Either we carry out a fruitful apostolate, or our faith will prove barren.

All my children, our Founder also said, must feel the generous urge to reactivate men’s rusty, torpid energies in the service of God. They must make whatever sacrifice is needed, devoting all their strength to the task. They should adopt as their own our Lord’s cry: Misereor super turbam (I have compassion on the crowd), feeling pity for the multitudes.

Ordered charity so as to reach everyone.

The Psalms encourage us to pray to God with the confidence of children. Hear a just cause, O Lord, attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer … I call upon you, for you will answer me. God has called us by our name and loves us with special affection. Before we ever existed, St Augustine says, we were already foreseen, and promised, and known to him. Could there be a stronger reason for being sure that he always listens to us?

But we have not received the grace of a vocation for ourselves alone. God has called us to his Work so that we can spread his message of infinite love throughout the whole world. There is not a single soul excluded from our charity. When Christians understand and implement the catholicity of the Church, when they realize how urgent it is to announce the good news of salvation to everyone, they find that they have to become all things to all people, so as to save them all.

And our apostolic desire becomes our whole life. Beginning with what we have to hand - our everyday occupations - our desire for the harvest spreads outwards little by little in concentric circles: from the heart of the family to our workplace, then to civil society, to the seat of learning, or to the political arena. Our apostolic zeal is at work among all our fellow-citizens in every walk of life. It reaches out to international relations, and encompasses whole races, continents, and civilizations in its love.

Apostolate is an outpouring of charity, like a river of peace, turning dry wasteland into a fertile field. But if it is to be effective and reach everyone, it needs to work in the right order of charity. That is how Jesus Christ acted, and likewise his apostles, who, despite being so few, still managed to transform the world. To do that, they began with the people closest to them. Among those who followed Christ were James the Less, Simon, and Jude the son of Alphaeus, all of whom were related to our Lord. And Andrew, after responding to Christ’s call, first found his brother Simon. Then came Philip, who was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

So it is with us: the first people in our apostolate are our brothers or sisters. So that our zeal may become the charity of Christ, it must be orderly: first come your brothers or sisters, my children - those who form part of our supernatural family. After that come our own families, then our friends, our colleagues at work, the people in our town, our compatriots, and so all souls.

A sense of urgency in our apostolate and proselytism.

It takes time to do the sort of apostolate which will provide the basis for effective proselytism. We cannot give in to impatience and try to pluck the fruit before it is ripe. I have learnt how to wait, our Father said to us more than once; which is a high degree of knowledge. God uses the passage of time to form souls. They cannot be forced, any more than a plant is normally forced to bloom more quickly. “More haste, less speed” - without a more general apostolate, it would be very difficult to do any proselytism.

Jesus is urging us on. Accordingly, we have to be thinking about souls constantly, every day. We need to see what possibilities exist for a well-defined, thorough-going apostolate. Our work, our social relations, our contact with other people: these are all opportunities which our Lord offers us of carrying out the task he has called us to do. My daughters and sons, we have a lot of work to do in the world: God has given us a divine mission. Right from the start, I have invited you to thank him for this sign of his special love, our divine call to serve everyone. God is asking us to fill our hearts with apostolic zeal and forget ourselves, so as to be concerned for the whole of humanity, in a spirit of joyful sacrifice.

Every day, as we place ourselves before God in our examination of conscience, we need to look and see whether we have really made use of every opportunity to do apostolate and proselytism. Then we need to set ourselves a demanding, effective plan of action for the next day. St John Chrysostom teaches that there is nothing which marks out Christians, lovers of Christ, so clearly as the care we take of our brethren and our zeal for the salvation of souls.

Mary Immaculate was found worthy to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She will answer our plea: she will pray for a burning zeal for souls for us, and an abundance of vocations from God.