313. Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Meditations no. 591 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

True wisdom is to be faithful to one’s vocation.

Ask me what you want me to give you, the Lord said to Solomon when he ascended the throne of his father David. The young king’s answer pleased him very much, because he did not ask for goods thinking only of himself, but he implored wisdom to discern what is right and to govern his people rightly. Then the Lord declared to him, “Because you have made this request, and you have not asked for yourself many years, or riches, or the lives of your enemies, but you have asked for discernment for yourself to hear judgments, see that I have acted according to your words: I have given you a wise and intelligent heart, so that there has never been another like you before, nor will there be since.”

It was much more than the king had asked for. The Lord not only granted him wisdom to rule his people with judgment and discretion, but he bestowed upon him a wise and prudent heart, so that he himself would be just and holy in the fulfillment of his mission. And so it was at first, for several years. However, in the evening of his days, Solomon was not faithful to God, he did not retain wisdom. The first book of Kings declares with accents of sorrow that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not give himself completely to the Lord like his father David.

We can learn much from the story of Solomon. We too have received a divine inheritance and we have a mission ahead of us: to make Opus Dei at the service of the Church. “Give us many thoughts, every day, to the thought that the Work is in our hands,” the Father reminds us, “and that we must transmit it to others with the same strength and holiness with which God made it visible and carry out to our Father, and then to Don Alvaro.” To care for it with love, let us see to it that it develops and bears fruit, and we will faithfully transmit its spirit embodied in our lives. The task exceeds human strength, but the Lord also invites us to ask for whatever we want. Ask me, he tells us in Psalm II and on so many other occasions, in the intimacy of prayer. Solomon’s response teaches us to pray for what pleases the Lord: the wisdom to be holy in the fulfillment of our mission. Wisdom to make Opus Dei, being Opus Dei ourselves. And not only for a few years, but always, until the end of our lives. This is the gift that we now ask the Lord who challenges us and listens to us.

That wisdom is the fruit of obedience to God and to those who represent him on earth. “For it is written: ‘If you desire wisdom, keep the commandments, and the Lord will give it to you’ (Sir 1:23). If you want to be wise, be obedient. Obedience sets aside one’s own will to submit to the will of others (…). Embrace it, therefore, with all the affection of your heart and with all your physical effort. Accept the great good of obedience, and through it you will come to the light of wisdom.”

God grants wisdom to those who wish to receive it, with a desire manifested in the decision to respond to his gift, to be faithful to them. If we are loyal to our vocation, my daughters and sons, this spirit of wisdom will rest on all of us, which the Lord distributes in abundance among those who seek him with an upright heart. Then we will realize the ideal of our call, we will be contemplatives in work and in the ordinary circumstances of life. Because Wisdom is in knowing God and in loving him. A loving knowledge that makes us connatural with God, and that is the fruit of the spirit of the Work in us, because this way of living before God is Wisdom, without seeking anonymity, without caring that they see or hear us, trying to act in conscience, with rectitude of intention.

Fidelity is a continuous self-giving, not the fruit of inertia.

HOW can we grow in fidelity to our vocation? Human loyalty, the basis of supernatural fidelity, is indispensable for the Holy Spirit to pour out in our hearts the wisdom of the children of God: a loving knowledge of God that is the key and the substance of the contemplative life in the midst of the world. In turn, the gift of wisdom makes loyalty, far from remaining inertia, a living and fresh virtue, a Christian fidelity always new, a constant actualization of the first love, of the charity we had at the beginning of our vocation.

The Gospel of the Mass shows us this with the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price. Today we meditate on it guided by a few words of our Father.

Our eyes, on the journey of our lives, have also stumbled upon an astonishing treasure: the vocation as children of God. To gain this treasure, to acquire the happiness of following Christ, we must renounce everything. These goods, which I must sell, are my ambitions, the ardours of my lusts, the dreams of earthly happiness, the affections - good but hindering - that come from flesh and blood, my professional illusions, although they will often be accommodated in my plan of apostolate and work.

Shall I sell this alone? Even more: my will. Is there still anything left to give up? Yes: my whole self, self-pleasure; in a word, my self-love. How much it costs to renounce this self-love! How many moments does it take away our peace and divert us from our path! Because our dignity, so we believe, is at stake; because, so we reason, a thing is of justice and must be done this way and not otherwise. … But would not the man in the parable have behaved like a fool if he had despised the treasure he has found? Shall we not be fools if, in order not to reject our miseries of self-love, we abandon the treasure of our surrender to Christ?

When we encountered Opus Dei and discovered the divine call, perhaps many years ago, we gave our lives to the Lord. From that moment on, we no longer wanted to have anything that was not his: no goods of fortune; no personal projects alien to our supernatural family; no affections that were not within the treasure of our vocation; nothing that was not, really and in practice, a means and path of sanctification and apostolate.

That full dedication to Opus Dei, which we made with joy, out of love for God, needs loyalty to be fulfilled in time, without limits or reductions. Without the limits that the new professional, health, family, etc., circumstances could present as mitigating factors. Without reductions that are sheltered by fluctuations of mood, or by difficulties that may arise, or even by the attraction of the goods that were left to follow Jesus Christ.

No; let us manifest to the Lord - let us confide it to him with ardent affections, forcing the intelligence to be silent, allowing the heart to speak - : I desire to be your slave in your Work. Even if I were not one man but a hundred, even if I had a thousand lives, I would dedicate them all again to your service; even if the incredible misfortune of being left alone should happen to me, no matter what happens, I will persevere on this path, with your help. And we will extend our affections: of humility, for having chosen me, so miserable, to take possession of this treasure; of thanksgiving, for having placed it within my reach; of cries of request for correspondence, of perseverance, for me, for all my brothers and sisters.

Love for the Work and total dedication.

JESUS returns to the same theme, in another parable similar to the previous one. The pearl merchant has found an extraordinarily beautiful one in his daily trade, and he also sells everything he possesses in order to make it his own (cf. Mt 13:45).

How insistent the Lord is! Even so, even after so much insistence, we still do not know the words of Christ. The parable, in essence, is the same as the previous one, and almost in form. But Jesus acts in the manner of those mothers, who do not cease to repeat recommendations and advice to their children, children who perhaps get upset because they consider themselves old people, sufficiently discreet and prudent: My son, take care of yourself; my son, do not do this, do not go that way. … Since we are not as discreet and prudent as we should be, Christ’s loving solicitude is not excessive.

I pause to present to you now, as if you did not yet possess it, as if you saw it in other hands, the precious stone of our vocation as children of God, so that you may admire it. It is like a ruby composed of sacrificial blood; like an emerald that gives off greenish radiance, which encloses uninterrupted hope in our Mother; like a clear diamond, which shines with the marvelous lights of purity. … Who can count all the beauties of this precious stone! It is, simply, for those who correspond to the mercy of the Lord, happiness in this world, with the assurance of eternal happiness (…).

Jesus Christ never tires of teaching us. Like a loving mother, he does not stop in his recommendations. Why do we not throw ourselves in your arms, my God, on your open breast? Why do we not allow you to move our will with very deep affections and very firm resolutions? My God, I love you! Make me fall more and more in love with your Work; may I serve you, every day, more faithfully! May my hands carry the sacred water from your side to the souls of those around me! May I myself become more and more intoxicated with that water from heaven! Et calix tuus inebrians, quam praeclarus est! (Ps 22:5). Your chalice, overflowing with pain, how beautiful, how beautiful it is! How clear are the words, inexplicable to many, of the Prophet King! How clear the darkness, how pleasant the suffering! If we look into the depths of what we have received, the sorrows that sometimes weigh us down, what are they? And yet, how much laziness, how carelessness, how much dust of the world enters through the cracks of our souls!

We know well that we carry this treasure in earthen vessels: habemus autem thesaurum istum in vasis fictilibus (2 Cor 4:7). A vessel so weak that it can easily break. Therefore, let us follow St. Josemaría’s advice: the vessel does not break if we direct everything towards God, including our passions. The passions, in themselves, are neither good nor bad: it is up to each person to subdue them, and then they are good, if only for that negative reason: quia virtus in infirmitate perficitur (2 Cor 12:9). Because when we feel this moral disease, if we overcome and achieve health, we acquire more contact with God, more holiness (…).

Enter into your hearts, with the light that the Holy Spirit gives you, to remove everything that can break the glass, everything that can rob you of the unity of life. You must be people, I always tell you, who do not marvel when they feel that they have a beast within them (…). Be humble, my children (…) and the glass will not break.

In the Collect for the Mass today we ask God never to lose our supernatural vision, in the midst of our tasks and in the various circumstances of our lives: “Multiply your mercy upon us, so that we may so concern ourselves with temporal things that, through them, we may attain above all eternal things.”

Holy Mary, our Mother, Sedes Sapientiae: obtain for us from the Holy Spirit a new outpouring of the gift of wisdom that will lead us to respond to our call with total self-giving. In this way we will live the very life of Christ, until we can affirm with the Apostle: with Christ I am crucified: I live, but it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.