315. Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 291 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our prayer has to be the prayer of the children of God.

In today’s Gospel St Luke tells us how one day our Lord was praying, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples”. And Christ, in reply to their wish, taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer.

In our case too, our Founder has taught us how to pray as children of God, placing before our eyes the example of Jesus. This is how he put it in a meditation he gave us many years ago.

Look at Jesus Christ. He is our model. What does he do on the great occasions? What does the Holy Gospel tell us about him? Before he begins his public life, he retires for forty days and forty nights to the desert, to pray. Later, when he is about to make his final selection of the first Twelve, St Luke tells us that he continued all night in prayer to God. When the tomb of Lazarus was opened, raising his eyes, he said, Father, I give you thanks for having heard me. And what does he do in those intimate moments of the Last Supper, in the agony of Gethsemane, in the solitude of the Cross? With his arms outstretched, he also speaks with his Father.

And now let us contemplate his blessed Mother. What do we see her doing? When the Archangel goes to deliver the divine message, he finds her withdrawn in prayer. And the early Christians? The Acts of the Apostles have passed on to us a scene that I really love because it is a living example for us. That is why I have had it engraved in many oratories and other places: And they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the Apostles and in the communion of the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.

And what have all the saints done, my children? I do not think that there has been one single saint without prayer. No one has reached the altars without being a soul of prayer.

There are many ways to pray. But I want you to pray the prayer of the children of God, not the prayer of the hypocrites who had to hear Jesus telling them: Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. We are doing the will of his Father, having dedicated our whole life to him. Our prayer, our cry of “Lord! Lord!” is united to an effective desire to fulfil God’s Will. This clamour is manifested in a thousand different ways. That is prayer, and that is what I want for you.

Prayer has to impregnate our whole life.

Preaching to his sons, our Father said: You have put into practice the basic notions that you learned about prayer when you began to receive the spiritual direction given in our Opus Dei. You have listened to so much wonderful advice from your brothers which you have tried to put into practice. And now, after the years - many or few - that you have been working for the Lord, the Father is once again insisting on prayer. Why? Because, my children, in order to be holy, we must pray. I have no other recipe for reaching holiness.

If you have not already experienced it, you will see how, in fulfilling the Norms, without realizing it, from morning till night and from night till morning, you will be praying: acts of love, acts of reparation, acts of thanksgiving; with your heart, with your lips, with the little mortifications that set the soul on fire.

These are not things that can be considered trifles. They are constant prayer, a dialogue of love. Their practice will not produce any psychological deformation because, for a Christian, they should be something as natural and spontaneous as the beating of one’s heart.

When all of this comes easily, say: “Thank you, my God!” When a difficult moment comes, say: “Lord, don’t leave me!” And how can this God, meek and humble of heart, ever say no to you?

I want our whole life to be prayer: when faced with pleasant things and with what is unpleasant, when faced with consolation… and when faced with the sorrow of losing a loved one. No matter what you face, you must go immediately to speak with your Father God, seeking the Lord in the depths of your soul.

My children, to do that, you need to have a clear, habitual and actual disposition of abhorring sin. In a manly way, you must feel horror, a great horror for serious sin. And also a deeply-rooted attitude of hatred for deliberate venial sin.

God presides over our prayer, and you, my children, are speaking with him as one speaks with a brother, with a friend, with a father: full of confidence. Tell him: “Lord, you are all Greatness, all Goodness, all Mercy. I know that you are listening to me! That is why I am so in love with you, with all the coarseness of my manners, my poor hands soiled with the dust of the road.” In this way, self-denial becomes pleasant; what perhaps humiliated us before, is now a source of joy, and our life of dedication is a happy one. To know we are so close to God! And that is why, no matter what happens, I am firm, sure, with you, because you are the rock and the fortress.

But, my children, you might whisper to me: Father, on the one hand, what you are saying to us is something we know very well, and on the other hand, it seems so difficult… And I will repeat that we have to be souls of prayer. That is the only way to be happy, even when others fail to recognize you, even when you find great difficulties along the way.

The Lord wants you to be happy on earth. Happy even when perhaps people mistreat you and dishonour you. Many people gather round; it has become fashionable to spit on you; you are omnium peripsema (the off scouring of all things), like rubbish…

My son, this is hard. It is very hard. It is hard until, at last, a person goes up to the tabernacle and sees himself as all the refuse of the world, as a poor worm, and he truly says: Lord, if you do not need my honour, why should I want it? Until then, a child of God does not know what it means to be happy; until he reaches this detachment, this dedication, which is love, but based on sorrow and on penance.

Practical steps for improving our prayer life.

My children, I would not want all this that I am saying to you to pass like a summer storm: a few big drops of rain, and then the sun comes out and shortly afterwards everything has dried up again. No, this water has to enter into your soul, and form a reservoir of divine effectiveness. And you will only manage to do that if you don’t leave me, your Father, to do my prayer alone. This little conversation that we are having together, close to the tabernacle, will make a deep impression on you if, while I am speaking, you are also speaking to our Lord in the depths of your soul. While I try to develop a common idea which will do good for each of you, at the same time you yourself should be drawing out your own more intimate and personal thoughts. On the one hand, you will be filled with shame for not having known how to be fully a man of God. But on the other hand, you will be filled with gratitude, because in spite of everything you have been chosen with a divine vocation, and you know that you will never lack the grace of heaven. God has given you a gift of his calling, choosing you from all eternity, and he has said these words: redemi te, et vocavi te nomine tuo: meus es tu! (I have redeemed you, I have called you by name: you are mine!) Those words are like honey and the honeycomb to me, and they resound in your ears. You belong to him, to the Lord. If he has given you this grace, he will also give you the help you need to be faithful as his child in Opus Dei.

My children, with your loyalty, you will make sure that you improve every day, and you will be a living model of a person of Opus Dei. This is what I long for, it is what I believe, and it is what I hope for. Once you have heard the Father speak about this spirit of ours as contemplative souls, you are going to make the effort really to be one. Ask Jesus for this now: “Lord, imprint these truths on my life, not only on my mind, but on the reality of my way of living!” If you do this, my children, I assure you that you will save yourself a lot of pain and disappointment.

How many crazy notions and how many difficulties disappear immediately if we go to God in prayer! We go and speak to Jesus, who asks us: “What’s up?” “Well, you see…” And immediately we receive light. We often realize that we ourselves are the ones who have created the difficulties. You think you are so exceptional, with some extraordinary qualities, and when the others don’t give you credit for this, you feel humiliated, offended… Go right away to pray: “Lord!…” and rectify. It’s never too late to rectify, but rectify right now. Then you will know what it means to be happy, even though, like a bird that has fallen to the ground, you still feel the mud caked on your wings. With mortification and penance, with the eager desire to sacrifice yourself to make life pleasanter for the others, the mud will fall off and - forgive the comparison that comes to my mind - your wings will become like an angel’s wings, clean, shining, and up you go!

My son, you are making specific resolutions, aren’t you? Isn’t it true that when you go to the fraternal chat and Confession with the supernatural spirit that I have taught you, you see yourself as you are, in the sight of God, with humility? In spiritual direction, never fail to talk about your life of prayer, about how the presence of God is going, and about your contemplative spirit.

As we finish this meditation we feel the desire to improve our relationship with God. To do so, we have recourse to Holy Mary, who loves us and teaches us how to pray; and to St Joseph, our Father and Lord, whom we venerate so much. In this world he was the one who was closest to the Mother of God and, after Mary, to her Divine Son. Together they will bring our weakness to Jesus, so that he may turn it into strength.