322. Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Meditations no. 298 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Financial support is badly needed in the apostolate.

We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes shows in a very practical way how attentive Jesus was to the material needs and circumstances of his listeners. Our Lord had gone away with the Apostles to a quiet place to rest, but many people guessed where he was going, and got there before him. On arriving and seeing the crowd, he took pity on them and set about curing their sick and teaching them. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

Because we are human beings, we have certain material needs to be attended to. God has placed all the things of the earth at the disposal of mankind so that we might in some sense complete the work of creation by our own efforts. And after being called by God to holiness and apostolate, we still continue to need these resources, though for a new and higher purpose. If one doesn’t have some sort of property to operate from, no matter how small and poor, our Father said, it is very difficult to achieve anything permanent in the apostolate.

Our apostolate is directed to souls: it is only in souls that we are interested. But we are not angels, nor do we work with angels; and the apostolates of the Work are so extensive that we need a basic minimum of effective and useful means. A certain amount of financial support is needed to maintain our apostolates and create new ones. We know that financial means are nothing more than that: means to an end. We also realize that they are quite out of proportion to the end we are pursuing, which is exclusively supernatural. The five loaves and the two fishes which the disciples provided for our Lord to cater for the multitude were also insignificant, but Jesus used them, even though he could have performed the miracle without them. In the normal course of events it is God’s Will that we should rely on such means; if we acted in any other way, we would be tempting Providence. In the apostolate we have to make use of all the honourable means which are available to us; we use the supernatural means and, with them, the material means as well.

God wants us to look for financial means for the apostolate.

All apostles should place their trust in God alone, having faith in his help and knowing that it is the Lord who makes their words effective and causes the seed to bear fruit. But they must also bear in mind that they must to do what they can for themselves, because God acts through human beings and requires their cooperation. The Gospel passage we are meditating on reminds us of this. When the disciples inform Jesus that they have only five loaves and two fishes he says, Bring them here to me. Only when this is done does he work the miracle.

Although it is God who gives the increase, he expects his disciples to cooperate willingly and in a spirit of sacrifice. Part of this consists in making use of all the means available. Our Founder reminds us how this spirit prevailed in the very early days of the Work. The Work was done on the basis of prayer. All we had was youth, cheerfulness and the complete certainty that we were doing God’s Will Everything was done on the basis of prayer and a liberal dose of penance. We had no material resources at all. Now, in addition to the supernatural means, we have to use human means too, and to do otherwise would be to tempt God.

The divine growth of the Work, its expansion throughout the world, its history and the ever fuller development of its apostolates, make it more and more necessary to employ the appropriate instruments, although the underlying spirit will always be the same. If we have to, we begin as we have always begun: with a total lack of everything. We start with whatever we have. It’s very beautiful to work like this. But I understand that it is God’s Will, now that we are in a position to do something about it, that we should no longer act like this. Now we do things with the same spirit and the same optimistic and loving eagerness which has characterized our beginnings everywhere - with the same spirit, I say, not with more, because that is not possible - but with more material resources.

All of us in the Work feel personally obliged to contribute to the support of the apostolates, which are more numerous every day; and we have to translate this good disposition into deeds. We read in one of the Instructions: You ask me: what practical ways are there to fulfil our obligations towards our Mother the Work? I can quote many cases of generous giving: from that aristocrat of blood and of spirit, who gave us the use of his own palace in times of particularly bitter calumny and persecution, to the case of that poor farm labourer and his wife, parents of a servant girl, who sold their donkey and gladly sent us the money; that good friend in South America who, in agreement with his family, includes one of our apostolic works as a partner in his business, one that doesn’t have to bear the losses; the children of a Supernumerary who send their First Communion money; that good friend who provides furniture for a new house, and that other who pays all the expenses of a little car needed for the apostolate.

We cannot be a burden on the Work: we are obliged to contribute to the support of our apostolic enterprises.

Our Lord makes use of the miracle to teach the disciples a practical lesson of poverty, responsibility and good management of resources. As well as giving them the job of distributing the bread among the crowd, he asks them to gather up the leftovers in baskets so that nothing would go to waste. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.

Our poverty leads us to have the sense of financial responsibility of parents of a large and poor family. Our love for the Work and the urgency of getting to all souls causes us to do all we can, heroically if necessary, to provide sufficient resources for the apostolates of the Work. The expansion of Opus Dei, the growth of the apostolate, and the emergence of new projects, are all added incentives to seek resources for the service of God and of souls.

Most of these resources come from our own earnings, which is another reason why we should be very keen to earn more. Speaking of the sanctification of work, our Father said: I would like to mention one further reason which, though it may not seem particularly important, is in fact extremely so, namely, the obligation to earn our living, to support ourselves and to sustain our apostolic projects. I don’t want any “gentlemen of leisure”, but rather the dignity conferred by hard work. All the members of the Work have to work, to earn at least enough to live on and to be able to contribute, even if only in a small way, to the sustenance of our corporate enterprises.

For this reason I have laid it down that anybody who wants to join the Work must be asked how they propose to earn their living, even if they are still young, even if they are students: they can always do something in the way of giving classes, taking on some translation jobs or something else of that kind.

Nobody should feel excused from this obligation: the very essence of our vocation is at stake here. In society at large everybody works, irrespective of whether or not they have families to look after: not only do they spend as much time at their work as everybody else, but many of them, motivated by the desire to get ahead or to earn more money, spend even more time working at their jobs.

We are not doing our Lord any favour by working as hard as we can, by sticking to a timetable, or by being punctual and efficient. Our attitude should be the one our Lord puts on the lips of the servants in the parable: servi inutiles sumus: quod debuimus facere, fecimus: we are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.

We have to work: we have to put in many hours of work each day, conscious of the pressing needs, including the financial needs, of our supernatural family: this is what is meant by having a sense of responsibility; this is wanting to be saints and to serve God.

The life of our Blessed Lady, who was no stranger to hard work and financial straits, offers us an example of how to work hard and to work well. That is how we will fulfil God’s Will for us, and at the same time we will obtain the resources to carry on the task we have been given.