324. Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 594 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The temptation of false spiritualisms.

ONE in the crowd said to him: “Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. It is an invitation that the Lord readily rejects: Man, who has made me judge or in charge of dividing shabby people? The kingdom that Jesus brought to earth is not one among many achievements in the world. The nature and means of the kingdom of God are not merely human or earthly, they are not to merge with the kingdoms of this world. The Lord resists the temptation to mix his spiritual task with material interests and takes advantage of the situation to transmit a teaching: be on the alert and beware of all covetousness; because, even if someone has an abundance of goods, his. life does not depend on what he possesses.

And he told them a parable, saying, “The lands of a certain rich man bore much fruit.” And he thought to himself, “What can I do, since I have nowhere to store my harvest?” And he said to himself, “This is what I will do: I will destroy my barns, and I will build bigger ones, and there I will store all my wheat and my goods. Then I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many possessions for many years. Rest, eat, drink, and have a good time.’ But God said to him,”You fool, this very night they are going to claim your soul; what you have prepared, for whom will it be?” So it is with one who treasures for himself and is not rich in the sight of God.

Jesus’ words, although clear, could be misunderstood. This is always the case when there has been a desire to present Christian life as something solely spiritual - spiritualistic, I mean - proper to pure, extraordinary people, who do not mix with the despicable things of this world, or, at most, who tolerate them as something necessarily juxtaposed with the spirit, while we live here. Perhaps this attitude is nourished by a false spiritualism that denies the goodness of the material world or by a mistaken understanding of Jesus’ words: many first will be last, and many last will be first. Some, in fact, have interpreted them as an invitation to neglect and abandonment of earthly endeavor.

When things are seen in this way, St. Josemaría explained, the temple becomes the place par excellence of Christian life; and to be a Christian is, then, to go to the temple, to participate in sacred ceremonies, to embed oneself in an ecclesiastical sociology, in a kind of segregated world, which presents itself as the antechamber of heaven, while the common world goes its own way. The doctrine of Christianity, the life of grace, would thus pass as if bordering on the busy progress of human history, but without encountering it. As we prepare for Holy Mass today, as we prepare to enter the memorial of the Lord’s Passover, we simply answer no to this distorted vision of Christianity.

Jesus is not opposed to the development of culture, industry, scientific or economic growth, or just profit. All of this is part of legitimate human activity. The spirit of Opus Dei helps us to overcome a certain mistaken tendency that sees in the economy, money, cultural or political activity as incompatible with Christian life. On the contrary, the doctrine of the Church teaches that, “although a careful distinction must be made between temporal progress and growth of the kingdom of Christ, nevertheless the former, insofar as it can contribute to the better ordering of human society, is of great interest to the kingdom of God.

“For the goods of human dignity, fraternal union and freedom; in a word, all the excellent fruits of nature and of our efforts, after having spread them throughout the earth in the Spirit of the Lord and in accordance with his command, we shall find them again cleansed from all stain, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ gives to the Father”the eternal and universal kingdom; the kingdom of truth and life; the kingdom of holiness and grace; the kingdom of justice, love and peace”. The kingdom is already mysteriously present in our earth; when the Lord comes, its perfection will be consummated”.

We are to store up riches before God.

KNOWING that there will be an eternal reward and that we will find all our efforts - purified and transformed - on the new earth and in the new heavens, spurs us to strive to use all honest human means in the construction of the earthly city, to work well, with the greatest possible perfection within the limits of human fallibility and transience. We Christians are called to bring the light and warmth of the life and doctrine of Jesus Christ to all the environments of the world, sanctifying earthly realities from within, with a priestly soul and lay mentality.

Our Father taught us that economic and social life, in its various honourable spheres, comes from God’s goodness and can become a path to holiness. Strictly speaking, it cannot be said that there are realities - good, noble, and even indifferent - that are exclusively profane, once the Word of God has made his dwelling among the children of men, has hungered and thirsted, has worked with his hands, has known friendship and obedience, has experienced pain and death.

Jesus calls the farmer’s attitude foolish, not so much because he has become rich, but rather because he closes himself off from the realities of the spirit. He is selfish in thinking only of his own well-being. Deep down, this man makes a widespread mistake: he believes himself to be rational, but he is only calculating, and in reality he lacks a sense of realism and becomes irrational. He forgets death, God’s judgment, the need to store up riches for eternal life, to put his earnings at the service of the poorest and most needy. He lives as if God, other men, his fellow citizens, and eternity itself, were empty words.

This is how many people behave. The Gospel of today’s Mass offers us a key teaching for the apostolate in a society often dominated by materialism. We Christians affirm the goodness of material well-being, but without forgetting that this well-being is not the end of man. Our ultimate end is the vision and enjoyment of God in eternal life, which is prepared here through the knowledge and love of the Lord. If this one ultimate end is rejected or despised, many penultimate realities can be known, but the deepest and most definitive questions - about life and death, about joy and pain - will remain unanswered.

The richness before God, of which Jesus speaks, is love of God and neighbor. We are on earth to learn to love. Heaven will consist in contemplating and loving God eternally, and whoever does not store up here below the riches of the love of God and of his brothers and sisters, will not be able to reach eternal life. The Lord’s words are, therefore, a call to ask ourselves: Have I rectified my intention by seeking in all my things only the glory of God? Is my life completely directed to God? Righteousness of intention, which turns our life into a supernatural treasure, cannot be acquired once and for all, but must be conquered every day, even at every moment, in every action. Rectify. “Every day a little.” “This is your constant work if you really want to become a saint.

To help us in this endeavor, our Father left us some very specific advice. From the serviam! in the offering of works in the morning, to the examination of conscience in the evening, our whole day is marked by occasions of purifying the intention in our daily tasks. Purity of intention. “You will always have it, if, always and in everything, you only seek to please God.

With this desire we put into practice the words of the Lord: not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And our Father points out: Ask yourself many times a day: Do I do what I should do right now? It is a matter of seconds … Think before you start any business: What does God want from me in this matter?

And, with divine grace, do it!

To live with eyes of eternity, so as not to lose supernatural vision.

THE rich man in the parable has lost his supernatural vision and has become a fool. The words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus can be applied to him: “Let not the wise boast of his wisdom, nor let the strong boast of his strength, nor let the rich boast of his riches” (Jer 9:22), even if they have reached the height of wisdom, wealth, or power. I will add things similar to these: let him who is famous and famous not exalt himself in his own glory; nor let him who enjoys optimal health boast of it; nor let him who is graced be puffed up by his charms; nor he who is young because of youthful age. In a word, let no proud or vain man boast in these things that are praised in the world. He who boasts, let him do so only to know and seek God (cf. Jer 9:24); and pitying the fate of the unfortunate, put aside a little good thinking of the future life.”

Our Father taught us to always move in the third dimension, the height, being at the same time immersed in earthly realities. We must be, not between Heaven and earth, but in Heaven and on earth at the same time, always. And we achieve this by living the virtues that our vocation demands, in a natural way, each one in his profession, in his trade, in his earthly occupation, without wanting anything else or admitting different thoughts in his head; knowing that the work that each one does is his own profession, the work he would have always done; the work he would have done also if he had not been from Home.

That means seeing everything that happens and everything we do from God’s perspective; that is, with the eyes of faith. A man or a woman who looks with the eyes of faith, sees where others, without faith, see nothing or discover only negative things. Some pass through life as if through a tunnel, and they cannot explain the splendor and the security and the warmth of the sun of faith. Thanks to the Christian vocation, we have one more dimension. People have a flat vision, close to the earth, of two dimensions. When you live a supernatural life you will obtain from God the third dimension: height, and, with it, relief, weight and volume.

What beauty our life acquires when it is supernatural! How fantastic is our vocation in Opus Dei, which leads us to discover unprecedented opportunities to love even in the most material things! By cultivating the supernatural vision of earthly affairs, our days will always pass with new splendor, with renewed vibration, even if we take perhaps the same steps and always fulfill the same duties. The life of faith, through grace, enables us to develop the potentialities enclosed in our nature.

The consequence of living a supernatural life in the midst of the world is a great joy, a deep and imperturbable peace, which floods the soul in the midst of intense activity, because we will live by God and we will know how to avoid activism. Gallop, gallop! … Do, do! … Fever, madness to move … Wonderful material buildings …

Spiritually: box boards, percalines, repainted cardboard. … gallop!, do! -And many people running: coming and going.

It is that they work with a view to the moment of now: they “are” always “in the present.” “You … you must see things with the eyes of eternity,”having in the present” the end and the past… .

Stillness. “Peace.” “Intense life within you. Without galloping, without the madness of changing places, from your rightful place in life, like a powerful machine of spiritual electricity, how many you will give light and energy to! …, without losing your vigor and your light.

The Blessed Virgin lived in this way. Her attitude of surrendered acceptance of the divine Will shows that she was always listening to God. When she did not understand something, she did not doubt it, but waited full of confidence for God’s answer. In this way she always maintained the supernatural vision. To her, Teacher of faith, we turn so that she may obtain for us from her Son a daily growth in this virtue.