326. Eighteenth Tuesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 300 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Love for our parents is a divine commandment.

A group of scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem to test Jesus, asking him: Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. Christ does not give a direct reply to their insidious question, but tries to make them see the inconsistency of the lives of people who confine themselves to fulfilling merely external acts, while forgetting the fundamental duties of piety towards God and their neighbour. So he answers them: Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, “Honour your father and your mother,” and, “He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.” But you say, “If anyone tells his father or mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honour his father.” So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.

The duty of loving one’s parents is much more than a mere convention, and has its foundation in the very nature of things as God himself willed them to be. As St Thomas Aquinas explains, man is indebted to others according to the order of excellence and the benefits he has received from them. From both points of view, God occupies the first place because he is supremely excellent and because he is the primary principle of our existence and our governance. Furthermore, after God, our parents … are also the principle of our being and our governance, because from them … we have been born and reared. Therefore after God it is our parents … to whom we owe most.

Immediately after our love for God and the things directly related to him comes our love for our parents. It is a very pleasant obligation for us to love them more every day, in return for all they have done for us, and for the great part they have played in our vocation -sometimes without directly intending it - by providing us with the upbringing that made it all possible.

In the Work we have many practical ways of expressing this love: signs of appreciation, consideration, spiritual help and, where necessary, material help too. As our Father wrote, the whole Work is one household: a single household with a single cooking pot With the greatest of tact, things are arranged in such a way that when the parents of Numeraries and Associates are in want, they too can dip their spoon into our poor family pot, though you cannot imagine what financial straits we constantly endure everywhere to develop our apostolic work. God blesses and rewards this good spirit: Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

Love for our parents implies wanting to bring them closer to the Work.

The commandment to love our parents belongs both to natural and divine law, and we call it a “most sweet precept”. You should always look after your parents very well… without losing your freedom. Just by using your intelligence a bit, our Father has told us, you can make them very happy and get them to love the Work.

We all want the best for those we love. So it is only natural that the treasure we have found in our vocation should become a treasure for our parents and our brothers and sisters too. If we are always ready to help them materially when necessary, how much more should we provide them with spiritual assistance and place at their disposal the marvellous treasures which God has lavished on his Opus Dei? In the order of charity our parents, brothers and sisters have the first priority in our apostolate.

Our Founder loved and continues to love the families of his children, and he never missed an opportunity of expressing it whenever he could. On one occasion, for instance, he said: All you mothers and fathers who are here, you are the pride and crown of Opus Dei. Let me say it to you again. You fathers and mothers are Opus Dei’s pride and crown: somewhere far away, perhaps, you have portions of your hearts dedicated to the service of the Church … following our Lord with faith and joy and that peace in which you should share. God bless you!

One way of carrying out this apostolate is to get them interested in our vocation. They should know how much we love them - more than we did before - and should be very happy that God has called us to his service, even though at times, because of the requirements of the apostolate, we have to live far away from them. Some of you, our Father said to a group of parents, have children living far away; they have travelled far afield to gather God’s harvest. I must tell you that I love you with all my soul, and I congratulate you because Jesus has taken those portions of your heart completely for himself, for himself alone!

They should realize that they still have an active role to play in our regard: they can still help us a lot. Fathers and mothers of those children who are mine too, said our Father, speaking in the year 1960, your mission on earth isn’t finished yet. Your sons and daughters have come to give themselves to God and to serve the Church, with a supernatural outlook, in charity; not just with human courtesy … but with that divine courtesy which is real charity and affection. That’s what they’ve come to do, and you can find them in all sorts of places all over the world: in Africa, Asia, the whole of Europe, the whole of America from Canada right down to the southern tip of Argentina; and very soon, next year, in Australia.

But your job isn’t finished yet. You still have a great task to do for your children, something marvellous, both fatherly and motherly: to sanctify them. “But Father, I’m so far away!” You can do it with your prayer. “Father, I’m still so far away!” You can do it with your daily work, always finishing things well, doing everything as well as you can, lovingly, and with your thoughts on those children whom you keep present before you - that’s loving them to the end! - so that they will become saints and worthy of God: children we can be proud of.

Our families love the Work more when they see that we are happy and assured in our vocation.

We often used to ask our Father for advice about how to behave towards our families, advice which we hastened to put into practice ourselves and pass on to others. And he would generally say the same thing in reply: With affection, with lots of affection! Give them reasons to be happy. They should be pleased with you, they should be able to say: this is the one who loves us most, the one who is most concerned for us and for our holiness.

That is how to ensure that our parents are always pleased with us and grateful to God for the gift of our vocation to the Work. We have to pray to God that the families - the very few - who find it difficult to accept their children’s dedication to the service of God, eventually end up thanking God for the boundless favour of having been called to be fathers and mothers of children of God in his Work. They never expected that their children would dedicate themselves to God; on the contrary, they had plans for them of a very different sort, meritorious enough, but worldly all the same - plans which this self-giving ended up demolishing. In any case, in my not insignificant experience I have learned that parents who do not at first welcome their children’s vocation joyfully are won over eventually: they come closer to the practice of the faith and to the Church, and end up loving the Work.

Through the grace of God, our Father wrote, in spite of what I have just said, every day there are more and more families - parents, brothers and sisters, relatives - who react to a vocation in a supernatural and Christian way and begin to lend a hand themselves: they ask to become Supernumeraries, or at least they are very good Cooperators.

For our part, as well a firm fidelity to the requirements of our divine call, it is essential to make every effort to get our families to see that our hearts and our happiness are in Opus Dei. The first step in attracting your families to the Work is for them to see you contented, happy and assured about your vocation.

This is the way, along with prayer and sacrifice, to draw our families closer to the Work, and our desire is that God may grant them the same vocation as our own. In any event, the closer they come to the Work the happier they will be.

Our Lady and St Joseph, who spent their lives joyfully serving their Son Jesus and helping him to fulfil his mission of salvation, will obtain from him the grace for our parents, and our brothers and sisters, to help gladly in our apostolic work.