357. Twenty-first Saturday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 325 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Responsibility and love in internal jobs.

A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The parable of the talents has often been the theme of our meditation. Today we take it up again as we begin our conversation with God.

We well know that the fruit God expects from the talents he gives us comes down to one thing: fulfilling his will completely. To a large extent, God’s will is made manifest to us in the duties of our own state, the job or profession we carried out even before receiving a vocation. But it can happen that our Lord asks us to set aside these activities for a time and dedicate ourselves to other endeavours that are also needed in the Work: internal tasks, which are the cement holding together all of Opus Dei’s apostolic work. While we carry it out, this new job is the talent which our Lord entrusts to us in order to bear fruit.

Our Father’s words can be applied to those who carry out internal tasks: We must be like the canvas which forms the backing of a tapestry and remains unseen so that the others may shine with the gold and fine silk embroidery of their virtues, knowing how to put ourselves in a corner, so that your brothers or sisters may shine with their sanctified professional work in their place in society and in the world, and that way you will be able to say: Pro eis ego sanctifico meipsum, ut sint et ipsi sanctificati in veritate; for love of them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

Since we are members one of another, we should keep this overall picture in our hearts. Even though our own job may appear small, that does not mean it is less important. The smallest parts of our organism, St Clement of Rome says, are useful and necessary to the body, and all cooperate for the health of the whole body.

Even the most humble and hidden internal tasks are of capital importance in the Work. They are the root that nourishes, the sap that vivifies and unifies all our brothers’ and sisters’ apostolates. Pleasing in God’s eyes, this work embodies our spirit in a special way. It does not shine humanly, but is a very direct service to the Work, our brothers or sisters and all souls.

We should be ready to accept cheerfully any task that the Directors entrust to us. Our Father wrote: In professional matters, we are completely free as regards the way we approach our work and carry it out. But at a given moment, for the sake of the apostolate, you may be needed elsewhere. What joy it should give you then to cast everything aside, to take up something seemingly small, to tend to some lepers!

We want to make our talents, abilities and interests completely available: those great diamonds that stay wherever they are set, in whatever place they are put, without protesting and without pride.

Professional approach in these jobs.

A professional calling takes shape over a lifetime. Not infrequently, people who began a certain course of studies, later find out that they are better endowed for other tasks, and take them up. Or they end up specializing in a field different from the one they planned on. Or in the midst of their chosen profession they find a new job that allows them to improve their family’s social standing or to contribute more effectively to the common good. Or they are obliged for health reasons to move or change their job.

Similar reasons lead some of us gladly to give up the practice of our own profession, whether humble or brilliant, for a while, to serve the whole Work in internal jobs. We always carry these out with a clear understanding of what they really are: professional work, which demands a specific and careful training, and which is totally indispensable and very effective.

Our Father always emphasized that when someone is entrusted with a particular internal job, this job becomes their professional work. Although you have to set aside law, medicine, architecture, or whatever manual or intellectual job you were doing before, you are not without professional work: your role in government or formation becomes a professional task for you. We must therefore approach this work with eagerness to learn, and make use of the experience of those who have done it before us, so that we acquire the necessary professional competence, and improve the way we work. We must work seriously, avoiding improvisation, and apply the same standards of dedication as are needed for any job: intensity, punctuality, giving it priority over other activities. An internal job is not something we do in our spare time, but a true professional job, in which we have to sanctify ourselves.

To carry out our new job fruitfully, we should try to retain the mentality proper to an engineer, doctor, historian, farmer, labourer, employee, whatever the case may be…

Don’t forget either, our Father teaches us, that along with the knowledge and experience you have acquired in your previous jobs, such a mentality will help you to carry out even more effectively the internal work entrusted to you.

Apostolic horizons.

O blessed perseverance of the donkey that turns the water-wheel! -Always the same pace. Always the same circles. -One day after another: all of them the same.

Without that, there would be no ripening in the fruit, no blossoming in the orchard, nor the scent of flowers in the garden. This is how we understand the apostolic dimension of internal jobs. Though at first glance they might seem marginal, they are the base, the foundation, for all the rest.

Our Father called the work of the Administration in our Centres the apostolate of apostolates. And we understand this very well. For without their quiet dedication, our own work in the service of the Church and souls would be less effective and often impossible. Their work makes possible our family life, which contributes so much to making the path of holiness lovable. Our homes would not be the same without their presence, which passes unnoticed but is so effective, even apostolically. Because people notice the care and the love of God that have been put into things. The work of the Administration is the most supernatural task. It helps the whole apostolate.

Similar considerations apply to all the internal jobs in the Work. Sometimes they may seem rather bureaucratic, with little human or supernatural appeal: but in fact, that is not the case. Our Founder taught us to consider their directly apostolic nature. Without them, the other apostolic endeavours would not be possible.

We find this kind of apostolic effectiveness in the Gospel. Mary Magdalen, Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, and others whose names we don’t know, helped Christ to carry out his redeeming work. Our Blessed Lady spent her life on earth caring for Jesus and Joseph. Her example will help us to set the right value on that hidden work, which gives life to all of Opus Dei’s apostolic activity throughout the world.