362. Twenty-second Tuesday of Ordinary Time
Meditations no. 328 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Our life of piety: a consequence of our divine filiation.
How should we pray? our Father once asked. I would go so far as to say, without fear of being mistaken, that there are many, countless, ways of praying. But I would like all of us to pray genuinely, as Godâs children, not gabbling away like hypocrites who will hear from Jesusâ lips: Not everyone who says to me, âLord, Lord!â shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our Lord tells us that above all we should treat God as a Father, with a childâs spontaneity and simplicity. Pray then like this: âOur Father, who art in heavenâŚâ Theodoret, a fifth-century writer, comments: When offering prayer to God in our hearts, we are told to call God âFatherâ, and to say: âOur Father, who art in heavenâ. We are even told to say âAbbaâ, thus showing the confidence with which we should address him. Children, in their simplicity, treat their parents with the greatest freedom, and often use this word.
God wants us to approach him with complete trust, like little children of his. As the Catechism of the Work says, the basis of the spiritual life of the faithful of Opus Dei is their awareness of their divine filiation in Christ: All our piety stems from this reality: we are children of God. Our conversation with God, both in personal prayer and the liturgy, is the loving conversation of children with their Father. Our piety is always that of small children before their Father God.
We ask our Lord in the opening prayer of the Mass this week: Pour into our hearts love for your Name, so that, making our lives more devout, you may increase good in us. We ask him to increase the virtue of religion in us so that we may give him glory, honour, praise and veneration. For this to come true we try to increase our awareness of our divine filiation. St Thomas Aquinas writes: The worship of God has the highest right to be called piety, and God has the highest right to be called our Father. If we realise we are Godâs children, we will be devout, with the devotion of good children who treat their father with respect and veneration: in a word, with love.
There are countless ways of praying, as I have already told you. We children of God donât need a method, an artificial system, to talk with our Father.
Love is inventive, full of initiative. If we truly love, we will discover our own intimate paths to lead to a continuous conversation with our Lord. Those who treat God as their Father will have, as the Catechism puts it, an ardent and sincere desire, both tender and deeply felt, to imitate Jesus Christ, Only-Begotten Son of the Father, and to be conscious at all times that they are in the presence of God. Their divine filiation also leads them to live a life of faith in divine Providence and abandon themselves peacefully and joyfully to Godâs Will.
Features of this life of piety.
Our dedication to God in his Work asks us for all the virtues. Our Father insisted especially on some: charity, sincerity, hard work, personal and collective humility, loyalty and cheerfulness which is an essential part of our way⌠As the foundation of these virtues, of the whole spiritual edifice, we need a deep and sincere piety. To lay the foundations of a building, sometimes it is necessary to dig very deep and sink huge iron beams, until they are supported on bedrock. But there is no need to do that if solid rock is reached right away. Our âbedrockâ is piety, divine filiation, abandonment in Godâs hands.
We need solid piety, shown in deeds: in fulfilling the Norms with ready willingness, doing with special joy whatever most directly concerns Godâs service. Piety leads us to the faithful and loving fulfilment of Godâs will. And when things get difficult, everything is conquered by the power of love. When there is piety, we come away from our prayer set on fire with love, and with firm and specific resolutions for the rest of the day. Devotion, St Thomas says, is nothing else than the will to give oneself readily to things concerning the service of God.
A true life of piety is a stable attitude, not a passing state. It is true virtue, a spiritual power rooted in the soul, not superficial sentiment. Pope Pius the Eleventh wrote: The piety of which we speak is not a shallow and superficial piety that attracts but does not nourish, that pleases but does not sanctify. We mean rather a solid piety that is not dependent upon changing moods or feelings. It is based upon principles of sound doctrine; it is ruled by staunch convictions.
Our Father would often ask us: Are you pious, my children? We have to lead a life of piety. Without piety we wouldnât be able to do anything. We need to be very united to our Lord. May yours be a life of piety. Piety continually rejuvenates our interior life and dedication.
Days of silence and of intense grace ⌠Prayer face to face with GodâŚ
I broke out into thanksgiving, on seeing those people, mature in years and experience, who opened out to the touch of grace. They responded like children, eagerly grasping the chance to convert their lives, even now, into something useful, which would make up for all the times they have gone astray and for all their lost opportunities.
Recalling that scene, I put it to you: do not neglect your struggle in the interior life.
Piety and doctrine.
Our Catechism tells us that the characteristics which complete the spiritual make-up of the members of Opus Dei are: a doctrinal piety nourished by the study of Catholic doctrine and personal practices of prayer, mortification and penance; tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin, to St Joseph, to the Holy Guardian Angels, to the Patrons and the holy Intercessors of the Work, to the Church and to the Pope.
Piety and doctrine. Piety without doctrine would make our interior life superficial, sentimental, an easy prey to temptation. Doctrine without piety would make us rigid, insensitive and proud. Therefore we need both piety and doctrine: doctrine to nourish our piety, and piety to enliven doctrine, to make it flesh of our flesh.
God has called us with a divine vocation to be saints. And what can we do to become saints? Be pious, be prayerful, and acquire the necessary doctrine to know Christ well so as to love him. In order to know God well, we need the piety of children and the doctrine of theologians. And youâll see how well things go.
With our vocation in the middle of the world, engaged in secular affairs, we need solid religious-doctrinal formation, because, as St Thomas says, Divine things, which are necessary and eternal in themselves, are the rules of the contingent things which are the subject-matter of human actions. The unchangeable truths of faith and Christian morals affect all of lifeâs circumstances. They have a virtually unlimited reach and should fill our daily actions, giving everything its divine measure, ordering all things to their true end. But this requires serious effort and reflection, and a real desire to grow in our knowledge of God and the things of God. Our Father warned us: A terrible person is one who is ignorant but at the same time works tirelessly.
Take care that even when you are old and decrepit, you keep on wanting to be better trained.
We should be eager to take advantage of all the means of doctrinal formation the Work offers us. Only in this way will we become souls of sound judgement.
Similarly, we can always grow in our interior life, fulfil the Norms and virtues better according to our spirit, deepen in our sense of divine filiation, be interiorly more simple, and acquire more supernatural outlook in our work. Our capacity to grow in piety and doctrine is boundless. We can never conclude: âNow at last I am formed!â Because even if we live to be eighty, we should always receive more formation, to improve the formation we already have.
Let us turn to our Lady, a model for our piety, and the throne of wisdom. Be sincerely pious, with deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and you will be virtually assured of having sound doctrine. Jesus teaches: Bonus homo de bono thesauro profert bona, et malus homo de malo thesauro profert mala (the good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil). From the depths - from the good treasure - of a heart in love with God come words imbued with light: Piety is of value in every way.