399. Twenty-sixth Wednesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 357 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Discovering vocations to the Work which God has marked out from eternity.

Today’s Gospel shows clearly that more than good dispositions are required to receive a call from God: As they were going along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” No doubt this man was willing to follow Christ, but more was required. Our Lord led him to see that he had to be ready to give everything. Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

It’s true that God loves everyone, that he lavishes his mercy on all. But he only chooses some with a special vocation to follow him more closely. Without any merit on our part, we who have received a vocation to Opus Dei are among these. We are, don’t forget it, like a burning ember. Wherever it is placed, if it doesn’t go out - and what a shame if your soul or mine were to go out! - if it doesn’t go out, it has to set fire, or at least raise the temperature around it.

Like our Lord, we have an apostolic concern for all souls: for pagans, to bring them to baptism; for Christians who are not Catholic, to draw them towards union; for Catholics, to increase their fervour; and for everyone, to help them meet God and thus turn their professional work, their specific duties in life, into an opportunity of practising Christian perfection in the world, and thus praise God.

We feel great joy at having been chosen as God’s instruments in his universal redemptive plans. But we also see clearly the need for many more co-workers in the divine task of Opus Dei. We want to help all souls draw close to God. Therefore our work of proselytism is universal in its scope.

We are not the ones who call the souls specially chosen by God to work in his Opus Dei. God himself chooses them from all eternity: Non vos me elegistis, sed ego elegi vos - you did not choose me, but I chose you. Our mission is to discover these vocations, by means of an indispensable work of selection. Our Father wrote: With God’s grace, seek vocations to his Work at every level of society, especially among those who, through their work, are at the living centres of society, in those situations which, so to speak, are crossroads or places where many people meet or come across one another.

I’m not referring just to positions of government in national or high-level communities, from which so much good can be done, with a spirit of service, to further the organization of society in accord with Christ’s teachings, which are a guarantee of true peace and authentic social progress.

I’m also referring to positions, professions or jobs that are less “high-level”, but are of equal or perhaps even greater interest, since by their nature they are ways of contacting a great number of people. From them it is possible to form people’s opinions in a Christian way, influence their mentality and awaken their conscience, thanks to the constant zeal to give doctrine which should characterize all of God’s children in his Work.

Conditions for a possible vocation to the Work.

Although there will always be few of us compared with the multitude that fills the earth, we can never forget the words our Father wrote in 1932: I’m certain that the call - the specific call I’ve been speaking to you about in this letter - is for many souls. For in the Work there is no class distinction: we are interested in all souls.

Our role is to look for signs of a possible vocation in the people we meet, seeking out those with the conditions God wants for serving him in the Work. For as St Thomas taught, God so prepares and endows those whom He chooses for a particular mission that they are rendered capable of fulfilling it.

The Holy See, in approving Opus Dei, stated that those who receive a vocation to the Work should have a sincere, unselfish, sociable character … and be suited for active life and personal apostolate. They should also be tenacious, docile and ready to undergo a thorough formation and transformation. And as our Father wrote much earlier: the human tone of the Work of God, its tenor, is an aristocracy of intelligence, especially among the men, and extreme courtesy in the way you treat each other.

Consequently, a certain level of virtue, talent, character and position are indispensable. Of course, virtue always makes up for the lack of other qualities. But don’t forget, our Father wrote in another document, that not only the learned and scholarly but also the unlearned can come to Opus Dei. Allow me to amuse you by telling you that if we only had the scholarly, who tend to have their heads in the clouds, we couldn’t even say we had a good head on our shoulders. Geniuses are welcome in the Work, but for the majority - for all the rest of us - it’s enough to be knowledgeable and competent in our profession or job.

Love for God and souls moved our Father to give the following criteria for selection: there is no room for people who are selfish, cowardly, indiscreet, pessimistic, lukewarm, silly, idle, timid, or frivolous. -There is room for the sick, God’s favourites, and for all who are big-hearted, though their weaknesses may have been bigger.

To encourage someone to join the Work when they did not have the necessary conditions for a vocation would be a lack of charity and justice, since only those called by God can be effective in the Work. I don’t want to go into great detail here … our Father also wrote, about the great work these modest men and women will carry out. But I feel obliged to raise my heart to God and our Lady and invoke our holy Guardian Angels in petition for apostolic souls: men and women - not geniuses! - who are cultured, holy, discreet, obedient and energetic; they will be the ones who will take the Work forward, in reward for their humility.

Faithfully following the indications we receive.

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things! God wants to lavish his love on all souls and he has opened up the divine pathways of the earth to everyone. For he has made it clear that any noble task can be an occasion for an encounter with God, thus turning human concerns into divine works. If we faithfully follow our Father’s instructions about selection in the work of proselytism, our harvest of souls will be more abundant, and our service to the Church all the more effective. When through the mouth of Jeremiah, God foretells the future liberation of the Hebrew people from exile and announces that just as earlier he had brought his servants out of Egypt, now he would bring them de terra Aquilonis et cunctis terris (out of the north country and out of all the countries), I am led to consider how there will be many people called to the Work of God, without discrimination of any kind. God will bring them from every social class, with every kind of talent, from those in high positions and those in low ones, and even, as Jeremiah says, from those in the depths of the earth.

And so I’ve often told you that God our Lord wants there to be many vocations among people with key positions of human contact in the community: local government employees, councillors, teachers, hairdressers, sales representatives, pharmacists, midwives, mailmen, waiters, domestic servants, newspaper vendors, store attendants, etc.

Our work should reach the smallest town, since the zeal for love and peace which moves us will imbue with a Christian spirit all the earth’s activities, through this capillary work which reaches out to give Christian form to the living cells that make up the larger communities. There should be no town without some Supernumerary to radiate our spirit. And as we have always done, that son or daughter of mine will immediately strive to communicate their holy concern to others. Soon there will be a group of God’s children in his Work there. And it will be looked after with appropriate care, through the trips and visits that are necessary, to ensure that it does not lose its vigour but remains enkindled and active.

Let us turn our gaze to the one who, by his power at work within us, is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask for or think. We pray for the grace to meet many people with the conditions needed to serve God in his Opus Dei. We also turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, because every vocation is a gift from her.