409. Twenty-seventh Thursday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 365 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The Sacraments bestow grace on us.

In the Letter to the Galatians we read St Paul’s forceful reprimand: O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

The old law was far surpassed by the law of charity that Christ brought to the world. Jesus opened up broad new channels for God’s grace to reach us. Among them, our Father wrote, I would like us to reflect now on the sacraments, which are fountains of divine grace. They are a wonderful proof of God’s loving kindness, and foster our interior struggle to advance in Christian life.

A Christian’s asceticism requires strength, which is found in the Creator. We are darkness and he is radiant light. We are infirmity and he is robust good health. We are poverty and he is infinite wealth. We are weakness and he sustains us, quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea, for you, O my God, are always my strength. Nothing on earth is capable of stemming the impatient gushing forth of the redeeming Blood of Christ.

The grace that flows from Christ’s open side reaches us through these seven divine channels; through them the Head communicates his grace to the rest of the Mystical Body. Do you want to be strong? our Father asked us. First, realize you are weak. Then trust in Christ who is both Father and Brother, and who makes us strong by giving us the means to conquer: the sacraments.

Whoever drinks the water of life that the Saviour gives will desire no other, St Thomas says, but will only yearn to receive it in greater abundance. The grace received in each sacrament moves us to keep on returning in search of strength and health. All the sacraments are ordered toward the Eucharist, where we receive Christ himself: his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Our Father wrote: How can we not recall with particular gratitude the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, the holy sacrifice of Calvary and its constant bloodless renewal in our Mass? Jesus actually gives himself to us as food. Because he comes to us, everything is changed. Our being acquires new strength - the assistance of the Holy Spirit - which fills our soul, affects all our actions, our way of thinking and feeling.

In this way we become divinized, deified. We live a supernatural life and the virtues and gifts received in Baptism grow to fruition.

Other means for progressing in holiness: prayer and mortification.

The Second Vatican Council recalls: If charity is to grow and bear fruit in the soul like good seed, each of the faithful must willingly hear the word of God and carry out his will with deeds, with the help of his grace; they must frequently partake of the sacraments, chiefly the Eucharist, and take part in the liturgy; they must constantly apply themselves to prayer, self-denial, active brotherly service and the practice of all the virtues.

Prayer and mortification are indispensable for preparing our souls to receive God’s grace. By prayer we identify our will with God’s: a prayer to the God of my life. If God is life for us, we should not be surprised to realize that our very existence as Christians must be interwoven with prayer. But don’t imagine that prayer is an action to be carried out and then forgotten. The just man delights in the law of the Lord, and meditates on his law day and night. In the morning I meditate on you and my prayer comes to you like incense in the evening. Our whole day can be a time of prayer - from night to morning and from morning to night.

We pray so as to become enkindled, seeking God’s strength to fulfil everything he wants of us. Therefore, our life of prayer should also be based on some moments that are dedicated exclusively to our conversation with God, moments of silent dialogue, before the tabernacle if possible, in order to thank our Lord for having waited for us - so often alone - for twenty centuries.

This heart-to-heart dialogue with God is mental prayer, in which the whole soul takes part; intelligence, imagination, memory and will are all involved. It is a meditation that helps to give supernatural value to our poor human life, with all its normal, everyday occurrences.

And along with prayer, mortification. Mortification is so important for us, so much a conditio sine qua non for our effectiveness, that many specific details and norms regarding its practice are set out in our Law … I want it to be clear to my sons and daughters throughout the centuries that the foundation of our life is prayer and mortification.

We are well aware that anyone who wants to fight has to use the available means, which have not changed in twenty centuries of Christianity. They are prayer, mortification and frequent use of the sacraments. Since mortification is also prayer - prayer of the senses - we can sum up these means in two words: prayer and sacraments.

Struggling to fulfil the Norms well is the way to achieve our goal.

We have to be vigilant and heed the cry of Sacred Scripture: Custos, quid de nocte (Watchman, what of the night?); custos, quid de nocte? Watchman, stay alert! … You’re well able to tell others in Opus Dei what it means to be on that watch, for you know we’re vigilant by the simple fact of fulfilling our Norms. I’ve said from the start that I’m sure of the salvation, the holiness, of whoever fulfils the Norms in Opus Dei. Our plan of life contains all the means for the interior struggle. In calling us to his Work, God has given us, as our Father said, the supernatural means, the complete means, to reach sanctity.

Truly our Norms contain practices of piety that are necessary to help us seek Christian perfection in the world. All of these practices can be summarized in one word: prayer. For we are contemplatives, in the middle of the street. Everything that we do, our retreats, days of recollection, Circles, just as much as each individual’s daily work, is an opportunity for constant conversation with our Lord, continual recourse to the Mother of God and our Mother, and friendship with the holy Guardian Angels and our holy Patrons.

We are seeking to live a contemplative life in the middle of the world. And what gives us the strength to do so are the Norms. These include the sacraments, with the Mass as the centre and root of our interior life; our daily periods of mental prayer; mortification, which is a Norm of always; work, which we turn into prayer… In the Norms we also find the necessary strength to practise all the virtues.

Therefore if we ever find ourselves immersed in darkness or discouragement, we have here a firm support. Our Father compared the Norms to the tall red posts sometimes found along mountain trails. In times of wind and snow, he wrote, a few solid practices of piety, which are not sentimental but firmly rooted and adjusted to one’s special circumstances, will serve as the red posts always marking out the way for us, until the time comes when our Lord decides to make the sun shine again. Then the snow melts and our hearts beat fast once more, burning with a fire that never really went out. It was merely hidden in the embers, beneath the ashes produced by a time of trial, or by our own poor efforts or lack of sacrifice.

I do not deny that over the years people have come to me and have told me with real sorrow: “Father, I don’t know what’s come over me, but I find I am tired and cold. My piety used to be so solid and straightforward, but now it feels like play acting…” Well, for those who are going through such a phase, and for all of you, I answer: “Play acting? Wonderful! The Lord is playing with us as a father does with his children.”

The Norms are marvellous path markers God has given us; they are a guarantee of holiness. If they ever become hard to fulfil, we take hold of them more firmly than ever. That’s interior life: the struggle to fulfil the Norms, to fulfil them lovingly, for ours is a way of love.

We ask our Blessed Lady to teach us to love the Norms a lot, since it is God who gave them to us. We want to be very faithful to them, because the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.