417. Twenty-eighth Wednesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 371 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Peace results from unconditional dedication.

In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul lists the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace… Joy and peace, he teaches, always go together. They stem from charity, which unites us to God and leads us to rest in him, in the joy of having found him. Therefore, joy and peace are a consequence of our dedication, of being and living as people in love.

Our Father taught us to ask daily in the Preces for gaudium cum pace, the joy and peace Christ won for us by his redemptive Incarnation. Let us take a look at this Lord of ours who came to bring peace on earth to men of goodwill. Not just to the rich, nor just to the poor, which is a way of viewing things that does a lot of harm: to our brothers and sisters! For we are brothers and sisters of God, since we are brothers and sisters of Christ, children of our Blessed Lady. There is only one race: the race of the children of God. There is only one colour: the colour of the children of God. And there is only one language: the one spoken in our hearts and minds, the one you are using now to Jesus, the language of contemplative souls. A language that is not spoken aloud, but that involves countless acts of the will: it brings clarity to the mind, affections to the heart, and decisions for an upright life, for goodness, light and peace.

Our gaudium cum pace, our joy with peace, comes from our union with God. Two things I ask of God, St John Chrysostom comments: that you live in him and for him. In him, since nothing is firm, and sure without his grace. For him, since nothing in this world is of any benefit to us if we do not direct it to God. And our Father wrote: by our complete dedication, our voluntary holocaust, we’ll be in gaudio semper et pace, always peaceful and cheerful and with God’s grace, like a wall which all your brothers or sisters can lean on for strength, in this closely united family of Opus Dei.

But if constant union with God were missing, if we didn’t allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, we would never find peace or joy. For we would fall prey to the deeds of the flesh which St Paul lists, and which St Augustine defines as everything that stems from a disordered love of self. Our Father wrote: You lose your peace when you consent in matters which entail unfaithfulness to your way.

Make up your mind to be consistent and responsible in your behaviour.

Struggle is needed to secure peace.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you, our Lord said. At the same time, he reminded us that this peace has to be won: Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

War, in the first place, against ourselves: against the pride and disordered self-love that rob us of peace. Each of us must struggle to attain complete unity between our faith, morals and deeds. Then, come what may, you’ll have gaudium cum pace, joy with peace, a serenity that will lead you to work … It will lead you to order, obedience, poverty, chastity, loyalty, and to get the necessary rest, all in Christ’s charity.

Without a determined effort to practise these virtues, there can no true interior peace. For we would lack the spirit of penance needed to live Christian perfection cum gaudio et pace amid our everyday tasks.

If we strive to live these human virtues and make an effort to raise them to the supernatural order, we’ll always be joyful, with the joy so proper to our spirit and so pleasing to God.

But we must not confuse peace with idleness, nor joy with frivolity. You will know them by their fruits, our Lord said. Our fruit will be spreading the cause of our peace and joy: our love for Jesus Christ. In contrast, selfishness is the greatest enemy of peace. Christ’s charity well-lived gives us a spirit of conquest in these battles of love and true peace. For our Lord said omnia traham ad meipsum (I shall draw all things to myself), and called us to be co-redeemers, instruments of his, so that he might reign in all souls. It’s not a question of domination or military conquest, but of serving everyone - to be useful, serve - and winning over everyone for our Lord.

Be faithful to your vocation, all you who are children of God in this Work of God. Along with the supernatural virtues, practise the human virtues. Bring Christ’s charity to all the pathways of the earth, which are divine pathways on earth. Spread throughout the whole world your quiet and fertile work as apostles, quasi fluvium pacis, like a river of peace.

If we entrust all our concerns to God, nothing can take our peace away.

In your heart and soul, in your mind and will, implant a spirit of trust and abandonment to the loving Will of your heavenly Father. Then you will have the interior peace you desire.

We children of God in Opus Dei are familiar with such peace, and should practise it. When we have a worry or we begin to be upset, we turn immediately to our Father God and tell him about it. We leave everything in his hands. And there our worries end. A paradox: I have had fewer worries on my mind every day since I decided to follow the advice of the Psalm: “Cast your cares upon the Lord, and he will sustain you.” And at the same time, once we have done whatever needs doing, everything is solved more easily.

Bringing our worries to God also means bringing them to the chat, opening our hearts to receive opportune advice, for the poor human heart needs an outlet.

Like me, you have had the experience that when we have done our chat well we end up with gaudium cum pace, ready for calm and enthusiastic work.

Peace comes as the natural consequence of serene and cheerful dedication to God’s will, from fulfilling what we are told in the conviction that it’s what God wants of us. My children, go forward with joy, with effort: nothing in the world can stop us as long as we are serving our Lord, for everything works for the good of those who love God. If we always act in this way whenever faced by sorrow or sickness, then - come what may - we’ll have constant peace and joy. When God visits you, you will sense the truth of those greetings: Peace I give to you… , peace I leave with you… , peace be with you… , and this, in the midst of tribulation.

Let us ask our Lady, Queen of peace, to make our Father’s petition ever a reality in our lives: Cor Iesu sacratissimum et misericors, dona nobis pacem!

Most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus, grant us peace!