451. Thirty-second Monday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 397 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The formation we receive in the Work creates a common denominator in us.

Since the day God called us, our love for our beautiful Mother the Work has grown. One of her most attractive features is the blending of unity and variety, a unity of spirit found amid the great variety of her children. Unity and variety. -You should he as different from one another, as are the saints in heaven, for each one has his own very special personal characteristics. -But, also, as alike to one another as are the saints, who would not be saints if each of them had not become identified with Christ. `

Each of us is different, yet, despite our personal shortcomings, we should all shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. This is possible thanks to our common denominator, which shines forth in the great variety of human circumstances that our varied numerator entails.

Like our Lord, our Father wrote, I too like to use parables, especially ones connected with fishing, with boats and nets, since they savour of the Gospel. We are like fish caught in a net. Our Lord has caught us in the net of his love, amid the tumultuous waters of this world. However he does so not to take us out of the world, out of our ordinary surroundings and work, but so that, being of the world, we may at the same time be totally his. Non rogo ut tollas eos de mundo, sed ut serves eos a malo; I don’t ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from evil.

Moreover, the net that unites us to Christ and keeps us united to one another is a very ample one, which leaves us free and personally responsible. For the net is our common denominator - which is tiny -as Christians who want to serve God in his Work; it’s our Catholic formation, which leads us to follow the Magisterium of the Church with utmost fidelity.

The bond which unites us is exclusively spiritual. You are linked to one another, and each of you is linked in turn to the whole Work, only in the sphere of seeking your own sanctity, and in the field - which is also exclusively spiritual - of bringing Christ’s light to your friends, your families, to those around you.

You are, therefore, ordinary citizens who fulfil your duties and exercise your rights, and who are … in Opus Dei only to help one another spiritually to seek sanctity and carry out apostolate, using our specific ascetical and apostolic means. The spiritual aim of the Work makes no distinction between races or peoples -it sees only souls - and so all partisan ideas or political goals are excluded.

And it’s the same in everything: in what refers to the spirit and apostolate of the Work, you are united only by shared faith, morality and social doctrine, which is the spirit of the Catholic Church, and therefore of all the faithful.

Our formation does not tend to make us uniform: we have a very personal and varied numerator.

In St Paul’s recommendation to Titus,” the Apostle spells out a series of virtues for Titus to practise in fulfilling his duties. He describes a spirit, but leaves the specific ways of putting it into practice to Titus’ best judgement.

The spirit of the Work leads us to identify ourselves with Christ. But our identification with him is not uniformity: it is communion in the same faith and spirit. Every day, our Founder wrote, you have to have more respect for the personality of each of your brothers and sisters. From the start, God wanted us to have, as a principal part of our vocation, a very different numerator. A great freedom in everything that is not part of our common denominator. The more we differ from one another, the better we’ll serve God, the better we’ll be Opus Dei in the world. In our family, diversity in all temporal matters and in theological issues open to debate is a clear sign of good spirit.

In order to be present in all human activities and carry out an apostolate especially in secular life, as our Lord asks of us, we need to see, to respect - this is little - to cultivate the individual personality of each of your brothers or sisters.

Never forget what is at the basis of all our apostolic activity: work, of whatever sort it may be, carried out by each of us as perfectly as possible, with a supernatural approach and, always and in everything, with personal freedom and responsibility.

It’s true that we have a common path, since we all, I stress, have received one and the same vocation to Opus Dei. But we can travel along this path in many different ways: keeping right, keeping left, or zigzagging, on foot or by horse. There are thousands of ways to advance along our divine path. Each person’s conscience, in keeping with their particular circumstances, will lead them forward in one or other of these ways. The only essential thing is not to leave the path.

The Work’s unity and variety is a faithful reflection of the unity and variety found in Christ’s Church. As St Cyprian wrote, There is but one Church, which with increasing fruitfulness extends far and wide into the multitude; just as the rays of the sun are many but the light is one, and the branches of the tree are many, hut the trunk is one, founded in its strong root; and, when many streams flow from one source, although a multiplicity of waters seems to have arisen from the abundance of the overflowing supply, nevertheless unity is preserved in their origin … [so too the Church’s] head is one, and her source is one, and she is the one mother copious in fruitfulness. By her womb we are born; by her milk we are nourished; by her spirit we are animated.

Responsibility to pass on our spirit integrally.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and reject not your mother’s teaching; for they are a fair garland for your head, and pendants for your neck.

By our vocation to the Work, we have received a specific spirit and the great responsibility to transmit it faithfully by our example and word. And an important consequence of this vocation of ours is fostering unity along with variety in Opus Dei.

Love for unity. And therefore, docility: in the first place, docility to the Magisterium of the Church. Our Father wrote: to defend the unity of the Church is to live very closely united to Jesus Christ who is our vine. How? By growing in fidelity to the perennial Magisterium of the Church. Thus we need to be diligent in our doctrinal-religious formation, and in the studies the Work asks of us. By venerating this Mother of ours without stain, and loving the Roman Pontiff, we will preserve unity.

We also have to be fully open and docile to the spiritual and apostolic directives of our Prelate and the Directors. We must be always closely united to the head, feeling on our shoulders the full weight of the Work. We want to practise and teach all the aspects of our spirit, and watch over its purity by our blessed fraternal correction. We strive to work cheerfully, basing our apostolate on prayer and mortification, with an eagerness to spend ourselves and be Opus Dei.

Love for unity and love for variety means respecting and loving everyone’s freedom in matters of opinion, while taking great care never to present our personal opinion as the spirit of the Work. The latter would be a violation of the Work’s unity and her children’s freedom. In the Apostle’s words, I tell you: vos enim in libertátem vocati estis. You have been called to the Work of God in order to live and transmit the same freedom, qua libertate Christus nos liberavit, which Christ Jesus gained for us by his life and death, at the price of his blood.

Our holy Mother Mary, who has always watched over the Work, will help us to be responsible and to assimilate every aspect of the spirit our Father gave us.