462. Thirty-third Wednesday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 406 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

To do Opus Dei on earth we have to shun any interest outside our dedication.

Our Lord continued on his journey to Jerusalem in the company of the Apostles and many others eager to hear his teachings. Everyone, St Luke comments, supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. But to uproot their mistaken notion of an imminent temporal victory, Jesus tells a parable: A nobleman went into a far country to receive kingly power and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Trade with these till I come.”

With this parable, Jesus wants to engrave on our souls that before the Messiah comes again to judge all men, a long time must go by. Therefore, in the meantime, we who are his disciples have to strive to increase the number of God’s friends on earth.

Christ addresses his words to people of every age. In our case, too, a great task awaits us. We cannot remain inactive, because our Lord has told us clearly, “Trade till I come”. As we await the Lord’s return, when he will come to take full possession of his kingdom, we cannot afford to relax. From the moment we said “Yes” to God’s call, we don’t live for this earth nor for our honour, but for the honour and glory of God, and for his service. That’s what motivates us!

Therefore we cannot entertain any selfish interests that lie outside the margin of our dedication. Our personal concerns must also become God’s Work, apostolate, service to the Church. Our professional work, friendships, social relationships, all have to serve to build up the Body of Christ. We’ve handed over our entire life, our noble ambitions, all that is ours to God. We well understand our Father’s advice: if you want to have life, and life eternal, and eternal honour, if you want eternal happiness … in many cases you will have to set aside your personal goals. I have no other goal than our corporate one: obedience.

We seek to fulfil God’s will at every moment of the day. We strive to discover what he wants from us, to be instruments in his hands, since all that is ours is now God’s, and we cannot haggle with him. For someone who wants to live for Love with a capital letter, the middle course is not good enough; that would be meanness, a wretched compromise.

Our obedience has to be free and willing.

We have to entrust ourselves freely to those to whom God has given the mission of guiding us toward holiness, writes St John Climacus. Our trusting obedience stems from love, from the desire to unite ourselves to God and to fulfil his will; and it leads us to love, to want what God wants. Therefore we strive to identify our will with the Directors’ indications, and to understand thoroughly what we are being asked to do so as to carry it out in the best way possible. We can readily understand what St John Chrysostom means when he says that nothing can undo God’s Church so quickly, nothing can harm her so easily, as disciples not closely united to their teachers.

We responded freely, out of love, to our divine vocation; and we obey freely all our life. Obedience, which is a sign of faith, doesn’t stifle our personality or weaken our will. On the contrary, when we obey intelligently and wholeheartedly as our Father taught, we bring the three theological virtues into play. We go straight toward our goal since, as Pope Paul the Sixth taught, the law doesn’t restrict one’s freedom, hut rather perfects it. It fosters initiatives and develops one’s personality. Disobedience, on the other hand, dissipates energies and makes man a slave to his disordered desires.

By obeying, we also put into practice another wonderful virtue: loyalty. Our Father said: we’re like the soldier on guard duty in front of the President’s palace. He walks back and forth and could go far away: he could even give up being on guard, leave his post and country; but he doesn’t, because then he would not be behaving loyally. On account of our divine vocation and the trust placed in us, to disobey would mean to be disloyal to God and the Work; it would be to betray our brothers and the millions of souls who await so much from our dedication.

All of us want to serve and be useful to our Mother the Work for the good of souls. But we cannot forget, our Father wrote, that the place where we’re most effective, is where the Major Directors have placed us: this is God’s will for us. Our Founder concludes: by obeying, we will go through life doing good to all souls, helping them despite our wretchedness. For this is what we want to do: to bring heaven’s happiness to everyone without exception.

God has raised up Opus Dei on earth so that everyone, people of every race, colour, nation and tongue, can be holy and happy.

Obedience fills the soul with peace.

One of the fruits of obedience that we especially need in order to carry out our mission is peace: the interior serenity that comes from knowing we are never mistaken when obeying. For God doesn’t lose battles. He is the Father of lights with whom there is no variation of shadow due to change.

At times, though, God permits us to lose our peace, in order to show us the many points of pride that still stain our soul, which we have to uproot by his grace. When this happens, rather than lamenting our situation, we have to take advantage of this new light. Nor is it surprising that as God gains ground in our soul and we seek him out more persistently, we experience a greater need to struggle against our fallen nature. St Paul links this vivid yearning for God and holiness with what he calls the struggle of the flesh against the spirit: for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.

This opposition can also appear in the form of greater difficulty in obeying. Then would be the moment, guided by the Holy Spirit, to go deeper in our self-surrender, which should include even the furthest recess of our will. It is then, too, our Father assured us, that the soul begins to experience the peace and freedom which Christ has won for us, and which are given to us with the grace of the Holy Spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit is: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

To achieve the rich fruit of obedience that is peace, we should often examine whether our obedience stems from love, and whether we find there freedom and union with God. Do we obey diligently and promptly, in keeping with the spirit of Opus Dei, or do we delay tasks entrusted to us, forgetting their transcendent dimension? Our love for obedience is shown in everything we do: not only in the specific indications we receive from the Directors and render an account for, but also in how we sanctify our work, fulfil our Norms, and carry out our apostolate. For we are striving to fulfil God’s will at every moment of the day.

My daughters and sons, our Founder urged us, may no one outdo us in obeying. And obeying the same, whether it’s hot or cold, whether we’re young or not so young. A person who does not know how to obey will never learn to command. May the Blessed Virgin our Mother teach us to obey with her own sensitivity, love and promptness.