467. Solemnity of Christ the King (II)

Meditations no. 411 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Renewing the Consecration of the Work to the most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus.

O most sweet Jesus, divine propitiatory victim for whose sake the eternal Father promised that he would always hear our prayer: graciously accept the consecration of Opus Dei that we now make to your Sacred Heart.

Today we renew once again the consecration of the Work to the most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus. Our Founder first made this consecration on the twenty-sixth of October, 1952, the feast of Christ the King, in the oratory of the Father’s library in Villa Tevere, one year after he had consecrated the Work to the most sweet Heart of Mary, when we were undergoing special hostilities to our way. I was praying for peace, our Father said years later: peace for the world, since we want all mankind to live in harmony; interior peace for each of my children, in the midst of their personal ascetical struggle; and peace for the Work, so that certain people who have systematically slandered us for years would occupy themselves with serving God, and let us carry out our apostolic work in peace.

Later on, seeing the devil’s attacks on the Church and countless souls going astray, our Father had particular recourse to God’s Mercy and he enriched the aspiration we use with a new title - which was implicit from the start - so that we now invoke “the most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus”.

In consecrating to you our Work, with all its apostolic activities, we also consecrate to you our souls with all our faculties; our senses; our thoughts, words and actions; our works and our joys. We especially consecrate to you our poor hearts, so that we may have no other freedom than that of loving you, O Lord.

We each want to make this offering personally to Jesus’ Sacred and Merciful Heart. We place everything in our Lord’s hands, and ask him especially to take our hearts and make them his own. We want our freedom to be for God, with no other right than that of loving him our whole life long. When our hearts rest in Christ, when we seek nothing outside him, since in him we find everything, when we learn that Jesus satisfies all the noble aspirations of our mind and heart, then we finally find peace, the peace of good Love.

Today, many years after this consecration was first made, the world, the Church and souls still stand in need of the peace which Christ came to bring. As a living part of the Mystical Body, the Work too will always need this divine gift. Therefore we renew this consecration today, asking: O God, in the Heart of your Son, wounded by our sins, you have deigned to give us infinite treasures of love. Give heed to the petitions that, with filial piety, we address to you.

We are to be sowers of peace and joy in the world.

Make us love your Son Jesus and his blessed Mother more and more each day. Give us a great love for the Church and the Pope, expressed in deeds of service. Keep us always united, through love, to the Work, our Father, the Father and our brothers and sisters; and inspire in our hearts a burning zeal for souls.

Zeal for souls is intrinsic to our mission as co-redeemers. Our Lord wants to use us to draw each and every person to himself, to bring them his love, peace and joy. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, St Paul writes, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. He wants us to help him reconcile the world and all noble human realities to himself, and all souls to one another.

Years have passed, and God has poured forth his peace bountifully on the Work, as the fruit of the constant prayer of our Father and everyone in Opus Dei. And as God has called us to peace, this divine gift also blossoms around us, who wish to be sowers of peace and joy. As our Father told us, We don’t proclaim it aloud, but we strive to bring peace wherever we are. So when the waves begin to rear up, we pour, over our passions and those of other people, a bit of understanding, a bit of fellowship, in a word, a bit of love. We bring peace and pass it on.

Pax vobis! Do you remember? Clausis ianuis, the doors were shut, and He enters in: Peace be with you! That happens: we too at times find all doors closed to us. But not only should we not lose our peace: rather we should give it to others: pax vobis!

Faced with misunderstandings, organized slander, lies and defamation… always maintain constant peace. I’d like Christ to teach you this. My teachers were, first of all, the Christian warmth of my parents’ home. And afterwards - I’m not ashamed to say it, because it’s not pride - the Holy Spirit.

Our apostolates and the virtues of Christian fellowship will obtain for us a foretaste of Christ’s kingdom of peace. I see the Work over the centuries always youthful, elegant, beautiful and fruitful, defending Christ’s peace, so that all may come to possess it. We will help society recognize the rights of the person, the family, and the Church. Our efforts will bring about a lessening of fratricidal hatred and mistrust among peoples. And my daughters and sons, fortes in fide, firm in the faith, will anoint every wound with Christ’s charity, which is the sweetest of balms.

We should often say the aspiration Cor Iesu Sacratissimum et Misericors, dona nobis pacem!

Grant us the grace to find our abode in the divine Heart of Jesus; and establish in our hearts the place of your repose, so that we may remain intimately united to you, and one day be able to praise, love and possess you for ever in heaven in union with your Son and the Holy Spirit.

Thus ends the prayer with which we renew the offering of the whole Work and each of us to Jesus’ most Sacred and Merciful Heart. And we pray the aspiration that recalls that consecration our Father made: Cor Iesu Sacratissimum et Misericors, dona nobis pacem! Most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus, grant us peace. He encouraged us to pray it often, because this aspiration, along with the one he composed on the occasion of the consecration to the most sweet Heart of Mary, is a constant corporate prayer of our whole spiritual family.

Most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus, grant us peace. We ask him for peace in the world, a firm and just peace, founded on love, and blessed by Christ; a peace that will make the whole world good soil to receive the seed of Christ’s teaching.

We ask for peace in our hearts, so that nothing may perturb us, and so that there will always be love in our lives and calm, total dedication. This inner peace enables us to give ourselves to others and forget about ourselves, certain that God is watching over us. We ask for peace for all of us who follow him along this path of the Work, a peace the Holy Spirit grants to those who seek only to fulfil God’s will at every moment. Then we will all be consummati in unum, perfected in unity.

We also ask for peace for the Church, Christ’s Sheepfold, the Ark of Salvation and the House of God; peace among Catholics, so that in union with the Roman Pontiff we may practise a rightly-ordered charity.

Finally, we ask that there may be peace around us so that we can work apostolically. We aren’t “anti-anything”. We will never consider ourselves anyone’s enemy, our Father wrote. We look upon everyone with charity and understanding. Therefore we ask God that external peace may also be the atmosphere in which our apostolic work is carried out.

We should keep these specific intentions in mind when invoking the Heart of Jesus with this aspiration. These are good desires and we should be ready to give our lives, if need be, to bring them about. We want to proclaim our Lord’s kingship on earth, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

Then the apostolic zeal our Father wanted for all of us will become a reality. Many years ago now, he urged us: Bring Christ’s charity to all the pathways of the world, the divine pathways of the earth.

And spread the silent but fertile influence of your work as apostles throughout the world, quasi fluvium pacis, like a river of peace.

Cor Iesu Sacratissimum et Misericors, dona nobis pacem! How can our Mother, Regina pacis, Queen of Peace, fail to hear this constant cry of her children?