472. Thirty-fourth Thursday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 416 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Humility, the foundation for good divinization.

Lord, increase our eagerness to do your will and help us to know the saving power of your love, we pray in the Opening Prayer of the Mass, in this final week of the liturgical year. The humble and sincere recognition that everything good in us is God’s gift opens the doors of our soul to receive even greater gifts.

Years ago, our Father led us to consider the “good divinization” we need in our life, while teaching us to distinguish it from “bad divinization”.

Expecta Dominum, hope in the Lord, the Church tells us. Live on hope, with faith and love. Viriliter agite, go about things manfully. What does it matter if we’re made of clay, when we place our hope in God? Let’s behave manfully, putting into practice the human virtues, for God will give us his grace. And if some day, someone falls - it need not happen - then the remedy is applied, as often occurs in everyday life. Have you not seen how families that have a valuable but fragile ornament in their house, for example, a vase, take great care to protect it? But one day the youngest child knocks it down while playing, and the precious ornament breaks into several pieces. At first everyone is upset, but then comes the remedy: the vase is put back together and glued, and it looks just as beautiful as ever.

In the spiritual life, there’s a remedy for everything if we are humble: quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea (for you are the God in whom 1 take refuge). Because then we have God’s power, the “good divinization”. Lord, in my lowliness, in my poverty, in this broken clay vessel of mine, put the staples that I need, and I’ll end up more attractive! Do you see what a beautiful prayer this is, for you to repeat when your poor clay breaks?

My children, don’t be surprised to see that we’re fragile, that our poor clay so easily shatters. Trust in God and our beautiful Mother the Work, who always have the remedy at hand. Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea: quem timebo? - the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? No one. We shouldn’t fear anyone or anything.

By Christ’s strength, we’ll always be victorious in the battles of our interior life and apostolate. Even though we may suffer a defeat now and then, we’ll draw from it deeper humility and contrition. No difficulty will crush us. The obstacles we encounter on our way will encourage us to raise our eyes up to God to obtain the “good divinization” and so become strong: Look up and raise your heads, Jesus tells us, because your redemption is drawing near.

The good divinization brings us serenity in every environment.

Reading today’s Epistle, I found Daniel surrounded by those hungry lions and, while I don’t want to sound pessimistic - for I do not go along with those who say that “any past age was better”; every time has had both its good and bad points - this scene led me to consider how today there are many lions on the loose, and we have to live in the midst of them: lions seeking someone to devour: tamquam leo rugiens circuit quaerens quem devoret…

But I would also like to tell you, what I’ve always told my children since 1928, that we want to provide and always have at hand the remedy against any danger: our spirit, the spirit of Opus Dei. If you know how to carry your environment with you, taking the necessary precautions, you’ll be able to live in the midst of all the lions.

I’m not a “miracle-monger” but I love God’s greatness, and I see that it would have been easier for him to modify Daniel’s metabolism or put some food in front of him. Yet he didn’t do so. Instead, he so arranged things that another prophet, Habakkuk, should be transported from Judea to bring him a meal. God didn’t think it too much to work a great miracle, since Daniel was not in that den for just any reason, but through injustice, for being the Lord’s servant and a destroyer of idols. And we, by our sowing of peace and joy, have to destroy so many idols!

My children, don’t let it worry you to live amid lions. God’s hands are just as powerful today and, if it were necessary, he’d work miracles. Be faithful! The present age is no worse than other ages, and the Lord is ever the same. If it were necessary he’d work abundant miracles … Be faithful! As long as we want to correspond with it, we’ll not lack God’s grace. Be calm, serene, filled with peace.

I once met an elderly priest who liked to say about himself: “I’m always serene, full of calm.” And that’s how we should always be, while immersed in the world, in this world which is very much ours, surrounded by hungry lions, but without losing our peace: serene. With love, with faith, with hope, knowing that God would work many miracles if they were necessary. I say to you that, if you’re sincere, if you show yourselves as you are, if you become “godly” on the basis of humility, not pride, then you and I will be safe in any environment, and we’ll always be able to speak of victories, and call ourselves victorious.

The good divinization requires trust in God.

Discerne causam meam, Domine: ab homine iniquo et doloso eripe me (defend my cause, O Lord: from deceitful and unjust men deliver me). Free me from all that is evil and perverse in man. Again the Mass text speaks to us of a “good divinization”: it acknowledges the poor clay we’re made of, with all its bad inclinations. And then: Emitte lucem tuam. Send forth your light and your truth; they’ve guided me and brought me to your holy mountain. I can’t deny I was moved when reading this.

What should we do to acquire this “good divinization”? In the Gospel, we read that Jesus would not go about in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him. He who could have eliminated his foes simply by an act of his will, has recourse to human means. He who was God and simply had to make an act of his will gives us a wonderful lesson: he didn’t go to Judea. His brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing … If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” They wanted him to make a spectacle of himself. Do you see? Do you see that this is a lesson about “good divinization” and “bad divinization”?

“Good divinization”: Sperent in te omnes qui noverunt nomen tuum, Domine: quoniam non derelinquis quaerentes te. “May all who know your name hope in you, Lord, because you never abandon those who seek you,” we pray in the Offertory prayer. And next, the joy of this oft-mended clay vessel of ours: quoniam non est oblitus orationes pauperum: for he has not forgotten the prayers of the poor, of the humble.

As we finish our prayer today, we turn our eyes towards Mary. No creature ever surrendered herself to the plans of God more humbly than she. The humility of the ancilla Domini, the handmaid of the Lord, is the reason we invoke her as causa nostrae laetitiae, cause of our joy. After Eve had sinned through her foolish desire to be equal to God, she hid herself from the Lord and was ashamed: she was sad. Mary, in confessing herself the handmaid of the Lord, becomes the mother of the divine Word, and is filled with joy. May the rejoicing that is hers, the joy of our good Mother, spread to all of us, so that with it we may go out to greet her, our Holy Mother Mary, and thus become more like Christ her Son.