534. May 2, Dedication of the Prelatic Church

Meditations no. 466 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

As Christians, we are all stones in the spiritual building of the Church.

Together with the Apostolic Constitution Ut Sit, which erected Opus Dei as a personal prelature, the Roman Pontiff also erected the oratory of Our Lady of Peace as the prelatic church. Under its altar lie the sacred remains of our founder. Our prelate officiated at the solemn ceremony of dedication on the 2nd of May 1986, after the necessary refurbishing had taken place.

Among the images used by Sacred Scripture to speak of the Church is one which is especially appropriate today. St Paul effectively compares it to a building which God has built on earth, making use of the Apostles as tools. The Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the cornerstone (cf. Matt 21: 42; Acts 4: 11; 1 Pet 2: 7; Ps 117: 22). On this foundation the Church is built by the Apostles (cf. 1 Cor 3: 11), and from it the Church receives solidity and unity. This edifice has many names to describe it: the house of God in which his family dwells; the household of God among men (1 Tim 3: 15); the household of God in the Spirit (Eph 2: 19-22); the dwelling-place of God among men (Rev 21: 3); and especially, the holy temple. This temple, symbolised in places of worship built out of stone, is praised by the Fathers and, not without reason, is compared in the liturgy to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem).

The material church is therefore a sign of the spiritual edifice which we Christians form. St Peter writes: you too must be built up on him, stones that live and breathe, into a spiritual fabric; you must be a holy priesthood, to offer up that spiritual sacrifice which God accepts through Jesus Christ. Our prelatic church symbolises us, as members of Opus Dei, and we are united with our Lord and with each other through a particular Communion of the Saints within the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Like all the sons and daughters of the Church, we see ourselves in the words of the Prince of the Apostles in the Second Reading of the Mass, words which also echo the constant preaching of our founder: “vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium, gens sancta” (1 Pet 2: 9). We have been chosen by God, without any merit of our own, to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, to announce the marvels of God, who has called us from the darkness to his marvellous light. This is our foundation. Do we want to be more effective in our service to the Church? Do we want to carry upon our shoulders with a light step the weight of the spiritual edifice which is made up of the Christian faithful? Let us rest more on Jesus Christ; let us deal more with his most Sacred Humanity; let us be Eucharistic souls; let us love Confession, the tribunal of his mercy!

We form a living temple of the Holy Spirit and we belong to God our Lord.

The rite for dedicating a church makes provision for anointing the altar and clothing it with the altar cloths. When our founder performed this ceremony, he used to say, you and I are like altars; we have been anointed. We were anointed with oil, in Baptism first and then in Confirmation. And we joyfully await the moment when we will receive Extreme Unction… , and we will be anointed again. We are something holy and therefore our body ought to be consecrated to God Our Lord. We need not be silly, but we must care for details of modesty, take care of our body, put it at the service of God, dress it properly. And to do this, we must also dress our souls with the good habits which are called virtues, which are so appropriate for a Christian.

Through Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist, our soul and our body have become a living temple of the Holy Spirit: Surely you know that your bodies are the shrines of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. And he is God’s gift to you, so that you are no longer your own masters. A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence. We do not want to rob the Lord of what belongs to him. That is why we must fight day by day against our bad inclinations, against our vanity, laziness, sensuality, pride… As our founder used to say, an ordinary Christian is obliged to fight and must not lose sight of the fact that he belongs to God our Lord. Knowing that we belong to him, just like the altars we have consecrated, will help you always to be good children of God.

Today’s feastday is a good opportunity to ask whether our life has been fully given to the Lord; whether the dedication of our being, which we freely made one day by corresponding to his grace, is still complete; if we are firmly founded upon Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of our spiritual building. For those of us who have come to Opus Dei with a divine vocation, the spirit which God gave to our founder is part of that foundation Our ambition is to serve the Church as the Church wants to be served. And what the Church and the Holy Father expect from us is that we be ever more faithful to our spirit. In this way, in spite of our personal nothingness, we will be those living stones that the Lord wants to use to give strength and solidity to his Church, to this house of prayer which is at the same time the Spouse of Christ.

We must always be faithful to God, even if our dedication seems more difficult at some stage.

The Gospel of today’s Mass relates the time when our Lord entered Jericho and saw a man called Zacchaeus who had climbed a sycamore tree. Jesus, when he reached the place, looked up and saw him; Zacchaeus, he said, make haste and come down; I am to lodge today at thy house. We also know that our Lord has to come to lodge with us… , to live in our soul: in our work, in our affections, in our joys, in our sorrows - which are not so big, but rather small. And he wants to find a warm welcome, full of joy, like the publican who received him into his house. More than the banquet given in his honour, what pleased Jesus was the good dispositions of Zacchaeus and he showed these with the deep change which the visit of Jesus had made in his life. Here and now, Lord, I give half of what I have to the poor; and if I have wronged anyone in any way, I make restitution of it fourfold.

We need to be converted to the Lord and to renew many times the dedication which we have made to God in Opus Dei. From time to time, we will have to overcome the difficult moments which may crop up in our lives. There will not be many of them, through the goodness of God, if we try to be more faithful to our divine vocation each day.

This is the teaching which our Lord wanted to engrave on the soul of our Father on a day like today, when he made the first pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Sonsoles on the 2nd of May 1935. Our founder left a written account of the day. From Avila as we walked along we could see the shrine. When we reached the foot of the hill, the House of Mary disappeared from view. We made an observation: God often does things like this with us. He gives us a clear view of the goal and lets us gaze upon it to strengthen us in the way of his most lovable Will. And when we are very close to him, he leaves us in darkness and seems to abandon us. It is the time of temptation: doubts, struggles, darkness, weariness, wanting to fall flat on our face… But No! Onward we go! The time of temptation is also a time for faith and filial abandonment in our Father God. Away with doubt, hesitation and indecision! I have seen the way, I started out on it and I am following it. Upwards, up the slope - come on, come on! - exhausting myself with the effort, but not stopping to pick the flowers which to right and left offer me a moment’s rest and the enchantment of their scent and colour… and their possession. I know very well, from bitter experience, that it takes only a moment to pick them and they shrivel up: and there is nothing in them for me, neither colour, nor scent, nor peace. Upwards! In pitch darkness! Our Lord made me see the light once and I have mentors, guides for my passing blindness, the directors of the Work. I will obey, after opening my heart to them with all simplicity and sincerity.

Now we have arrived. Now we see the Shrine of Mary once again. It is the same with the soul which perseveres on its apostolic path. The night is over and it sees with new light, a light never to be extinguished until it possesses its Love which is God.

Today we would like to renew the feelings which filled the Father when he dedicated our prelatic church. As the words of the ceremony say, in those moments he asked God for this church to be always the centre on which the hearts of my daughters and sons converge and also to be the professor’s chair from which will flow ever more love for the Holy Church and the Roman Pontiff throughout the world. I also prayed that Our Lady of Peace always look upon us with motherly concern, and that she be our protectress and keep us safe on our way, so that we all travel together, joyfully, sowing peace and joy everywhere.