552. June 26, Feast of Our Founder (II)

Meditations no. 482 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

In order to be saints according to the spirit of the Work, we must resemble our Father.

All of us in the Work have received our founder’s inheritance: that of accomplishing Opus Dei on earth by becoming Opus Dei ourselves. To be Opus Dei means fulfilling the plan of God, who wants us to be holy by following a way of sanctification in daily work and in the fulfilment of the ordinary duties of a Christian, to which He Himself has called us.

The goal is high. The vocation to sanctity requires a serious effort of constant interior struggle. Jesus Christ’s words are clear and point out a very precise objective: Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. Echoing those words of Our Lord, our founder used to tell us, We have got to be saints. I’ll tell you in a traditional expression from my country: sin que nos falte un pelo - one hundred per cent and not one cent less… true, authentic, canonizable saints. If not, we have failed. Authentic sanctity, without excuses, without euphemisms… sanctity down to its last consequences… without half-way measures, living our vocation fully.

That’s how our Father lived. He received many special graces, as were advantageous to his foundational mission, and he corresponded to them day after day, with the absolute dedication Of his whole life. Through that heroic correspondence, the divine message, that sanctity is possible to achieve in professional work and in the normal circumstances of life, has spread from pole to pole. Countless persons of every age and social condition have been enkindled with a supernatural tight by this calling. Through the goodness of God, the foundational charism of our Father has reached an extraordinary effectiveness.

Upon commemorating a new anniversary of his passage to heaven and celebrating his feastday, we must make a demanding examination of conscience. Our life should be a progressive development of Christian virtues, according to the specific mode of Opus Dei. The virtues should reach an heroic degree, as our Father lived them. To be satisfied with less would mean trimming the Will of God to our taste and in the end, refusing to fulfil it.

The sanctity to which God calls us can be reduced to following Jesus Christ perfectly. To be holy is to be a good Christian; to resemble Christ. Whoever resembles Christ more is more of a Christian; he is more of Christ; he is holier. However, there are varying ways to go after Jesus and reproduce his life in our souls. Within the way common to all Christians, the children of God in the Work have to follow the footsteps of Jesus by stepping where our Father did, because our founder perfectly incarnated the specific way chosen by God for our identification with Christ.

Talking with our Father; meditating upon his life and his writings.

On this feastday of Saint Josemaría, we must rediscover the roots of our specific spiritual calling within the heart of the Church… we want to take advantage of the power of that divine sap which gives vigour to our following of Christ and youthful freshness, proper to persons who love… in joy and in sorrow, in ordinary circumstances and extraordinary ones… Without any sort of limitations, we carry out the ‘ecce ego, quia vocasti me!’ (2 Sam 3: 9). We find our ‘roots’ in every step our founder took. . For that reason, all his daughters and sons - members of the Prelature and members of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross - must ask ourselves: how do I meditate upon the ever-present example our Father has left us? Do I know how to give myself to the last, without keeping anything back for myself, in order to fulfil the specific Will of God for me, in his Work? What effort do I put every day into becoming more Opus Dei in my soul and in my actions, thus improving the development of the distinctive features of the spirit of God, as transmitted to our founder? ‘In fine’, how is my struggle to ‘resemble’ our Father more closely going?

Analogously to what happens in natural families, there is an ambience too in our supernatural family based on the unity of spirit we all live. In families united by natural ties, resemblance is transmitted not only by blood but above all by example. From the time they are small, children learn from their parents and older siblings. And their way of thinking, feeling and acting takes shape in accord with the atmosphere they breathe. The same thing happens in the Work, thanks to the goodness of God, who has deigned to grant our founder a special participation in his paternity.

Knowledge of the life and writings of our Father greatly facilitates the development of these spiritual traits, which the vocational grace has imprinted in our souls. However, each person needs to make an effort to keep up an intimate, personal and one-to-one dialogue with our founder. Springing from specific spiritual and material necessities, it is shown in an habitual recourse to his intercession.

We should frequently take the moment by moment correspondence to our vocation and the writings of our founder to our personal meditation Let us increase true filial devotion, which is a sure pathway. Let us also try to implant this devotion in other persons. We will obtain great profit by using this magnificent apostolic ‘weapon’ that our Lord has entrusted to us. See, these are stepping-stones that constitute a very refined way of being faithful to our commitment of love.

Fidelity and initiative in assimilating the spirit of the Work.

When the Roman Pontiff received our Father’s successor for the first time in a private audience, he advised absolute fidelity to the spirit of our founder. Then he strongly recommended: “Whenever you have to decide upon some matter, place yourself in the presence of God and ask yourself: how would the founder act? And you do likewise.” Don Álvaro later wrote: By the goodness of God, this has always been my norm of conduct. I repeat that the Holy Father’s words filled me with joy, at the same time as they confirmed what I knew was most pleasing to God. There was the security of coming from one who is the Vicar of Christ.

You behave the same way. On fulfilling our norms of piety, on doing your work upon undertaking any apostolic activity, ask yourselves frequently: how would our Father do it? With what rectitude of intention, with what spirit of sacrifice, with what desire of dedication to others?

Recourse to our founder has to be a deep, well-rooted habit. We can’t allow it to become a simply apparent, conventional imitation. Each one of his children has to become identified with the spirit of the Work in a personal way, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our founder told us many times: I only give you the ruled sheet, so you don’t get mixed up in your interior life. But each one… must write with his own handwriting. Perhaps I guide your hand a bit, like a teacher… but, then each one has to continue on his own account, and launch out fearlessly along the paths of God.

Following our Father in that way, listening to him, talking to him, thinking about his response to the divine demands… becomes indispensable then to live as a good child of God in Opus Dei. That’s why it’s important to have a spirit of initiative and a sense of responsibility. In the Prelature not only is the way of being of each person respected, but everything on a personal level that does not clash with the will of God is encouraged. Each member of the Work has his extremely personal way of following Christ within this great ‘highway’ constructed by our founder and ratified by the Supreme Authority of the Church…

To resemble our Father means struggling with joy, positively, so as to be with Christ, to speak with Christ, to work for Christ, and in order to spread this ‘divine madness’ to all those around us. This new anniversary of our founder’s departure for heaven is a good opportunity to consider what effort we are making to reproduce in ourselves his desire for sanctity and apostolate. And above all, it is a good moment to turn to the Most Blessed Virgin, and tell her: ‘Monstra te esse Matrem!’, Mother, make us also resemble our founder more and more; for thus we will be good children of yours.