577. August 23, Decision to erect Personal Prelature

Meditations no. 629 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Joy and gratitude for the culmination of the legal path of the Work.

WE COMMEMORATE the day on which the Roman Pontiff publicly announced his decision to erect Opus Dei as a personal Prelature. It was August 23, 1982, and although several months had to pass before that announcement was actually made, today’s anniversary is a pleasant family celebration for us. In fact, after more than forty years of prayer, sacrifice, and constant work-first of our Father alone and then also of his daughters and sons-the long pilgrimage of the Work through the desert, as St. Josemaría once called Opus Dei’s juridical journey, was finally over.

In 1928, when the Lord showed our Founder his imperative will that he realize Opus Dei on earth, not only did there not exist a path, but there was not even the slightest human possibility of tracing it.

You have arrived a century in advance, they told Don Alvaro in the Holy See when, sent by our Founder, he tried to obtain the first pontifical approval of Opus Dei. However, our Father seconded God’s will: with his constant supplications and with his life turned into prayer, he opened the channel of the Work step by step, giving rise to the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise: water will flow in the desert and torrents in the steppe (…). There will be a road and a road, and it will be called the Holy Way (…) and it will be a walking path for them, not even the simplest will go astray.

Divine Providence ordered that our Father should not see his special intention fulfilled on earth. That is why, when on June 26, 1975, he left for the house of Heaven, among the orders he left to his successor was one in the foreground: to carry out all the steps aimed at obtaining from the Holy See our juridical status in accordance with the nature of the Work. From the first moment, Don Álvaro accepted this task in his heart, and at the elective General Congress of 1975 it was agreed to continue the work to reach the desired result, faithfully following the guidelines set by our Founder.

How many years and with what insistence was it implored in the Work that the Lord would grant us the juridical configuration fully in accord with the specific charism that God wanted for Opus Dei! If now there is an abundance of joy and thanksgiving to God for his immense goodness, we owe it to Don Alvaro in great part. His heroic fidelity to our Founder, his hope and his perseverance, which no obstacle was able to remove, his peace and serenity in the midst of contradictions, also moved the crowd of our sisters and brothers, of relatives and friends, who for many years, and more intensely in the last stages of his special intention, supported him with their prayers, their sacrifice, and the offering of their work, their illnesses, and even their lives, firmly huddled around him.

Let us be thankful, with a thanksgiving that springs from a pacified soul; from a soul, therefore, always ready to fight; from a humble soul that, contemplating the splendor of God’s works, knows that everything has been fulfilled according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise and glory of his grace, with which he made us pleasing in the Beloved.

The recipient of this gratitude is also Blessed John Paul II, who understood very well the desire of our Founder, aware of the benefit that the erection of the Work as a personal Prelature would bring to the whole Church.

And since words are insufficient to express gratitude, let us resolve to always remain very close to our Prelate, who is and will always be the Father of this great supernatural family of Opus Dei. Let us remember those words that our

The Founder whispers in our ears: when I remember you, each one of you-every day-I think that you are Opus Dei and my heart breaks with joy, in thanksgiving: because I know that you are going to be faithful.

Everything has been done and is done in the Work with prayer.

Moses had finished his days in the land, in sight of the promised land, and was succeeded by Joshua son of Nun, of whom Holy Scripture says that he was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him. Under his guidance, the people of Israel crossed the Jordan River, the last obstacle that separated them from the land of Canaan. It seemed easy to ford, but it proved to be so costly a passage that the Lord had to renew the miracle of the waters of the Red Sea. For all this, Holy Scripture, in outlining the praise of Joshua, says of him that he called upon the Most High Almighty, while enemies harassed him on all sides, and the Great Lord listened to him.

Something similar has happened in the history of the Work. In the last stage of the juridical journey, when it seemed that the end of the road was at hand, new and serious misunderstandings arose, which were overcome thanks to the faith and strength of the one who was then the Father. Don Alvaro, in fact, supported everyone in prayer and sacrifice, pointing out concrete and achievable goals, and made this supernatural family of ours live in marvellous unity.

Even before Pope John Paul II privately communicated to him his decision to erect the Work as a personal Prelature, Don Álvaro continued to encourage us to pray a lot, but “already thanking God for our juridical situation, which will come when God wants it to come, and which will be just as our Father saw it.” Then, from November 7, 1981, with great confidence that everything would be resolved soon - but always and above all wanting the fulfillment of God’s Will: fiat voluntas tua!, he repeated countless times - he began to tell us that we were in the last hundred meters of a long race, and that we therefore had to pick up the pace.

Thus came the month of June 1982. Especially intense was - at the suggestion of Don Alvaro - the recourse to our Founder on the anniversary of his passage to Heaven, so that he would obtain from the Lord the end of our juridical journey. With supernatural pedagogy, so that the effort of his children and of so many other people who prayed with us would not fail, he proposed deadlines to ask with special intensity. For example, at the end of June he told us: “The hundred-meter runner prepares well before starting the race. It is important that he starts well, because a good start depends a lot: it is tenths of a second that he gains. We must also be prepared to pray a lot in the six months that remain of the year. We cannot lose a tenth of a second. Ready for when the next six months begin to count: without wasting a second; always asking the Lord for the special intention.”

The definitive juridical configuration, like everything in Opus Dei, was achieved on the basis of prayer: much was prayed and many prayed; and this must always be the case, because the weapons of the Work - we do not have and never will have others - are prayer, sacrifice and the offering of ordinary work finished with perfection. Those days in which the whole Work vibrated with hope in the face of the imminent achievement of our Father’s special intention, cannot be considered as a golden age of our history: they must be, day after day, a reality present at all times in our lives, well united to the Father and his intentions.

Presence of the Virgin in all the steps of our journey.

Our Founder ALWAYS affirmed that, in the juridical journey of the Work, all the steps have been taken with the assistance of the Blessed Virgin. Our Opus Dei, he wrote in January 1954, was born and has developed under the mantle of Our Lady.

This affirmation was also highlighted on the date we commemorate today. During the summer of 1982, Don Alvaro remained in Rome, working intensely and pushing us as always in prayer. On August 12, a special novena of pilgrimages to the Virgin began, in various Marian places, and on the 15th, on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption, he spurred us on once again: “In the races, the athletes run upright, but when they are about to reach the finish line, they advance their bodies to cut the ribbon first. This is what I ask of you now: that you run with your body forward, without wasting a hundredth of a second. Pray to the Lord to advance the hour.”

Then we learned that on August 5, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, John Paul II had ordered the publication - at the appropriate time - of a declaration of the Congregation for Bishops on the erection of Opus Dei as a personal prelature. The Father knew this and already foresaw the joy of that moment. However, when the Nuncios already had the documents to be published, and some had even communicated them to the Episcopal Conferences, the Pope decided to wait a little longer. On August 23, the Supreme Pontiff’s decision was officially announced, adding that the publication of the corresponding documents was delayed for technical reasons.

We soon realized - Don Álvaro pointed it out to us - that that day was the anniversary of a divine locution that had resounded in the soul of our Father, in the year 1971: Adeamus cum fiducia ad thronum gloriae ut misericordiam consequamur. Once again the Blessed Virgin, in a discreet way, was present on an important date of our journey.

Explaining a few months later the nature of the technical reasons that led to the delay in the erection of the Prelature, Don Alvaro pointed out that they were providential. “John Paul II wanted to wait, with holy mischief: since the documents were already distributed, their content would surely be leaked, and the reaction would be seen in the media. Besides,” the Pope reasoned, “since we are now in summer and many people are not in their usual place of work, it is better to wait a few months. It is already public knowledge that the matter is about to be published and, when it arrives, it will not shock anyone.

“So,” Don Alvaro concluded, “August was not a kind of delay. The Pope then fixed the date on which it was to be published: the first Sunday of Advent (…). I knew it, and that is why he said that we were in the last hundred meters of the race. Since it was to be published in”L’Osservatore Romano,” which does not come out on Sundays, the documents would appear in the issue of Saturday, November 27, which bears the date of Sunday. Thus, without anyone having sought it (…), the publication of this pontifical act took place on the feast of the Virgin: that of the Miraculous Medal, which is also the anniversary of the death of the Grandfather. I had already thought about it some time ago, and I renewed my thanksgiving in advance to Our Lady.”

Today’s family feast speaks to us, then, of the Virgin’s constant intercession for her children. On the occasion of the erection of the Work as a personal Prelature, Don Álvaro recommended that we go to Our Lady with the ejaculatory that St. Josemaría taught us when he consecrated the Work to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1951. “In that ejaculation that our Father composed-Cor Mariae dulcissimum, iter para tutum! -, we are going to introduce a modification, because our juridical path is already finished, perfect, as it should be. Let us say to her now: Cor Mariae dulcissimum, iter serva tutum! Most sweet heart of Mary, preserve for us the safe way.”

We end this time of prayer by meditating on what our Father advised us in 1971. I am going to tell you something that God our Lord wants you to know. We, the children of God in Opus Dei adeamus cum fiducia - we must go with great faith - ad thronum gloriae, to the throne of glory, the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God and our Mother, whom we so often invoke as Sedes Sapientiae, ut misericordiam consequamur, to obtain mercy (…).

May you keep this in mind in these moments and also in the future. I would say that it is God’s will: that we put our personal interior life within those words that I have just spoken to you. Sometimes you will hear them without any noise, in the intimacy of your soul, when you least expect it. Adeamus cum fiducia: go, I repeat, with trust to the Most Sweet Heart of Mary, who is our Mother and Mother of Jesus. And with Her, who is Mediatrix of all graces, to the Most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus Christ.

Cor Marice dulcissimum, iter para et serva tutum!