585. September 15, The Election of the First Successor

Meditations no. 631 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Don Álvaro’s fidelity to the mission received from God.

TODAY IS the anniversary of the election of our Father’s first successor in Opus Dei. Don Álvaro wrote some time later: “On September 15, 1975, we were witnesses and protagonists of an unrepeatable divine action of grace in the Work. Spiritual fatherhood, incarnated by our beloved Founder in an incomparable way, passed to this poor man (…). Truly, cor nostrum dilatatum est (2 Cor 6:11): my heart was dilated to love you, each and every one, with the affection of a father and a mother, as our Father had asked for his successors.”

When we remember that date, our hearts are moved to thank God for his loving providence with the Work. That day in September 1975 fulfilled what St. Josemaría had so often announced, when he said to his children: Ordinarily, in many institutions, when the Founder disappears, a kind of earthquake occurs. I have no worries: in Opus Dei it will not happen like that. Kiss the feet of the one who comes after you, love him and pray for him, so that he may be very joyful and very holy, because he will be learned. In fact, from the first moment of his election, we saw in Don Alvaro the Father, from whom he had received the inheritance of our Founder, and we loved him with the same filial affection that we had for St. Josemaría.

From the birth of the Work, our Father was fully aware that, being a divine initiative, God himself would take care of moving Opus Dei forward. However, he also put all the human means at his disposal to ensure continuity through the centuries. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he was concerned with forming the children that the Lord was sending him. One of the first was Don Álvaro. “I have loved him since I was young and I entrusted him to the Lord,” our Founder once commented.

In many episodes of the history of the Work, the hand of the Lord is manifested. In the life of Don Álvaro it appears in an evident way, from his call to Opus Dei. He himself remembered him, over the years, with his proverbial simplicity. “It was not our Father who chose me to have me at his side; he used to say that it was a thing of the Holy Spirit. The others, for one reason or another, could not be with our Father. So God chose me: this is what our Founder said many times.”

However, the Holy Spirit uses secondary causes. To choose the successor of St. Josemaría, he made use of our brother Electors, who knew the human and supernatural worth of Don Alvaro and allowed themselves to be docilely guided by the Paraclete. They knew that this brother of his was - as a tombstone placed in Villa Tevere says - quem ille dilexit, formavit, legavit, the one in whom our Father placed his heart, forming him in the thread of his own interior life and leaving him as his successor. Don Álvaro emphasized this from the moment of his election. “Completely disregarding my person,” he wrote then, “it is evident that - in this election - our Father has acted a lot from Heaven. If both you and you (…), unanimously, wanted to place the weight of the Work on the shoulders of this poor man … , you did so because you knew that he had been at our Father’s side longer than anyone else, and you sought continuity. You did not vote for Álvaro del Portillo, but you chose our Father.”

Don Álvaro was the link of continuity, robustly intertwined with the first ring of this supernatural chain. And it is a reason for gratitude for the solidity with which he always assured us of our Father. It was the fruit of divine grace, but also of his personal correspondence. Don Álvaro’s unwavering fidelity to the mission he received on September 15, 1975, was nothing other than the continuation of his loyalty during the forty years he spent with St. Josemaría. An example of loyalty to the Father, whoever he may be, who will always remain alive in Opus Dei, as our Founder pointed out when he arranged that, on the lintel of Don Álvaro’s work room, that phrase taken from Sacred Scripture should be written: vir fidelis multum laudabitur, the faithful man will be greatly blessed.

From Don Álvaro we learned to live filiation with the Father.

IF THE holy life of our Father has remained as an incarnation of the spirit of the Work and a model that we must all imitate in the course of the centuries, Don Álvaro’s fidelity to our Founder becomes the guideline for the way of living an essential aspect of the spirit of Opus Dei: filiation with the Father.

From the first moment, Don Álvaro fostered the spirit of filiation in the Work. He was one of the first to take the place of the Father, in the work of formation and government, when, with the development of the apostolic work, our Founder could not personally take care of everything. And it was also he, when he was our elder brother, who taught us that prayer that sums up all our intentions: “I ask you what the Father asks of you”.

On September 15, 1975, a marvellous event took place, which will become current in the history of Opus Dei every time a new Prelate is elected. As Don Álvaro recalled, in the hearts of all the faithful of the Work “was born-sown by our most amiable Founder-a filial affection for the one who from that moment on was Father and Pastor-with a great desire to be a good Shepherd-of this small portion of Christ’s flock. So many times I have noticed the strength of your affection and fidelity! (… ). Let me thank you now, my daughters and sons; although, rather, it is to God our Lord and to the Blessed Virgin that we must address our thanksgivings, because Opus Dei continues to be a beautiful family - as our Founder often expressed himself - in which there will always be a Father who tenderly loves his sons, and good and faithful daughters and sons, who will know how to be the support of the Father and the strength of their brothers and sisters.”

God has willed that in the figure of Don Alvaro we have a splendid example of what it means to be a good son or daughter of the Father, whoever is the head of Opus Dei. His unconditional loyalty to our Founder is a model of ours, as St. Josemaría once said to his sons in Rome, taking advantage of a moment when Don Alvaro was not present. He has the fidelity that you must have at all times, and he has been able to sacrifice with a smile all that is his personal life, like you. He does not think that he is an exception, and I believe that he is not, and never will be: you must all do as he did, with the grace of God. And if you ask me: has he ever been heroic?, I will answer: yes, many times he has been heroic, many times; with a heroism that seems ordinary.

As we now meditate on filiation to the Father, it is good to consider what Don Álvaro wrote on various occasions. They are lights that illuminate our path as children of God in Opus Dei. “The greatest miracle of our Father,” he said, “is translated into this formidable cohesion of the Work, which is quasi civitas firma (Prov 18:19), as an impregnable fortress against the attacks of the Enemy. We live consummati in unum (Jn 17:23), in a unity that has no human explanations. It is from God, children, the affection that unites us and, in the first place, the love you feel for the Father. Although I am ashamed-because I am only a poor sinner-I wish to take up here, so that you may give thanks to God, those words of our Founder, which we read at the elective General Congress in September 1975, before the election of the successor: those who come after me must be loved more than me: to unite ourselves with them, to love them humanly and supernaturally, to obey them (Crónica, 1975, p. 1461).

“This sonship of yours and this union with the Father, whoever he may be, is an obligation of justice, it is a duty that derives from our blessed unity. Constantly feel the responsibility to live at all times crowded around the Father: I point out to you a central characteristic of your vocation and a sine qua non condition of supernatural efficacy. The branch cannot bear fruit if it is not united to the vine, to the vine, to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to those who represent him on earth.”

Let us not slacken in our daily prayer and mortification for the person of the Father and for his intentions: let us ask what the Father asks, united to his Mass, and in this way we will do something very pleasing to God.

Fatherhood in the Work is a divine gift that invites us to gratitude.

FATHERHOOD is another of the goods that our Founder-because God willed it-has bequeathed to all his successors. We see it now in the Father: how he carries each and every one of us in his heart; how he is concerned with providing us with spiritual nourishment for our souls; with what affection and vigilance he fulfills his duties as a Good Shepherd, guiding our steps, warning us of dangers, gathering us together in unity of prayers and intentions with his constant calls to personal responsibility and holiness… .

“Fatherhood, and the correlative filiation, is a most divine and essential characteristic of our spirit: this is what the Lord wanted from 2 October 1928, when he opened the heart of our Founder to be the Patriarch of this great family that was to extend from pole to pole. And our Father has transmitted it, until the end of time, to all his successors.

“Fatherhood is the most solid foundation of the unity of the Work, which ensures the firmness and cohesion of our family, which nothing and no one can break, if we reciprocate daily with demanding fidelity. It is also the strongest bond of fraternity - another divine gift that we enjoy at home - the cause of a brotherhood stronger than that of blood, since we all possess the same supernatural life: that which our beloved Father transmitted to us, with such joy - in which, because it was holy joy, there was no lack of abundant pain and suffering - and which I must now encourage and defend.

“Finally, fatherhood indicates a guarantee of the universality of the Work, since the Father … always has his heart open to the needs of his daughters and sons, he suffers and rejoices with each one, with each one, and constantly tries to bring to them the treasure of prayers and sacrifices that he places on his paten every day, when he celebrates the Holy Sacrifice.”

Today we can pray to the Lord to maintain the gifts of fatherhood, sonship and fraternity as they have been lived in Opus Dei from the beginning. We remember especially what Don Alvaro wrote on the tenth anniversary of his election. “At the solemn Mass of the Holy Spirit that inaugurated the elective General Congress (…), I pronounced a few words-those that the Lord put in my mouth at that moment-opening my soul before the Electors. Among other things, I asked God for fidelity to the founding spirit of all the successors of our Father, until the end of the ages. United to this prayer of mine, my daughters and sons, which I wish to renew on this tenth anniversary. For a full fidelity to the spirit of our Founder and to the apostolic ways he left us as a legacy constitutes the greatest richness of the Work; which will make possible, now and in the course of the centuries, the fulfillment of the specific mission that God has entrusted to us, for the good of the Church and of all humanity.

“My children, pray a lot for the Father, so that he may always strive to resemble our Founder more and more. He who seems to his own deserves honor, says the Spanish saying. To resemble our Father in the spiritual life is a necessity for us, if we truly strive to live our commitment of love. But this duty is especially urgent for those who are at the helm. Let us pray much for them, because the office of those who govern is arduous, and their responsibility great. With words addressed to us by our Father fifteen years ago, I too ask you: pray, well united to my prayer and, in a particular way, to the intentions of my Mass: in this way you will live this blessed unity of the entire Work, and you will feel strengthened to continue, at every moment with more love and sacrifice, our marvellous sowing of peace and joy throughout the world (Alone with God, n. 332).

These are requests that we place in the hands of the Blessed Virgin, on this anniversary that also coincides with the commemoration of her sorrows at the foot of the Cross.