587. September 21, St Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist
Meditations no. 516 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
Our professional vocation is an important part of our divine vocation.
Levi the publican was seated at his booth, practising his profession as a tax-collector. It was honest work, although many of his peers looked down on it. But today his life will change completely. Christâs voice is firm and commanding: He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, âFollow me.â Jesus permanently enters his life, asking him to give himself and everything that he has.
Perhaps Matthew had never thought of any other future than what his work offered. Nevertheless, when our Lord calls him in the midst of that work, he answers immediately, saying âYesâ to the divine calling: And he rose and followed him.
Each step in that scene has been repeated in our life. What amazes you seems quite natural to me. God has sought you out right in the midst of your work.
That is how he sought the first ones, Peter and Andrew, John and James, beside their nets, and Matthew, sitting in the custom-house. We have to be convinced that God can be served in every upright undertaking. Since the foundation of the Work in 1928, my teaching has been that sanctity is not reserved for a privileged few. All the ways of the earth, every state in life, every profession, every honest task can be divine.
God has sought us out in our own surroundings, without taking us away from them; nor does he ordinarily ask us to change our activity. We remain in the same place where we were before belonging to the Work, with the same professional, family and social obligations. Our Father tells us, You know there is no honest profession that is forbidden to the members of Opus Del On the contrary, they ought to raise up and sanctify all professions, converting them into an instrument for their own sanctity and for that of others, into an occasion for apostolate.
My sons and daughters, our dedication has nothing artificial about it. It has the simplicity and naturalness of one who, in the midst of the world, has received Godâs call to raise his life to the supernatural plane, while remaining in the same place within human society. It is precisely in his professional work, as a citizen among his fellow citizens, that he finds the hinge on which his path of sanctity and apostolate rests.
Oneâs professional vocation takes shape over the course of oneâs life.
The whole asceticism of the Work rests, as on its hinge, on oneâs professional work, whatever it may be. Any noble human task is sanctifiable. We can convert all work into an instrument for holiness, since human work entails the fulfilment of a divine command. Everything can be raised up, our founder taught us. I wouldnât dare to say whether the work of a professor at the Sorbonne or that of a village barber is more pleasing to God, which he finds more acceptable. It depends on oneâs rectitude of intention, on oneâs self-giving-freely saying yes to God-on the spirit of sacrifice with which one carries it out, placing the last stone in each task, finishing it out of love down to the last detail. And our Father added: Our whole life has to be turned to Godâs service: our work and our rest, our tears and our smiles. Whether in the field, in the workshop, in the office or in public life, we must remain faithful to our ordinary mode of life, turning everything into an instrument for sanctification and into apostolic example. And we must do so on our own personal responsibility, without ever using the Church or the Work.
When you came to the Work you were told that you would not be taken out of your place, that is to say, your professional work. You know quite well that this does not mean that you cannot change your work. It means that you do not leave the world by reason of your divine vocation, but that you remain in it with all of the consequences this entails.
A professional vocation is something that takes shape throughout the course of oneâs life. Not infrequently a person who began his studies in one field finds that he is better endowed to undertake other tasks, and he devotes himself to them. Similarly, a person may end up specializing in an area different from the one he had planned at the start. And even after a person is fully engaged in the practice of his chosen profession, he may find a different job that allows him to improve his familyâs social position or to contribute more effectively to the common good. Or for reasons of health, someone may find that he has to change his surroundings and his work.
A person who begins as a doctor ends up as a businessman. One who begins as a factory worker ends up by running a small workshop. A farmer goes to the city and finds work in a factory. One who began as a lawyer ends up administering the properties he inherited from his parents or directing a bank.
My sons and daughters, the same thing happens in your case. You are each ordinary persons, the same as your colleagues in the world, and your life is subject to the same rules as theirs is. And it is this life that you have to sanctify, with all of the changes that might result from the different circumstances in which you find yourselves.
My intention was to remind you of something very simple and ordinary. Just as the father of a family, when considering his work, thinks not only of his own desires but also of the good of his children, so you too ought not to lose sight of the good of the apostolate. When faced with different possibilities that are equally free, it is compatible with your professional vocation, and a sign of good spirit, that you choose the one that offers you the opportunity to yield more spiritual fruit.
Numeraries and Associates are ready to change their professional work, if the good of souls requires it.
At times the needs of the apostolate will lead some members of the Work to take up a different professional work. And Numeraries and Associates are always ready to abandon the task at hand if the Work requires them elsewhere.
Our Father told us: Our dedication is unconditional. It is a manifestation of our freedom, fighting against the pride that tries to vanquish us. Employing a graphic example, I like to speak about a child of mine who is about to discover the philosopherâs stone, and thus repeat the story of King Midas, who converted everything he touched into gold. If this person only had to add one last drop to the beaker, and the directors were to inform him heâs needed elsewhere, he would drop everything and, with complete freedom, go wherever he was asked to. At times I have had to do this, and in more important matters than the philosopherâs stone. Remember our parentsâ pure, clean, dedicated love. We have said âNoâ to that human love for something better, without placing conditions. A wife doesnât tell her husband: Yes, Iâm yours, but on Fridays I go out with other men. Well, we canât do this with Christ either. Our Lord wants our heart and our senses, our soul and our body, our mind and our will⌠Everything for God!
Despite our good dispositions, we may find it hard to give up a profession at which we have worked for some time or at which we had hoped to work. But that shouldnât surprise us. A responsible father of a family also finds it hard to set aside his personal desires and undertake a type of work that offers more benefits for his wife and children. If we were ever to see a conflict here, we should remember the story of those ships laden with precious cargo. Faced with the danger of shipwreck, they are saved because the crew throws all of the treasure and jewels into the sea. If one day it happens-it doesnât have to happen, and it wonât if you are perceptive and humble-that you begin to see a conflict in your career between freedom and vocation, itâs the moment to follow the sailorsâ example and throw everything that gets in the way overboard, saying to our Lord: ecce ego quia vocasti me: here I am, for you called me (1 Sam3: 6); ut iumentum (Ps73: 22), like a little donkey before God.
Then we will realize that we are freer and happier than ever. Besides, I assure you, the cargo is not lost. It is recovered, once the stormy seas of passion calm down, when one has a bit of formation and speaks out frankly. Ut iumentum! We will do whatever has to be done, with the docility, the humility, the perseverance and the âwisdomâ of the donkey.
Let me say it again. Our professional vocation is not lost. Once our intention has been purified, it takes shape on a higher plane, clearer than ever. It is always an anchor, a hook, a means of personal sanctification and apostolate. And we see with new light the divine unity between our human work and our apostolic work, and we realize that without this unity, our dedication to God in our state and occupation in the world would be ineffective.
Today we ask the Blessed Virgin, Regina apostolorum, to teach us to turn our professional work into a splendid instrument of apostolate, always at the service of her Son Jesus.