595. October 6, The Canonization of St. Josemaría (I)

Meditations no. 632 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

With the canonization of our Father, the Church wanted to give glory to God, the source of all holiness.

“THOSE WHO are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God (Rom 8:14). These words of the Apostle Paul, which have just resounded in our Assembly, help us to understand better the significant message of the canonization of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (…). He allowed himself to be docilely guided by the Spirit, convinced that only in this way can the Will of God be fully fulfilled.”

Thus began the homily of Pope John Paul II on October 6, 2002. On that day, with his apostolic authority, the Roman Pontiff proclaimed our Father a saint, “in honor of the Most Holy Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the growth of the Christian life.” These words of the rite of canonization show the goal that the Church intends to raise a person to the altars: to honor God thrice holy and the source of all holiness. He wanted to exalt us to the dignity of his children, making us sharers in the divine nature, so that we may reflect his glory as in a mirror, being other Christs, Christ himself, as our Father tirelessly preached. The Church knows that she honors God when she affirms and proclaims that this perfect configuration to Jesus Christ has been realized in one of his children.

Testimony to the intense attraction of the figure and teachings of St. Josemaría was the immense multitude of faithful from the five continents, from all walks of life, from different languages and cultures, who came to Rome to attend the canonization, and the much larger number who followed the solemn ceremony through the media. The ideal and spirit of heroic holiness in ordinary life, which God made our Founder see, universally attracts souls. It is Christ himself who draws everyone to himself; our Father is the faithful instrument who has identified himself with him, incarnating that spirit thanks to the action of the Paraclete.

“This fundamental Christian truth was a recurring motif in his preaching,” the Holy Father continued. In fact, he never ceased to invite his spiritual children to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the interior life, that is, the life of relationship with God, and the family, professional and social life, made up of small earthly realities, would not be separated, but would constitute a single holy and God-filled existence. This invisible God,” he wrote, “is found in the most visible and material things” (Conversations, n. 114).

“This teaching of yours is also timely and urgent today. The believer, by virtue of the Baptism that incorporates him into Christ, is called to enter into an uninterrupted relationship with the Lord in an uninterrupted vital relationship.”

By the same path and with the same means, the Lord has called us to holiness. He wants us to identify ourselves with him by following in the footsteps of St. Josemaría. I have given you an example, Jesus tells us in the Gospel. He has also given us an example through our Founder. Not only through his words and his writings, but also through his existence: from his way of loving God and souls, and of practicing the Christian virtues in ordinary life, we - and so many other people - have learned to live and behave as true children of God.

How strongly some words that our Founder wrote in one of his homilies resound today! Holiness does not exactly mean anything other than union with God; the greater the intimacy with the Lord, the more holiness. The Church was willed and founded by Christ, who thus fulfills the will of the Father; the Bride of the Son is assisted by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the work of the Most Holy Trinity; she is Holy and Mother, Our Holy Mother Church (…).

Holy, Holy, Holy, we dare to sing to the Church, evoking the hymn in honour of the Most Blessed Trinity. You are holy, Church, my Mother, because you were founded by the Son of God, holy; you are holy, because the Father, the source of all holiness, has so ordained; you are holy, because you are assisted by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the souls of the faithful, to gather together the children of the Father, who will dwell in the Church of Heaven, the eternal Jerusalem.

Canonization adds certainty of faith to conviction about a person’s holiness.

THE life and doctrine of St. Josemaría are an inestimable gift for our lives. If they always were, all the more so in the light of his canonization. October 6, 2002 marked a milestone in the history of the Work, and his memory must always remain relevant. On that day, the Pope pronounced some very solemn words: “With the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of ours, after having reflected at length, invoked divine help many times, and heard the opinion of many brothers in the Episcopate, we declare and define Blessed Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer as a saint and inscribe him in the Catalogue of Saints, and we establish that throughout the Church he be devoutly honored among the Saints. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

These words show that canonization is the definition of a “dogmatic fact”: the Pope declares and defines as a truth of Catholic doctrine that a member of the faithful is holy, and extends his worship to the whole Church. This truth requires the definitive assent of the faithful, “founded on faith in the assistance of the Holy Spirit in the Magisterium of the Church, and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters.”

Before the canonization, anyone who knew the life of our Father could be sure that he was a holy person; and all the more so since May 17, 1992, when the Church, after having recognized the heroism of his virtues, authorized his public worship through beatification. Since October 6, 2002, certainty has been of a different order, like that which one has when receiving a higher light. It is the certainty that faith gives about what the Magisterium of the Church has definitively taught through a canonization. Now we can better understand what the holiness of our Father means. Now we are impelled to set out on the same path of holiness, supported by the strength of faith that ratifies and appreciates the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

Let us meditate on the words of John Paul II in the homily of that Mass. “To raise the world to God and to transform it from within: this is the ideal that the Holy Founder points out to you, dear brothers and sisters who today rejoice in his elevation to the glory of the altars. He continues to remind you of the need not to allow yourselves to be frightened by a materialistic culture that threatens to dissolve the most genuine identity of Christ’s disciples. He liked to reiterate forcefully that the Christian faith is opposed to conformism and interior inertia.

“Following in his footsteps, spread in society, without distinction of race, class, culture or age, the awareness that we are all called to holiness. Strive to be holy yourselves in the first place, cultivating an evangelical style of humility and service, of abandonment to Providence and of constant listening to the voice of the Spirit. In this way, you will be ‘salt of the earth’ (cf. Mt 5:13) and ‘your light will shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven’ (Mt 5:16)”.

We have the responsibility to spread the light of the example and teachings of St. Josemaría.

“St. Joseph was chosen by the Lord to proclaim the universal call to holiness and to indicate that the common activities that make up everyday life are the way of sanctification.” Our Father was born to carry out this divine mission and gave himself totally to its fulfillment. He identified himself so much with his mission that John Paul II, in the audience granted to those present at the canonization, called him “the saint of the ordinary.” In a word, our Founder has attained holiness, and the Church proclaims it, because he fulfilled with fidelity what he was born to do. Our Father carried out his mission in life with the full fidelity of the great figures of salvation history. Great because they were humble, and thus received much grace from God.

A light is not lit to be placed under a bushel, but on a candlestick so that it illuminates all those in the house. With the canonization of our Father, the Church raised the great light of his example and his teachings, a reflection of the light of Christ. “The figure of St. Josemaría,” he wrote at the time, “has become present throughout the world, and his teachings have spread with an unprecedented breadth.”

The elevation of our Father to the altars entails a great responsibility for us, who are his children. Many people are attracted by the spirit of Opus Dei, which provides the means to put into practice the ideal of “raising the world to God and transforming it from within”. And this enormous number of men and women throughout the world will enthusiastically follow our path of holiness if we faithfully correspond to the divine vocation we have received: the call to be saints and leaven of holiness, with the same spirit, the same ascetic and apostolic means lived by our Founder.

In 1933, with an ardent desire to carry out the divine Will, our Father wrote in his catherines: “It is necessary that he be a saint and a father, a teacher and guide of saints.” The first part has already been fulfilled: our Founder has attained holiness and the Church has proclaimed him definitively and solemnly. The second-that he be a father, teacher, and guide of saints-was so in an eminent way; but it is in our hands to bring him to perfection: to be good children of our Father also means to allow ourselves to be guided to holiness according to the spirit of Opus Dei.

Thanks be to God, this has also already been done in many faithful of the Work, men and women, and even in some the cause of canonization has been or will be initiated. But they are only the visible first fruits of a generation of saints to which we are all called to belong. God wants us to be truly Christians, authentic, canonizable, with an unmitigated holiness, without euphemisms, which reaches to the ultimate consequences; without mediocrity, in the fullness of a vocation lived to the full.

The Most Holy Trinity counts on each one of us to carry out his plan to make Opus Dei with the same urgency of love as our Founder. As John Paul II pointed out, our Father is a light at the service of the Church, of all the members of the People of God. “St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer has spent his life in the service of the Church. Priests, lay people who follow the most diverse paths, men and women religious, find in his writings a stimulating source of inspiration. Dear brothers and sisters, by imitating him with an openness of spirit and heart, ready to serve the local Churches, you are helping to give strength to the ‘spirituality of communion’, indicated in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte as one of the most important objectives for our time (cf. nn. 42-45).”

Especially on this feast day, let us turn to our Father asking him to intercede for his daughters and sons in Opus Dei, for those who are to come, for the apostolic work of the Prelature and for all the people around us. May the aspiration that he expressed with the aspiration Omnes cum Petro ad Iesum per Mariam! be fulfilled-in us and through us; an aspiration that is included in the solemn document of October 6, 2002, with which the Roman Pontiff declared our Father a saint before the universal Church.