610. November 28, Opus Dei, a Personal Prelature (II)
Meditations no. 537 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
We give thanks to God today for the Workās definitive juridical solution.
I advise you to lead a life of thanksgiving. Look, all that we have, whether a little or a lot, we owe to God. We canāt attribute anything good to ourselves. If you sometimes feel pride overcoming you, raise your eyes to heaven and you will see that, if there is anything noble and clean in you, you have received it from Godā¦ How beautiful is that prayer from the Preces! You can use it as an aspiration: Gratias tibi, Deus, gratias tibi! If we give thanks, God will give us more; but if our pride takes credit for what isnāt ours, we shut ourselves off from his help.
Today, the anniversary of the papal decree erecting the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, is a day of thanksgiving for us. As Don Ćlvaro told us on that memorable occasion, these words of our Father that we have just read seem to express what we wish to say to our Lord at this time. All of us, at one with our founder, are lifting up our hearts to the Blessed Trinity with an ardent hymn of thanksgiving and with the determined resolution to lead a life of thanksgiving, to spend our entire life giving thanks to our Lord for the goodness he has shown to our Father and the whole Work.
The Te Deum which we sing to God today cannot be merely a momentary outburst of joy. It must be an enduring epic poem containing those āheroic versesā of Love of God into which our Father wanted us to convert the āprose of every dayā. In other words, this new and solemn recognition of the Work by the Church must imprint upon us forever the seal of gratitude to our Lord.
As I have just reminded you using words of our Father, we must lead a life of thanksgiving. In this way we will bring to fulfilment the aspiration our Lord placed in our founderās soul: God has granted us so many merciful favours, ut in gratiarum actione semper maneamus!, so that we may always persevere in thanksgiving to the Blessed Trinity, from whom all good things come.
When we consider the magnitude and abundance of the gifts we have received from God - especially today, with the granting of the Workās definitive juridical status - we realize that words cannot express the filial gratitude that overwhelms us. It is a good opportunity to renew our commitment of love to God in Opus Dei and to strengthen our union with the Father and his intentions. Then, from heaven, our founder will be able to say of each of us: When the thought strikes me that you are Opus Dei, my heart overflows with joy and thanksgiving: because I know youāre going to be faithful.
The profound reason for our gratitude.
Gratias tibi, Deus, gratias tibi! our Father taught us to repeat. Give thanks to God for the goodness he has shown to you, to me and to everyone. If you do someone a favour and he thanks you, arenāt you more inclined to keep on helping him? Imagine what God, who loves us so much, will do if he sees that we thank Him for everything he does for us, for all he has given us, even for the blessings we donāt know about.
We give thanks to God for having led the Work along its juridical path to its final destination. In the letter Don Ćlvaro wrote us on this occasion, he encouraged us to reflect upon the profound reason for our gratitude, how this gratitude should be expressed in our lives, and what we must do in order to persevere in giving thanksā¦ .
The profound reason for our gratitude is not limited to the very important step of the Popeās approving the juridical status that our founder desired for Opus Dei; rather, it is based on all that this pontifical act has meant for us throughout these intense, hard and happy years-years of hope and union with God. The Work, firm, compact and secure, closely united to our Father and his intentions, prayed, suffered, hoped and worked for this intention, and this has done a great deal of good to Opus Dei and to the entire Church, since our only motive is to serve this good Mother of ours.
Above all, these years contain the treasure of Godās intense activity in our founderās soul and in the history of the entire Work. God constantly took the initiative, acting in many different ways in our Fatherās heart and mind. We, his daughters and sons, have benefited immensely from this. Godās power has shown forth. He has done what only he can do, with a constant, intense intervention, leading our founder and the Work, which was the sole meaning of our Fatherās life, at a divine pace.
Consider then, in all its grandeur and depth, the abundant stream of divine favours for which we must be thankful, and the holy manner in which our Father cooperated with Godās plans, with all its divine graces and requirements. Despite our shortcomings the Work has travelled at Godās pace. Our Father accepted this pace heroically from the very beginning. In the midst of a solitude accompanied by God, it was his lot to scale the steepest of the slopes our Lord was directing us towards. It was up to us to follow him, all together, though perhaps we were unaware of the thorns that pierced his soul at each step.
Therefore, in giving thanks for this recent sign of affection from the Church, consider above all the huge sum of divine favours which Opus Dei has received through Godās mercy during these long years. Call to mind our Lordās constant and silent activity in our Father and in the Work. In this way we will be strengthened in our deep conviction that, as our founder used to say, the Work has not been invented by men: it is Godās.
My children, when I look at everything we have gone through from this perspective, I see so clearly how what our founder used to affirm with respect to the approval of the juridical solution for the Work has come true. He told us that along with the definitive juridical status there would come omnia bona pariter cum illa (Wis7: 11), that with it all kinds of good things would come. Many of them are easy to see, for we have already received a tremendous number of blessings. Consider this in your heart, and be grateful to God.
With the Workās final juridical recognition, we have received all sorts of blessings: omnia bona pariter cum illa!
Omnia bona pariter cum illa! As we re-read Don Ćlvaroās words we give thanks to God for the blessings that the Workās definitive juridical structure has brought with it. But I could go on forever making a list of the blessings God has given us and the lessons he has taught us. You will discern them in your personal prayer, in your own soul, which is where our Lord has written these pages of the story of his mercy.
Consider, for example, how, by contemplating the shining example of our founderās holy life, we have learned to work for God alone, without expecting any reward on earth. We learned to love those who, for whatever motive, did not understand or did not try to understand our way. We learned to be patient and pardon easily when some people, spurred on by the devil or naively mistaken, carried out persistent campaigns of calumny against us. Our Lord has confirmed us in our great love for all those who work for him. We understand and truly esteem the generosity and sacrifice of so many good souls who serve the Church as priests, monks, nuns or laymen. Our Lord has urged us to love the Pope more each day. How many long hours our Father spent in prayer for the Roman Pontiff! What an injection of āromannessā he gave to the entire Work! We have felt the urgent duty to pray more intensely for all the bishops, and have spent ourselves, with a desire for greater unity, in the service of the dioceses where we work.
The erecting of the prelature by the Pope and the corresponding pontifical sanction of its statutes has confirmed and reinforcedā¦ the juridical unity of the Work-of the priests and the laymen, and of the two sections-under the direction and government of the Father, as Ordinary Prelate with power of jurisdiction. At the same time, it is not only our juridical unity of organization and government that has been strengthened; our clearly secular spirit and asceticism, and the specific way of doing apostolate proper to Opus Dei, have also been reconfirmed and protected forever.
How many blessings, my children! How many good things the Work has received on this lengthy path! How much good our Lord has produced in us, and how much we have tried to store up all these divine gifts in our heart as an immense treasure-a hoard of riches! That is why our thanksgiving, which is based on such profound and numerous motives, has to be reflected in our effort to be faithful to our divine vocation at every moment of the day. Let us draw from the many lessons that our Lord has given us over the years the same conclusion that our Father drew when he considered all that God had done for his Work: The life of each one of us has to be a song of thanksgiving, because all of St.Ā Paulās teaching has been fulfilled: you have sought out completely illogical means, means which were not proportionate at all, and you have extended our apostolate throughout the whole world. People are giving thanks to you all over Europe, and in various parts of Asia and Africa, and all over America, and in Oceania. Everywhere they are giving thanks to you (From our Father, Get-together, 19 March 1975). My children, let me insist, using our Fatherās words: we have no reason to do anything else but to give thanks.
As our Father also taught us, we offer our thanksgiving to God through the hands of the Blessed Virgin, Regina Operis Dei, who has played such an important role in leading the Work along its juridical path to a safe destination.