612. November 30, St Andrew, Apostle

Meditations no. 539 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

St Andrew the Apostle became completely identified with Jesus.

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. From that moment on, Andrew never left his Master. For three years he accompanied him throughout Palestine, learning from him about self-denial and generous dedication to the service of others.

One day Jesus said, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? The Apostles understood Christ’s words very well. As soon as the Master ascended into heaven and they had received the Holy Spirit, they dispersed with an irrepressible desire to spread the Church to all points of the globe. Andrew preached the Gospel in Greece. There, in the city of Patras, he was martyred; he died nailed to a cross, like his divine Master. The priests of Achaia who witnessed his death write that his desire to be identified with Christ was so great that when he was being led toward the place of his martyrdom, and saw the cross in the distance, he began to cry out, “O good cross, made beautiful by the body of the Lord; long have I desired you, ardently have I loved you, unceasingly have I sought you out; and now you are ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that by means of you He may receive me who by means of you redeemed me.” For two days he remained nailed to the cross, and even then he continued preaching faith in Christ. Finally he surrendered his soul to God and was reunited with the One to whom he had offered up his whole life, one day years ago beside the sea of Galilee.

The generosity we see in this apostle makes us consider whether our own self-giving is as total and complete as his, and whether truly our sole desire is to be identified with Christ. Our Father writes, You do not come to the Work to seek anything. You come to give yourselves and to renounce any personal ambition for the love of God. Each one has to leave something behind if he wants to be effective in the Work, and work as God asks us, as a faithful donkey, ut iumentum! The faithful donkey’s only ambition is to serve, to be useful. The only reward he expects is the one God has promised: Quia tu reddes unicuique iuxta opera sua (Ps 61: 13). For the Lord rewards each one according to his deeds.

In order to become ipse Christus, we need to forget about personal problems and be concerned about the others.

The vocation we have received requires us to leave aside all personal concerns and dedicate ourselves completely to the service of souls. We have a distinctive interior life that in some ways is specific to us. And a characteristic of the interior life of the members of the Work is to actively seek the sanctity of others, which gives each of us a particular way of looking at things. We do not love God if we think only about our own sanctity. We have to think about the others, about the sanctity of our brothers and sisters and of all souls.

No matter what obstacles one encounters in following Christ, ultimately they stem from a disordered self-love. This selfishness shows itself, for instance, in an interior monologue. There one’s personal interests and aspirations run wild. Conflicts are created or increased. Objectivity is diminished. And the “ego” is always exalted. A person who aspires to sanctity has to fight against such a subjective, superficial attitude. He must open himself to God, seeking deep in his heart the divine Friend dwelling in his soul in grace.

Another manifestation of selfishness is excessive concern for one’s health, one’s profession, one’s rest, one’s future. … Such an attitude makes no sense for a soul dedicated to God. Don’t place your concern in your health, or your reputation, or your career. This is mine, that’s yours… mine, yours… Look, you have nothing of your own! If you’ve really given yourself, then they’re our things, God’s things, everybody’s things. Mine, mine, mine… How tiresome! When you spend all day feeling humiliated - for don’t forget that pride is the worst of the fomes peccati - thinking that your ideas should prevail, because you’re this, or you’re that. … Bad, very bad! You’re killing your time and making it necessary for us to kill off your self-centredness.

An indispensable condition for sanctity is forgetting about oneself. Our Father tells us repeatedly, God asks us to fill our hearts with apostolic zeal and to forget about ourselves so as to concern ourselves, with joyful sacrifice, about all mankind. Without such an attitude we would not achieve real sanctity nor would we be truly effective. In our work no one has time to think about himself or to go around with personal worries. We must be concerned solely about God’s glory and the good of souls.

Forgetfulness of self is not merely an ascetical means. It is a divine gift that radically transforms the soul, making it understand and love through God, with God and in God. It implies that Christ progressively replaces our ego, in keeping with the Baptist’s aspiration, He must increase, but I must decrease, a reality the Apostles fully attained in their lives. This substitution is the work of the Holy Spirit, but it requires our personal response. Human reasoning is not eliminated but rather perfected by faith and supernatural outlook. Nor are the affections suppressed; rather they are purified and put at the service of God and our fellowmen. And our will, far from being violated, is strengthened and confirmed in goodness.

Our Father says, The conclusion I come to every day at the examination of conscience is always: pauper servus et humilis! That is, when I don’t have to say instead: Lord, Josemaría is not very happy with Josemaría. But since humility is truth, it also happens that very often I have to add, as no doubt you do too: Lord, today I haven’t thought about myself at all! I’ve been thinking only about you, and for your sake I’ve been concerned only about working for the others! Then our contemplative soul exclaims with the Apostle: vivo autem iam non ego: vivit vero in me Christus (Gal 2: 20). It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Forgetfulness of self requires self-denial and a spirit of sacrifice.

To forget about ourselves we need to foster a spirit of mortification and of service. Put off the old nature with its practices and put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. It is impossible to free oneself completely from the old creature and its concupiscence in this life. We will always have to contend with a disordered self-love. Yet even though there be partial defeats, we can always be sure of final victory if we keep fighting in the area of interior mortification. This entails the struggle never to consent to any thought or memory that centres our attention or that of others exclusively on ourselves. We have to set aside not only the thoughts that in any way engender self-complacency, but also the excessively bitter and sorrowful thoughts that stem from being humiliated rather than from being humble, and that can rob one of the intimate peace proper to a truly contrite soul.

Mulling over personal problems, besides being a waste of time, may also reveal an uncontrolled self-concupiscence that is insidious and obsessive, which is more difficult to uproot than impure thoughts, since it is more difficult to unmask. At least, thinking about oneself gives rise to a lack of love and to numerous omissions in serving souls. If self-love is not controlled, it leads to a form of hypocrisy that is very difficult to detect since it covers everything with an apparent righteousness.

The remedy is serious, constant, self-sacrificing, interior mortification. Though it may seem difficult, when our struggle is based on love everything is overcome. Besides, we don’t fight alone. We have God’s grace, the loving protection of holy Mary and St Joseph, the help of our guardian angel, and the strength of our brothers.

We have to learn to disappear, to annihilate ourselves, to forget about ourselves completely. For the love of God, and for the love of our fellow men, we have to burn before God like lamps flickering before the altar, consuming themselves until they are completely spent. My children, if I am bringing you along more elevated paths, it is because they are paths that endure. I want my children, as penance, to know how to give themselves. We only succeed in being totally God’s when we forget about ourselves and learn to serve others. This path is truly a divine one, because it is based on humility. And God rewards it.

When each person’s condition is revealed in all its wretchedness, He comes to us. Our Lord stretches forth his all-powerful hand over the soul that has surrendered itself in this way, and He gives it, He assures it, its vocation, its sanctity, its heaven of love.

To me love seems more than heaven. In reality they are identical, but I like the sound of love better, and I lay hold of God’s love with all my strength. My children, it is worthwhile forgetting about ourselves and being generously concerned about the others.

It is worthwhile struggling to embrace our Lord’s cross with the same eagerness that St Andrew the Apostle had. On the cross Jesus has left us his greatest proof of love, dying to give us Life. And there we will find the protective embrace of our holy Mother Mary, who makes everything easy and lovable.