Roma Civic Initiative

Transcription

Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer was born into a deeply Christian family. When still an adolescent he perceived God’s call to a life of greater commitment. A few years after his ordination to the priesthood, he began his mission as founder, a mission to which he would devote 47 years of loving and unfailing care for the priests and laity of what is today the prelature of Opus Dei. Josemaria Escriva’s spir itual and apostolic life was based on knowing himself, through faith, to be a son of God in Christ. When we are in a state of grace God is in the centre of our souls, giving a supernatural meaning to all our actions. If God was not with us we would be like animals, and instead, we are God’s children. This faith nourished his love for the Lord, his evangelizing drive, and his constant joy, even in the great trials and difficulties he had to overcome. “To carry the Cross is to find happiness and joy,” he tells us in one of his meditations. “To carry the cross is to identify oneself with Christ, to be Christ, and therefore to be a son of God." The Cross is something marvelous. It is Christ’s throne. It is the certainly of being with Him. So that I tell you when it comes, when it comes, it may be a stroke of bad luck, a sickness, or experiencing slander. With supernatural intuition Blessed Josemaria untiringly preached the universal calling to holiness and apostolate. My children, there where your fellow-men are, your yearnings, your work, and your affections, there you have your daily encounter with Christ. It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all mankind. This was the heart, the essence, of the message he preached tirelessly throughout his life: to become saints in the middle of the most material things, by serving God and other people, making all the human paths of the earth divine. He re-stated this in Santiago, Chile, on June 29, 1974. Opus Dei is a path of love, and in Opus Dei you can travel all the paths of the earth, making them divine, without ceasing to be very human, because God our Lord asks us for nothing that is not human. God is calling you to serve him in and from the civil, material, secular work of human life. In the laboratory, in the operating-theater, in the barracks, in the university lecture-hall in the factory, in the workshop, on the farm, in the family home, and in all the immense spectrum of work, God is waiting for us every day. There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, that it is your job to discover. And Opus Dei comes to turn work into prayer, to sanctify work, so that we become holy in our work, and sanctify others through our work. If we are humble and do not deviate from our goal, and if we are contemplatives in the streets and squares, and the workshop and university and farm, and in our own homes, everything will work out, don’t worry. I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you repeatedly, and hammered away at the idea that the Christian vocation consists of making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. The horizon, my children, is where heaven and earth seem to meet. But no: where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives. For those of us who know it but haven’t had the luck to hear it from you directly, and for the many people here, please tell us who can belong to Opus Dei? Everyone, all who are called by God, single and married, poor and rich, sick and healthy, men and women. Indeed, to belong to Opus Dei you need a call from God, a supernatural vocation. But in Opus Dei’s apostolate many other people take part and help. Father, I’m not in Opus Dei, Well, I am! But listen, I very much love those who aren’t in Opus Dei, I love them with all my heart as though they were. Father, we have heard that Opus Dei accepts as Co-operators people who are not Catholic, or even not Christian. How can we understand something that at first sight seems like a contradiction? It’s not a contradiction. Why shouldn’t we be helped to do good by people who don’t have our faith? In fact, like that they become more pleasing to God and possibly our Lord will give them the gift of faith. There are lots of them. Even an Anglican vicar who, when Opus Dei was having a hard time, said to me, “Here I am.” Father, I’m Jewish – I love Jewish people very much because I love Jesus Christ madly, and he is Jewish, not “was”, he “is”. Iesus Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula. Jesus Christ is alive and he is Jewish like you. And the second love of my life is a Jewish woman, Mary most holy, the Mother of Jesus Christ So I look at you with great affection. Go on... You’ve already answered my question, Father. Father, I am Buddhist and I’ve been a Co-operator of Opus Dei for two years. I’m interested in the Catholic religion and I wish to bring my children up in it. What do you advise me to do? Go to an Opus Dei center, where you will find friends, who will respect your conscience. I can tell you that in advance, because I am the first to respect your conscience. He saw freedom as a gift of God which Christ won for Christians. “We Christians,” he wrote, “do not have to ask anyone to tell us the true meaning of this gift, because the only freedom that can save man is Christian freedom.” All of us here are in favour of freedom, and we each take responsibility for what we do, write, and say. So take hold of the spirit of Opus Dei, and love freedom. Personally I don’t recommend violence. I think that if someone uses violence it’s because they realize they haven’t got any convincing argurments. People in Opus Dei are citizens like anyone else, and they have the right to think and argue and act in public life in their countries just as they choose to, in complete freedom. And no-one in Opus Dei asks them what they think on matters of this world, they do what they like. That’s clear. He taught people to act with a professional, civil, lay mentality, to fulfil their own duties and to have the courage to exercise their rights. and to have the courage to exercise their rights. You must foster everywhere a genuine 'lay outlook' which will lead to three conclusions: be sufficiently honest to shoulder one’s own personal responsibility; be sufficiently Christian to respect our brothers and sisters in the Faith who, in matters of free discussion, propose solutions which differ from ours; and be sufficiently Catholic not to make use of our Mother the Church or involve her in human factions. I’ve been in Opus Dei nearly ten years, and nobody in Opus Dei has ever spoken to me about politics. How do you account for the things people say about us? I don’t know what people say, – please sit down – but I’ve been in Opus Dei for 47 years, and I’ve never talked about politics. I would rather bite off my tongue, as I said few days ago in Buenos Aires, and spit it out, rather than speak about anything except God. But you can talk about politics with your family and friends, just like any other citizen, and so can he, and so can the man in the street. I can’t. I advise you all to respect one another, to get on with each other. to walk arm-in-arm with others, that’s how I usually put it. Don’t wish evil on each other. Living together in peace, respecting and understanding others. He referred to the same aspects of social life in the homily he gave on the campus of the University of Navarre. This lesson on civic freedom, social harmony and understanding is a very important part of the message of Opus Dei. Must I say once again that the men and women who want to serve Jesus Christ in the Work of God are simply citizens like everyone else, who strive to live with a sense of responsibility to its ultimate consequences in their Christian vocation? Father, for several days now I’ve been waiting my turn to ask you something. Of course. What’s stopping you? You just get hold of me like this and twist my arm. And you can give me a hug, but a gentle one. Thank you very much, Father. As I’ve waited so long to ask my question, lots more things have occurred to me, so it’s in two parts. I hope you don’t mind... Yes, yes, I’ll listen to both parts very happily. Both parts are very short, but your answers can be as long as you like. I’ll make the most of your permission with great pleasure. So the first part is, why did you found Opus Dei? The second part. The second part is that convinced... Please sit down, you’ve given me plenty to talk about. I have to say that I didn’t found Opus Dei. Opus Dei was founded despite me, it was something God wanted, that happened, and that’s all. I am a poor man and all I did was get in the way. So don’t call me founder of anything. I love Opus Dei with all my heart as an instrument in the service of the Church and souls, contributing to the peace and happiness of everyone, to the good of the world, including the physical world. and that’s the answer to your first question. Although a natural modesty about supernatural matters usually kept him silent about the founding of Opus Dei, he occasionally talked about the beginnings of the Work. Father, because I love Opus Dei so much I want to ask you to explain why you say that the sick are Opus Dei’s treasure. Listen, my son, there was once a poor priest – or shall we go even further back? You’ve got a nerve... There was once a young boy who started to have inklings of love, and gradually realized that God wanted something of him, he didn’t know what. So although he’d never thought of being a priest, he said “maybe that path will lead me to find out what God wants.” He consulted people about it, first his father, he never saw his father cry either before or afterwards, but that day he wept, and said, “I shan’t forbid you to, but think about it. A priest’s life is one of sacrifice, dedication to others, saying no to the loves of this earth. Think it over.” “I’ve thought about it a lot.” “Then ok, I won’t stand in your way, fine. I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine who can guide you.” And he did. Later on, when that priest, had his 26 years of age, the grace of God and good humor, and nothing else at all, he had to do Opus Dei. People said he was crazy, and they were right, he was totally crazy and he still is, and here he is. That’s why I’ve come to Santiago, because I’m totally crazy, and that’s why I love you with all my soul, because I’m totally crazy for love of Christ. And do you know how he managed? Because of the hospitals like the General Hospital in Madrid crowded with sick people in dire poverty, some of them lying in the corridors because there were no more beds. The one called the King’s Hospital, full of tuberculosis patients, in those days tuberculosis was incurable, now it can be cured, because medicine has advanced a lot. And those were the weapons for victory! And that was the treasure for paying with! And that was the strength in which to go forward! Together with slander, criticism, lies, the falsehoods of good people who were mistaken, without realizing it, and whom I love very much. And God led us throughout the world, and we are in Europe and Asia and African and America and Oceania thanks to the sick, who are a treasure. And I cannot forget the poor woman to whom I as a young priest had given Extreme Unction, and I was helping her to make a good death, whispering in her ear, “Blessed be suffering, – that is liberation –, loved be suffering, and she repeated it after me, in a broken voice, – she died just a few minutes later – sanctified be suffering, glorified be suffering.” I haven’t changed my mind. That is my liberation! Opus Dei was born and took its first steps among the poor and sick. Filled with that same spirit of service it has spread throughout the world. What is the first way to serve society? Serving society... You are serving your brothers and sisters, all mankind, when you work for their spiritual and also their material well-being. If we each make a bit of an effort there will be peace, and calm and serenity in this turbulent world. And we can choose between good and evil, between life and death, and we waver and hesitate because we are free. Seek the best, seek life, and fight. Sometimes you’ll be beaten: say sorry and start over. We are, as stated in a solemn document of the Holy See many years ago, we in Opus Dei are sowers of peace and joy. So your houses are, should be, bright and cheerful homes. And now, my daughters and sons, let me consider for a moment another aspect, one that is particularly dear to me, of everyday life. I refer to human love to the noble love between a man and a woman, to courtship and marriage. Love which leads to marriage and family can also be a divine way, a vocation, a marvelous way, a path of complete dedication to our God. What I have told you about doing things perfectly, putting love into the little duties of each day, discovering that “divine something” contained in those details, all of that teaching has a special place in that vital space that is the setting for human love. Similarly the activities which are promoted by Opus Dei, also have these eminently secular characteristics. They are human, cultural and social initiatives, carried out by citizens who try to make them reflect the Gospel's light and to enkindle them with Christ's Love. In 1972, in Senara School an educational training center in a densely-populated district in the south of Madrid, someone asked him: What do you expect of Senara as a corporate work of Opus Dei? I hope that it will make many families happy on earth and also help to bring them to paradise, to eternal happiness. I hope it can contribute to bringing peace, peace in people’s consciences, otherwise it’s no good. Peace in your homes, so that husband and wife love each other, your children respect you, and you truly love your children. And then peace in the world, on earth. Without inner peace, there will be no peace on earth. Teaching Christ’s doctrine in action and in words, is how he summarized the mission of Opus Dei, which he compared to a great catechesis. Opus Dei is just a great catechesis. We carry out a constant catechesis in every sphere in this world. We love all souls equally, and God chose to raise up Opus Dei among peoples of all races: black, white, yellow, brown... and what do they all do? The same as me: catechesis, talking about God. And that’s how things work out. In Opus Dei there is only one single vocation. I have the same vocation as a married agricultural worker, whose life consists of his home and his work on the land. By our Lord’s will, Opus Dei forms one single canonical, ascetical, and theological entity. Just one. In Opus Dei there is one vocation, which adapts, like a glove to the hand, to each person’s needs and situation. In Opus Dei we need vocations in all human activities. We need young people and old, healthy and sick, poor and rich, intellectuals and people who work on the land, in industry, employers, and salespeople. There’s room for everyone, everyone has their place in this battle of peace and goodwill. Once there was a captain who had won every battle without a single wound. Then in a fierce battle he received a bullet-wound. And when his staff came to see him after the battle, he said, “Today was the best battle I’ve ever won, because now everyone knows I am vulnerable.” Everyone needs to know that you and I are capable of all the sins in the world, all the errors, all the horrors, any wretchedness. And that we won’t commit them if we are humble, rely on strength from heaven, and put into action the strength that God gives us with his grace and our response. And we tell other people that they should do the same. Faith, my children, Faith, so as to savour the Creed and to experience upon this altar and in this assembly the presence of Christ, who makes us “cor unum et anima una”, one heart and one soul. A family, a Church which is one, holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman, which for us means the same as universal. Faith, finally, my beloved daughters and sons, to show the world that all this is not just ceremonies and words, but a divine reality, by presenting to mankind the testimony of an ordinary life which is made holy, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And of holy Mary. Since the death of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in Rome on June 26, 1975, thousands of people all over the world have had recourse to his intercession. St John Paul II proclaimed him a Saint in a solemn ceremony on October 6, 2002. His mortal remains are venerated in the prelatic church of Our Lady of Peace in Rome.