The greatest crisis in the world today

By Drilling4Truth in Catholic Answers Forum. This is a reply to somebody who has come to understand that God has been calling him to discern joining the prelature of Opus Dei and who has been running away from it due to this skepticism and fear of being frowned on by his Anglican parents and sister.

Yes, thanks to Dan Brown's asinine portrayal of Opus Dei as a cult of religious fanatics and gun wielding monks, the Work has suffered somewhat.

I have done a few events with Opus Dei, mostly Days of Recollection and book discussions. So, I am not reaching in the dark when I say that Opus Dei is committed to bringing Holiness to the average person. This is why John Paul II himself so loved the Work. If there is one thing our dear late pontiff tried to teach us is that we are all called to Holiness. We are all called to be Saints. This is the charism of Opus Dei, helping people find God in their lives, no matter their vocation.

If this is where you feel God is leading you, please know that the world is desperate for men and women like you. The greatest crisis in the world today is the absence of God in our day to day lives. And Opus Dei is on the front lines of that battle.

Ex-member: I promise to tell the truth about Opus Dei

By Matt Collins in Trust the Truth. Matt's FAQ about Opus Dei was for many years one of the most well-read websites on Opus Dei.

1. Who are you, what makes you so knowlegeable about Opus Dei, and why should I trust what you say?

My name is Matthew Collins. I'm happily married with 3 children, live in Baltimore, MD and work at a hospital in Baltimore as a computer programmer.

I was a supernumerary member of Opus Dei for almost 27 years. I left Opus Dei on my own initiative for personal reasons, but remain friendly toward the organization, and am now a cooperator.

Why should you trust what I say? Well... read this FAQ, and if it seems to you I'm being open and honest, then believe me. If not, then don't.

Besides, I'm staking my reputation on it, and I'm putting everything I say out there for the whole world to see.

I promise to tell the truth about Opus Dei according to my perspective, and to acknowledge other perspectives. I don't apologize for it. I'm not embarassed by it. I'm just telling it like I see it.

One reader noted that because I live in Baltimore, where there is no center of Opus Dei, I may not be aware of some of the more subtle abuses Opus Dei is accused of. He has a valid point. However, I believe that over the 28 years I have known the Work (as Opus Dei is often called) I have received enough formation and been close enough to get a pretty good feel for how things work.

2. What is Opus Dei?

Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, Josemaria Escriva. Escriva died on June 26, 1975. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 6, 2002 amid some controversy.

Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Roman Catholic Church, composed of both laity and priests, whose purpose is to fulfill a specific pastoral mission under the jurisdiction of its own prelate, who may or may not be a bishop. Personal prelatures are sort of like dioceses, but they consist of people rather than territory. Opus Dei may operate in dioceses around the world, but only with the express permission of the diocesan bishop. Opus Dei reports directly to the Vatican Congregation for Bishops.

Personal prelatures are discussed in Canon Law, canons 294-297.

Personal prelatures were foreseen by Vatican II, largely through the efforts of St. Josemaria, who wanted a juridical structure in the Church which he believed suited Opus Dei better than the old structure of a secular institute. Currently Opus Dei is the only personal prelature in the Church. It was given this status by Pope John Paul II in 1983. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will make use of this relatively new and flexible organizational structure in the church and inspire the church to create other personal prelatures to address the various needs of the apostolate.

The specific pastoral mission of Opus Dei is to spread knowledge of the universal call to holiness and to offer its members and others who wish to take part in its activities the assistance they need to become saints in the middle of the world according to Opus Dei's spirit and practice.

One of the specific characteristics of Opus Dei is its emphasis on one's work, whatever it is, as a means of sanctification. We are encouraged to see all the circumstances and events of our lives as opportunities to grow in love for the Lord and to serve the Church.

In Opus Dei we are taught (and teach others) that holiness is not only for priests and nuns. It is the obligation of all Christians to seek holiness. And for lay Christians, we have to seek it right where we are, in the ordinary circumstances of our lives. We don't seek holiness despite the activities of our ordinary life as lay people, but precisely through those activities. The "stuff" that goes into being a lay person is the very "stuff" that can make us holy. As part of this path to sanctity, members of Opus Dei follow an intense "plan of life" which focuses on traditional methods of prayer, such as the Rosary, mental prayer, daily Mass, etc.

3. What's Opus Dei all about?

In a nutshell, and following up on the ideas in the previous question, Opus Dei is about spreading the universal call to holiness.

One of the basic responsibilities of ALL Christians is to spread the Good News. Opus Dei encourages its members and all Christians to take this responsibility seriously. The work people do in service to the Gospel message is called "apostolate". In Opus Dei, our apostolate is a "directed apostolate." That is to say, it is supervised by the directors of Opus Dei and is discussed with the member as part of his or her spiritual direction. The director may suggest topics to bring up with specific friends, ask us to invite someone to become a cooperator or member, suggest we invite someone on a retreat, etc.

Opus Dei emphasizes that members are ordinary Catholics. In terms of Canon Law (i.e., the law of the Church) this is true. Nevertheless, members of Opus Dei do have a contractual bond with the prelature that other Catholics don't have, which obliges them to perform certain duties and give obedience to the prelature in all that relates to the prelature's aims.

Stuff of daily living that takes on transcendent significance

By John Allen, Jr. in Opus Dei

At its core, the message of Opus Dei is that the redemption of the world will come in large part through laywomen and men sanctifying their daily work, transforming secularity from within.

“Spirituality” and “prayer,” according to this way of seeing things, are not things reserved primarily for church, a set of pious practices marked off from the rest of life; the real focus of the spiritual life is one’s ordinary work and relationships, the stuff of daily living that, seen from the point of view of eternity, takes on transcendent significance.

It is an explosive concept, with the potential for unleashing creative Christian energy in many areas of endeavor.

The ambition is nothing less than reaching across centuries of Church history to revitalize the approach of the earliest Christians—ordinary laywomen and men, indistinguishable from their colleagues and neighbors, going about their normal occupations, who nevertheless “catch fire” with the gospel and change the world.

Things Old and New

By Christopher Blunt in The Yeoman Farmer. A Seattle native, transplanted to rural mid-Michigan, finding the connection between farming, food, faith, family, community, and citizenship.

I just got home from an Opus Dei evening of recollection at a church in Ann Arbor, led by a priest who drives up from South Bend. We have these recollections every couple of months, and they always draw several dozen men from around the area.

We begin with solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance on the altar, and then the priest leads us in a half-hour reflection. He is then available for 45 minutes or so for confessions, followed by a second reflection. Finally, we close with solemn benediction, and the Blessed Sacrament is returned to the tabernacle. All in all, these are wonderful events and bring considerable spiritual fruit to those who attend.

I am usually tapped to help serve the exposition and benediction (Homeschooled Farm Boy, who is an altar server at our parish, thinks it's cool that Daddy is also an altar boy). Tonight, I managed the incense and another guy managed the humeral veil. But between the two of us, and the priest, everyone managed to forget to bring the book with the priest's prayers. He did have a song sheet which included most of what he needed, so we were fine during exposition and the first part of benediction. But only as he knelt to recite the divine praises did we realize we were missing something very important. We all looked around, but the book was nowhere to be seen.

As I retreated to one of the pews, to look to see if the misalette had what we needed, the priest began digging in his pocket. And produced...a Palm Pilot! As he removed the stylus and began tapping through various screens, he muttered, "I know it's in here." Sure enough, about a minute later (it felt more like ten minutes, with the whole congregation looking on), he cleared his throat and began, "Blessed be God..."

And so we went all the way through the divine praises, finishing with "Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints." The priest returned the PDA to his pocket, and we all began singing "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" as he reposed the Blessed Sacrament.

And as we processed off the altar, I couldn't help smiling at the wonderful mix of "things old and new" I'd just observed: solemn exposition and benediction, with bells and incense and wonderful Latin hymns, led by a priest dressed in a cope and humeral veil --- and packing a PDA with the divine praises as an emergency backup. You simply can't not love that. He only could've topped it by connecting to the internet and downloading the prayers as he recited them.

Back in the sacristy, I commented that I'd never before seen a priest lead benediction with a PDA. He chuckled and replied, "And I've never done it before. I'm just glad I have so much stuff on there."

I told him I agreed. And made a silent resolution to make sure I double-check that we have the Handbook of Prayers book at the altar next time.

Law, life and other miscellany

In Alcinous Banquet

I've been considering a change lately.

Last week marked my sixth year with the small but somewhat pretentious law firm that I've labored in since my abortive attempt at soloing.

I'm looking to make a change for a variety of reasons, but in short, they would center around a desire to have more control over my practice and a desire to support my family by making more money in the process.

I've long represented indigent clients -- mostly in the field of consumer bankruptcy, but other debtor-creditor matters including foreclosure and indebtedness defense as well. I like the work; it appeals to my desire to make a difference and be Christ to those I meet.

Which brings up my Catholicism and the particular expression of it that my life has followed.

Last summer I became a postulant with a third order Franciscan group known (then) as the Tertiary Franciscans of the Primitive Observance -- a third order closely associated with the Franciscans of the Primitive Observance (or TFPO and FPO, respectively). Since that time, the third order has been somewhat reformulated, and is now known as the Tau Maria (not a particularly eponymous handle, but hey -- I didn't pick it.)

What's all that have to do with my law practice?

Well, quite a bit. As I said, my practice is an extension of my faith. Okay, maybe I didn't actually say that, but I implied it.

It seems to me that we all live lives which are meant to be lived for some particular purpose. Of course there's the overriding purpose we learn (or for some, learned -- past-tense) in the Baltimore Catechism: "to know and love God in this life, and to serve Him in the next" (paraphrasing from a somewhat leaky 46 year old memory, here.) We all have that as a purpose.

But what I mean is an additional, more particular purpose.

Opus Dei has a wonderful take on this that I find particularly appealing, i.e., that we are called to sanctification through our vocational calling, whatever that may be. If you are called to be a surgeon, then you may attain holiness through the practice of surgery by offering your best "work" for God, as it were. If you are called to be a teacher, then by teaching for God. If you are called to work in a factory, etc., etc.

As a lawyer for the poor, I feel a certain calling to defend and counsel those who struggle with their finances. The importance of this work is or should be obvious in this consumption-driven culture, which upholds wealth as the greatest goal to be attained, and poverty as the worst evil to be avoided.

This may come as a shock to some people, but some believe that poverty is actually a virtue to be sought rather than an evil to be avoided at all costs. I know that the lawyer I ate lunch with a couple weeks ago certainly was (shocked, that it is.) I mentioned this in passing, and the reaction I got from him -- also a Catholic, and by all appearances a fine man -- was as if I'd calmly mentioned my being abducted by space aliens the night before.

Incredulous wouldn't be far from the mark.

Fools for Christ

By Oswald Sobrino in Catholic Analysis

I painfully know that it is true with me: I can't stand to look foolish before others or to imagine (often wrongly) that I might look foolish to others. Yet, here is St. Paul making the case for freedom even from this, yes, foolish but common anxiety:

We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.

1 Cor. 4:10 (ESV).

The context is Paul again, with great perseverance and patience, teaching his converts (notice how much of his teaching has to do with how to practically live in Christ and not so much with the abstractly theological which we humans love to play with at length in our leisure).

Paul, formerly Saul the proud Pharisee, was now set apart for a new task in which, for many, he would play the fool. Both Jews and Greeks saw him as foolish. Yet, that reality did not stop him. It should not stop us, either. St. Josemaria Escriva has a saying that I paraphrase as best as I can remember: the Christian should be able to step into any setting and any environment with a sure step. Why? Because the Spirit of truth, of reality, is aiding him moment by moment.

Let's do the logical analysis (appropriate enough since we follow the Logos). If we do good in word or action, either we will be thanked by others or rejected and maybe even ridiculed. The crucial fact is not the reaction but rather the objective goodness of the word or action. There are people who have gotten so used to lies and to the cold indifference of so many people (not infrequently beginning with their upbringing) that they just can't handle agape in action. Sometimes, I think that even simple generosity to strangers or mere acquaintances is as striking a miracle to many as parting the Red Sea was. Yet, that is precisely what the Christian is called to be and do: to make the difference in a very cold, indifferent, despairing, and truly foolish and confused world. Escriva also noted once, as I recall, how the presence of a Christian in any setting ought to raise the temperature of the room, not the temperature of anger or dispute but rather the higher temperature that reflects the warmth of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

The root problem that gives many of us such a dire fear of appearing foolish to others is that we are really seeking, in the end, to boast in ourselves, not in the Creator:

27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" [echoing Jeremiah 9:23, 24].

1 Cor. 1:27-31 (ESV; emphasis and bracketed reference added).

With the right attitude, we can end up saying, as Paul did:

10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Cor. 12:10 (ESV; emphasis added).

Taking that Pauline step breaches a new frontier of personal freedom for us and for many others with whom we come in contact.

Why Work is Holy

By Dave Williamson in The High Calling of our Daily Work. This article is not about Opus Dei but about spirituality of work which is at the heart of the message of Opus Dei. This was written in a Protestant website.

You will spend over 100,000 hours of your life working. This is more than anything else you'll do except sleep. What is the meaning or purpose of our working? Do we work because we have to, or because it is a "High Calling"?

Flying the friendly skies at 37,000 feet as I write this, I start wondering about the plane and the "high calling" of daily work. At 37,000 feet, I sure hope the pilot thinks of his or her work as a "high calling." I want that pilot to think highly of the safety of the folks flying. Is it a "calling"? Is it holy work?

What about the flight attendants? They, too, have considerable responsibility for the safety, enjoyment, and sense of well-being of the passengers in this airborne community. Is this also holy work, God's work? Does God care about the enjoyment and comfort of airline passengers? What about the critical workers on the ground—from mechanics to staff, ticket agents, and baggage handlers? Do they have a high calling? Does God have a purpose, and are God's purposes satisfied or limited by what they do and how they do it? Certainly God is interested in people traveling safely. Is God also interested in their enjoyment, satisfaction, return on investment, etc.?

Looking around the plane at my fellow passengers, I wonder which ones have a high calling in their daily work, a call from God to do what they do well, a call to love God through serving others. Guessing occupations (from my stereotyped impressions), I see someone who I assume is a pastor or Christian educator—reading religious material and writing notes. Certainly he has a high calling. We usually affirm that this is the highest calling, but that's a gross misunderstanding of "calling."

Another passenger has a laptop open with a screen full of mathematical material. She is an engineer of some sort, I assume. Does she have as high a calling? I notice a business executive, an attorney, a young soldier, a rancher, and a musician. Do any of them have a high calling? Is their work from God, and does it have anything to do with God's purposes?

You could ask the same question of the young mother with two small children in the row in front of me, the grandparent near the bulkhead, the retirees headed off for a vacation, or the college student headed home. Though none of them work for pay, do they have a high calling? Maybe theirs is the most important, the most sacred, the highest calling.

Just what makes work sacred? What is a high calling?

For some, the work we do five or six days a week is the means, the necessary evil, we must endure to enjoy one or two days of leisure, and "to put food on the table," we say. Do you ever work obsessively or feel like a slave to your work? Or, are you able to take time off for rest and renewal that enables you to put your energies back into the other five or six days? Do you say TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) or TGIM (Thank God It's Monday)? Does God ordain and call us to our work?

The word "call" comes from vocare. We get the word vocation (a "call" or "summons") from it. Biblically it is used primarily for our being "called" to live in Christ, in relationship with God through Jesus. We belong to Christ, and our work is to believe, to glorify and enjoy God. It is our "high calling," our highest calling. Our daily work, whatever that is, is also a high calling. It is to be directed toward fulfilling God's purposes.

WORK COMES FROM GOD

Work was God's loving idea from the beginning, in and through creation. After reporting the creation of male and female on the sixth day, the writer of Genesis quotes God as saying,". . . your descendants will live over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals. . . . Then the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and guard it" (Gen. 1:28, 2:15).

The first glimpse we have of the human person in Scripture shows someone working as a farmer and manager of the rest of creation—joyously, purposefully tilling the ground and exercising respectful stewardship over all the earth.

The Bible portrays work as part of God's very nature. "If God is the worker," Elton Trueblood wrote in his book Your Other Vocation, ". . . then men and women, in order to fulfill their potentialities, must be workers too. They are sharing in creation when they develop a farm, paint a picture, build a home, or polish a floor." We are exercising our dignity as creatures made in God's likeness when we work. Our work is the dual task of continuing God's creative process and taking good care of what God has entrusted to us.

There is hardly a human occupation that does not in some way involve being a coworker, a cocreator with God. We are sharing in God's work. We are expressing God's image in our work.

WORK IS TO BE DIRECTED TO THE WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY

Our destiny as "made in the image of God" includes participation in God's work of developing, maintaining, and enhancing community. Our work is to benefit the civil society in which we live and work. In addition, we're called to be creative. What is the creative element of your work? What is the common benefit of your work? "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet," Frederick Buechner wrote.

In the biblical understanding of work (for all of life for that matter), there is no separation between that which is sacred or secular. The sacred-secular distinction comes from Plato and Greek dualism. The Bible knows nothing of that distinction. All work is sacred since God created and uses that work to sustain God's creation and participate in God's purposes.

WORK IS A PRIMARY WAY IN WHICH WE HONOR AND WORSHIP GOD

Avodah is a Hebrew word that means both worship and work. Paul encourages the Colossians, "And whatever you do, . . . do it all in the name of Jesus giving thanks to God . . . whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord" (Col. 3:17, 23). It is a high calling!

Perhaps the most powerful expression of our giving thanks to God comes through the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Here we see bread and wine on the Lord's table. These elements, the products of many hands and minds, come to the table, are blessed by God, and become for us the body and blood of our Lord. When in that process did worship begin or cease? "Here is the perfect symbol of the unity of work and worship," wrote Alan Richardson, "the strange unbreakable link that exists between the bread that is won in the sweat of man's face and the bread of life."

Passing a construction site, a pedestrian asked three bricklayers what they were doing. The first said that he was earning a living to feed and clothe his family. The second said, "I'm throwing these bricks together to build a wall." The third responded, "I am helping to build a cathedral for the glory and worship of God." What a difference your perspective makes in giving meaning to your work!

What is your work? Is it a High Calling? You bet it is, every creative and caring and beneficial aspect of it. May we work hard and well and enjoy it more each day. Then we will be able to say, "Thank God it's Monday—and Friday—and Sunday!"

Ex-member: I remain very much in love with Opus Dei

By Juan Math Geek in Catholic Answers Forum. Juan Math Geek is a 26 year-old graduate student.

I went through the temporary period of celibacy for several years but in the end I did not continue to make the commitment permanent. It takes normally about 6 years of having to renew the commitment every year, and on the 6th renewal it is for a permanent committment.

Let me just say that for me, in the end, it didn't work out.

Nevertheless, I remain very much in love with Opus Dei.

The thing is, as you search the web, you will encounter commentary that puts Opus Dei very negatively. Some of those who write these criticisms are former numeraries. I cannot say that I understand their point of view, as I can never know what they went through, but I disagree with many of the negative things former numeraries say. I do understand many of the difficulties they cite, but I believe whatever happened to them does not mean there is essentially something wrong with Opus Dei itself, as it is a spiritual path in essence.

So it saddens me to read what they say, like they were insulting my own mom. If you ever come across those criticisms, do consult people from both sides first, and I personally would be very glad to discuss. Not all former numeraries end up hating Opus Dei you know

http://www.escrivaworks.org/

http://www.josemariaescriva.info/

these are great sources of information

Ex-member: My years as a celibate member prepared me for my life as a wife and mother

By Peg Bruer in Opus Dei blogs. She first learned of Opus Dei in 1966. Peg became a numerary member a few years later, when she was not quite 18. For fifteen years after that she lived in centers of Opus Dei in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Since there are a few people who have related “horror stories” about the Work, I would like to share my experiences while I was a member of the Work, as well as my relationship with Opus Dei since ceasing to be a member in 1984. Perhaps by doing so, there will be parents or young people who will realize that Opus Dei is not to be feared or avoided, but in fact sought out as a great source of growing in one’s faith and setting out to serve God through daily work.

While in high school, I started attending some doctrinal classes at a college residence called Bayridge in Boston. From the beginning, I was grateful that the priest explained many points of the Catholic faith which had been glossed over in my religion classes at school. This doctrinal formation continues to be available through centers of Opus Dei, and I feel deeply indebted to the Work for all the hours of instruction which I received as a member of the Work for fifteen years and as a cooperator for the past 22 years.

I have relied on what I learned from classes sponsored by Opus Dei throughout my years in college, law school, professional life, and particularly as the mother of five. It is not a matter of “conservative” or “liberal” positions on issues, but rather what is the truth as taught by the Catholic Church. So much of the present-day confusion of many Catholics on topics such as abortion, euthanasia, artificial birth control, the purposes of marriage, the search for God’s will in each of our lives, could be clarified if only people had the opportunity to receive the solid doctrinal formation that Opus Dei provides.

I truly believe that my years as a celibate member of Opus Dei prepared me for my life as a wife and mother. Because the majority of members of Opus Dei are married, I learned that the essence of both the single life and married life is service to others. While living in a center of the Work, I tried to make life more pleasant for those who lived in the center; now I try to make life more pleasant for my husband and children. The current media effort to report “corporal mortification” used by members of Opus Dei (in the form of a cilice and discipline) as a shocking expose is laughable. For example, how many secular people spend hours each week in grueling exercise routines, sometimes rising at 5:00 a.m. to get in a workout before the workday begins, or deprive themselves of all fattening foods for the sake of achieving the ideal body? The discomfort of wearing a cilice is nothing in comparison.

Was I recruited by Opus Dei without knowing what I was getting into and without my parents’ knowledge? Absolutely not – in fact when I was about to join Opus Dei I talked with my parents about it that morning, and remember my father’s clear and very supernatural answer: “When each of my kids reached the age of adulthood (I had three older siblings, and three younger siblings) I permitted them to do whatever they thought was God’s will, and I will do the same with you. God bless you.”

Other allegations about Opus Dei have included that members are pariahs if they leave the “organization” and that the internal workings of Opus Dei are secretive. Believe me, if I thought I could reveal “secrets” from my years of life as a numerary, I would be seizing this Da Vinci Code moment to publish a book and reap windfall profits! Instead I can attest to witnessing many members of Opus Dei who practiced a complete dedication to God through detachment from material goods, who sacrificed their personal ambitions in order to be available for the needs of Opus Dei, who used every minute of the day well in order to get more done for the glory of God. For a period of time I was in charge of the accounts for the women’s section of Opus Dei in the Midwest. Every penny that was donated, and every penny that was spent was accounted for.

My experiences with Opus Dei since 1984 have been equally positive. When I met and decided to marry my husband, it was a priest of Opus Dei who gave us pre-Cana classes. We have often relied on his practical advice in resolving any controversy throughout twenty-one years of marriage. Shortly after marrying, a priest of Opus Dei asked my husband and me to help give classes in our parish to people who wanted to convert to Catholicism. When my mother died in 1990 several members of the Work brought dinners for my family and guests, and many of those I had known while in the Work attended the wake and funeral.

In the Jubilee Year, our family traveled to Rome. My fourth child was ready to receive her First Holy Communion, so I asked in advance if it might be possible for her to receive at the crypt of St. Josemaria. A priest from the United States who was then residing at the headquarters of Opus Dei celebrated a special Mass for our family and my daughter received her first Holy Communion in the Oratory of Our Lady of Peace. Our whole family considers that day a very special blessing from God. When the Founder of Opus Dei was canonized in 2002, I went to Rome again with my oldest daughter. I continue to feel that I owe St. Josemaria a great debt for all the formation I have received and the faith I have. Because of the doctrinal and spiritual formation I received in the Work, I was able to organize classes for parents of my children’s friends when our children were about to make their first Holy Communion.

For a period of time my family lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where there is no center of Opus Dei. However, several friends of mine became cooperators of the Work and we met weekly to pray together for Opus Dei and our own intentions. Over the years, my children have participated in camps organized by Opus Dei, as well as clubs and classes. While I have learned that I need to respect their freedom to attend these activities, I have also learned to use prayer as a weapon in helping them to make the best decision. For any parent who is concerned about their children’s growth in the faith, the support and assistance of Opus Dei is a godsend.

A final point I would like to refute is the role of women within Opus Dei. I have read some accounts by former members who say women are relegated to servant- like roles when taking care of the household tasks, the cleaning, laundry, and so forth in centers of Opus Dei. The fact is, the work of the home is considered a professional job, one that requires training and skill. I learned many aspects of household management while I was a numerary, and have since been able to use this knowledge in my own household. At various times I worked in the administration of some of the centers of the Opus Dei. However, I also acquired a B.A. in Political Science, and was encouraged to pursue my dream of becoming a lawyer. Once I became a lawyer, my goal was the same as that of anyone working in the household tasks of the center: sanctify my work, sanctify myself in my work, and try to sanctify others through my work. Opus Dei does not teach that there are levels of work that are more important than others, but that every job is important and becomes more valuable depending on how much love of God one puts into the job.

Like all families

A post in dominic-cooray.blogspot

THE OPUS DEI story in Singapore began in 1982 with the arrival of four laymen and two priests from the Philippines. The first Opus Dei centre here was established in October that year and the next centre, for women, the following year.

Today, there are four Opus Dei centres in Singapore – two male and two female –with 10 to 12 numeraries, mostly Singaporeans, living in each. It is not easy to put a number on the size of Opus Dei here because in addition to the numeraries “the associates, supernumeraries and Cooperators are also part of the family,” explained Gerry Faigal, who came to Singapore with the first Opus Dei group from the Philippines.

Co-operators are those who assist the educational and social undertakings promoted by Opus Dei through their prayer, work or donation. Opus Dei Cooperators include Catholics, other Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others.

Opus Dei is a family, and like all families, the members of Opus Dei move in different circles but also, like all families, they try “to eat together, have excursions together, pray together,” Father Michael Chan said. As an Opus Dei priest, Father Michael’s role in the institution is “to do what the layman cannot do,” he said, namely to celebrate the sacraments, provide spiritual direction, carry out faith formation classes, preaching, and conducting retreats. He is also required to carry out assignments given to him by the Opus Dei regional vicar, and participates in archdiocesan priestly meetings. “(To be an Opus Dei member) is a matter of divine vocation; you discover it through prayer,” said Father Michael, who discerned his vocation during post-graduate studies in England. Each member who joins Opus Dei has made an informed and free choice, he affirmed.
		Father Michael Chan joined Opus Dei in February 1983 as a layman.

Gilbert Keng, 38, has been a member of Opus Dei for the past 12 years. His wife, Josefina, has been a member for about 14 years. Mr Keng likened his special guidance in Opus Dei to a gymnasium where people who want to keep fit go to find special guidance from a fitness instructor. “(Through Opus Dei) I discovered how to be a better Christian,” he declared. ■

Nothing more than a part of the Church that's serious about their faith

By Joe. Joe is thirty-three, married, and teaches in Seoul, Korea. He describes himself as a Buddhist-Catholic.


You remember that secret Catholic organization, the bad guys in the Divinci Code? Opus Dei. Well, I met with them on Thursday of last week. And let me tell you, did we do some strange things.

No, not really. Opus Dei is nothing more than a part of the Church that's serious about their faith. Their founder, Father Josemaria Escriva, was canonized as a saint by John Paul II. I have great respect for Opus Dei. In my opinion, if you believe something, or claim that you believe something, your actions should follow. In other words, if you're really a Christian, this belief should have some serious consequences for your life. But enough preaching, let me get back to the evening.

It took place in an elegant chapel in Hannamdong, Seoul. About a dozen of us sat on the pews while someone read for ten minutes from Saint Escriva's writings. The subject was prayer. We then prayed, oddly enough. The priest talked for fifteen minutes on loving the world and how the world is good, and if it's not, it's our responsibility to do something about it. This was followed by thirty minutes of silence and reconciliation, which is reflecting on our recent thoughts, words, and actions.

Another talk by the priest on joy, a brief benediction of the blessed sacrament, and the evening concluded. My favorite part was the Gregorian chanting at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Evening of Recollection. It was somber, quiet, reflective, and even joyous, in a quiet, inward bubbling way. It felt sacred... even, dare I say, holy.

Harambee: Trust in mankind

Harambee Africa International. Rome, October 27th

Linda Corbi, Giovanni Mottini and Rosella Villa

“Trust in mankind, and love and be close to people of every condition. From these points of reference, the fruit of the teachings of St Josemaria, was born the Harambee Programme for Africa.” This is the way Giovanni Mottini, the president of the new charitable not-for-profit foundation, defined the profile of Harambee Africa International, presented on the 27th of October 2008, in Rome.

“In the year 2002, due to the canonization of St Josemaria, we asked ourselves what we could do as Christians to leave a sign of his teachings. And we began to get involved in Africa, avoiding an aesthetic look,” Mottini said, “that is to say looking at the continent only from the point of view of its natural riches, or else avoiding its beautiful side altogether and showing only indignation towards its dramas and staying well away from its problems. Instead, Harambee Africa International looks to give concrete solidarity, never from a distance – the solidarity of St Josemaria Escriva.

We began to get involved in Africa,” Mottini continued, “asking ourselves not so much what the Africans needed, but what they were thinking of, because we are convinced, along with Pope Benedict XVI, that the poverty is not only material but above all a poverty of hope.” This is the reason why Harambee Africa International has promoted and sustained programmes in Africa. “We concentrate on education, on improving its quality, because in this way we can cultivate the intelligence and the capacity of every one to improve their own destiny. The solidarity of Harambee by definition is less spectacular but very efficacious.”

After the speech of Giovanni Mottini, the international coordinator of the new association, Linda Corbi, showed the results obtained by the projects launched by Harambee, focusing especially on the experience of Kenya. “We have finished some days of study and work in Nairobi, where we were able to experience the potential for positive change that there is behind the programmes that we have financed to help the teachers in the schools, who are at times the only points of reference for the new generations.”

Harambee Africa International also means to promote a less stereotypical type of solidarity. For this reason there is a series of initiatives promoted by the Italian committee and coordinated by Rosella Villa. “Every month we have an issues forum in which experts on Africa will speak, guided tours of museums, projects, little events and more important ones with the common aim of raising the funds to carry forward this year’s projects. In this way it will be possible for everybody to help Africa in a concrete way.”

Sanctification: The Work Of A Lifetime

By Daniel Tay in Oxygen, 5 November 2008

Today’s quotes, some of them humorous, are on the theme of work:

“I like work, it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” - Jerome K. Jerome

“Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.” - Don Herold

“Light is the task where many share the toil.” - Homer

“Some are bent with toil, and some get crooked trying to avoid it.” - Anon

“God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest.” - J. G. Holland

“He who labours as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.” - St. Bernard

“The great scandal of the nineteenth century is that the Church lost the working class.” - Pope Pius XI

“Be thankful if you have a job a little harder than you like. A razor cannot be sharpened on a piece of velvet.” - Anon

“The best worship, however, is stout working.” - Thomas Carlyle

“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” - James M. Barrie

- Taken from “Quotes and Anecdotes - An Anthology for Preachers & Teachers” by Anthony P. Castle
____________________

Work for your salvation.

Have you ever heard of Opus Dei? The name literally means ‘work of God’. I first heard of Opus Dei when a movie was being made from the book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ written by Dan Brown. The story portrays Opus Dei as an insidious cult. One of its characters is an Opus Dei monk who commits murder to protect the secrets of Opus Dei. I still remember an Opus Dei priest giving a talk in Singapore to clarify this. His opening line was, “We have no monks.”

Indeed Opus Dei is an international lay organization in which most of its members are people who live in the world and hold normal jobs. Only a minority of its members are priests. They have no monks. What the members look for in Opus Dei is the spiritual help that they need to sanctify (or make holy) their ordinary work. Thus their work becomes a means to sanctify themselves and help others to do the same thing. The organization asks its members to make an effort to practise human and Christian virtues, as children of God, despite the limitations and errors that are inevitable in human life.

In today’s first reading, we see St. Paul encouraging the Philippians to persevere and “work” for their salvation. There is a saying in Opus Dei that sums it up nicely. It goes: “Conversion is the matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.” The Philippians were converts, just as many of us were.

All of us must have had a conversion experience at some point in our lives, otherwise we wouldn’t be here reflecting on the scriptures to try to deepen our faith. This conversion experience is the start of our journey and it happens in a moment. How many people do we know who have had conversion experiences but have since fallen away from the faith? This tells us that salvation must be worked for and this is done by leading a holy life.

The beauty of the spirituality of Opus Dei is that it tells us that lay people are called to holiness just as priests and religious are. What sanctifies us is our everyday work and the way we do it. Everyone works, even those who do not have a job. And it is through this work that we become cooperators with God who also works. This is what makes us holy. This is how we work for our salvation.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Daniel Tay)
____________________

Prayer: Dear God, we offer to you the work that we are going to do today. Bless us in our interactions with our colleagues, our superiors, and our clients. Help us to treat them with love, and may this work that we do serve to sanctify us. Amen.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks to the Lord for giving us work, by which we have the opportunity to be made holy.

Ex-member: Don't judge Ruth Kelly's spirituality by what The Da Vinci Code says

By Christopher Howse in The Telegraph. Christopher Howse writes leaders and features and reviews for The Daily Telegraph, which he joined in 1996 as obituaries editor. He lives in Westminster.

When I was a member of Opus Dei, a certain sort of person was beastly to me because they hated Opus Dei. "Aha," they would say, if I made a mistake, "typical Opus Dei!" Opus Dei-baiting was like Jew-baiting.

No hidden agenda: Ruth Kelly

Since I left, in 1988, the same kind of people have been much nicer, on the assumption that I loathe Opus Dei as much as they seem to. I don't loathe it at all. My departure was to do with me rather than them. I didn't like getting up early and things. But I have never since met a group who are kinder, more patient or less motivated by personal ambition.

I can understand, though, why Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, doesn't want to be written off as a mere chip off the Opus Dei block. She should be condemned for her politics, if they are despicable, not for her choice of spiritual advisers.

Just at the moment, the serial on Woman's Hour is a novel called The Gowk Storm, set in 19th-century Scotland. The village dominie or schoolmaster is driven out by the local elders because he is a Roman Catholic.

He is believed to be capable of anything. One old woman saw with her own eyes how he bewitched a fish in her frying-pan and made it jump on to the floor. Of course. And the vilification of Opus Dei is just like the routine disgust with Roman Catholics in Britain in the 19th century.

In fact, Roman Catholics can look pretty strange to outsiders. In their churches they display carvings of a dying or dead man with no clothes on, nailed to a cross. As they enter their pews, they make obeisance or curtsy towards a metal box under a veil which contains nothing but what looks like a round bit of bread. Ghosts figure large in Catholic belief. Until recently, they called one of the gods they worship the "Holy Ghost".

All right, the preceding paragraph was a parody of ill-motivated observation. I know that Catholics only worship one God. The Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or Ghost) are three persons in one God. That's what the C of E believes, too. But it is not easy to explain simply.

Similarly, it is not easy to explain to a post-Freudian secularist that ascetical practices – penance, fasting – are not exhibitions of self-hatred. The one thing everyone wants to know about Opus Dei is whether they beat themselves with knotted cords. The inquirers hope that this is a bit of kinky sex they can hear about.

Cardinal Newman (1801-90) used to beat himself a bit. "Taking the discipline," he called it. Fr Faber, a fellow member of the Catholic congregation of priests called the Oratorians, made excuses about taking the discipline, saying it was bad for his health. Perhaps that sort of practice is impossible in the modern world.

I can't say I go in for beating myself. All Catholics are, however, bound by their religion to do some penance every Friday in honour of the Passion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday – that dying man nailed to the cross. Catholics believe he isn't dead. They talk to him, same as you'd talk to the cat, only they really think he understands.

I want to say what Opus Dei is really about, but there's The Da Vinci Code to deal with first. The chief baddy in that bad book, you must know, is called Silas, an albino Opus Dei "monk" who kills people.

But no members of Opus Dei are monks, they are ordinary civilian women and men, and they seldom kill anyone. Albinos are admitted as members, as available. So are black people, and were welcomed a long time before a lot of other white churchy people recognised them as equals.

A few facts, then. Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by a Spaniard called Josemaria Escriva. He was recently declared a saint. The Catholic Church fully approves of Opus Dei, which has about 80,000 members round the world. Its chief function is to remind lay Christians that by their baptism they have a vocation to seek holiness, which is to say, friendship with God. Ordinary people, Opus Dei declares, do not have to become monks or nuns to find God; they can offer to him their daily work.

Most members are married folk. A very few are priests. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has just asked Opus Dei to take on a parish in Hampstead, but the people who go to church there will not be Opus Dei members any more than people who go to a church run by the Jesuits are Jesuits.

What do members of Opus Dei do? They pray in the morning and in the evening. They go to Mass every day, as pious Catholics do. But most of the day is spent working, as anyone has to, and with their families. All the time, they are aware that they are in the presence of God and, as his children, inwardly offer him the things they do during the day, cheerfully. It sounds nice enough to me and almost makes me want to join up again. Perhaps they are too normal for me, though.

Anyway, because Opus Dei wants lay people to be responsible for their own actions, it never gives members any orders or advice about their professional or political lives. That was the great taboo when I was a member: you could ask for advice about praying but would never dream of asking about voting.

We wouldn't just shop at a grocer's because it was run by a member. So Opus Dei doesn't boast of having a specific MP or plumber as a member. It's up to the member. There is such a thing as privacy. Perhaps he might be hounded out of his job by those playground bullies.

I've noticed that when people leave organisations, they can make a hobby of slagging them off, thus proving their own superiority. But the Catholic Church is a big place, hence the name. Christians are meant to be seeking unity and loving one another, so the Bible says, not denouncing anyone who follows a slightly different way from their own.

Even the chief inspector of schools rather bafflingly called this week for us to be "intolerant of intolerance", so I think multi-cultural tolerance should at least extend to a voluntary association of committed Catholics like Opus Dei.

There's a lot of information about it at www.opusdei.org.

Ex-member: I received so much

By Alan Robinson. These are comments Alan gave in this blog which deserve to be placed in the main page.

I knew OD for ten years before becoming a member. I was a member for ten years and learnt SO much and received so much. I left believing that I did not have a true vocation. Everything I found in the Work was wonderful, and the priests (especially) and others fantastic. My one criticism is that I don't think they really "interview" and examine potential members enough. I don't think that they really checked me over enough.

[N.B. from Raul: According to Opus Dei officials, there have indeed been mistakes committed which they hope will be less and less as the directors of Opus Dei learn and mature. Thanks again to Alan for his piece.]

Back in the Garden of Eden

By Caminante from Puerto Rico in A Spiritual Journey. Caminante describes herself as: "60's and 70's generation, loving wife of a loving husband, mother of two, I love life, love God, love to pray, am Catholic, love the Beatles, Sade, Maria Callas, Andrea Bocelli, Raphael, Cezanne, Van Gogh, french lounge music, the Opus Dei concept of sainthood, Wayne Dyer, Paulo Coehlo, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra..."

When I mention that I feel a real affinity for the Opus Dei concept of sainthood, people look at me like I am crazy. Between the idea of saints dying these horrifying deaths and The Da Vinci Code no one wants to have anything to do with it.

But to any Catholic or to any Christian for that matter, the concept of achieving sainthood is extremely attractive if you take away the martyrdom. And that is what the Opus Dei does: it takes away the necessity of martyrdom from sainthood.

You can become a saint in your everyday life, you can become a saint just living your everyday life, in your work, in your marriage, as a parent. You do not need to be extraordinary for sainthood; live your life in chastity which means no adultery, with charity, in love, and you are on your way.

Love God above all things, love your family, be excellent in your work, with your wife or husband, with your children, do your best for your parents and your family.

Be humble, know that all your talents all your ideas and creativity come from God and use them as God would want you to use them in love and for the benefit of many, and that is all that is asked of you.

Does that sound so hard or so terrible? If we all thought that way what a different planet we would be living in; I believe we would be back in the Garden Of Eden.

Friendly and family air

By Anne Soriano in Home Matters

Bishop Javier Echevarria or "the Father" as we fondly call him finally came to Manila on July 27 and left on Aug 1. Once again we saw and felt the family atmosphere of Opus Dei with the get-togethers that we had with the Father. In the general get-together that we had at SMX convention center, many people from all walks of life, members and non-members came to hear him.

With 9,000 people that gathered they said that they felt very much the friendly and family air we breathe in the Work. They also saw some other familiar faces they were not expecting to be there. Indeed, it is a small world, and many have heard or followed the Work in one way or the other.

What was the message of the Father to his Filipina daughters and sons? In summary, they are the following:

1) to be joyful and optimistic in Christianizing the world; to deal with young people, since they are the future of the world; to have a lot of hope in getting many people involved in our projects (social or otherwise), and even asking for financial help
2) to take care of the family; for husbands and wives to love each other, and to take care of the children; love should prevail in the families; to take care of the material and spiritual care in the homes
3) to avoid grudges and resentments (which many Filipinos are prone to); this goes against Christian charity; to forgive and forget.

Ex-member: I never encountered any conspiratorial non-sense

By Pat Delaney, answering allegations by someone against Opus Dei, at Greenspun. According to the accusations, life in Opus is allegedly "miserable" and Opus Dei's practices are allegedly "very far from Catholic orthodoxy". The text of Pat Delaney is the last piece in a series of posts and counter-posts at the Greenspun website.

Dear Atila,

I have known the Work for many years. In fact, I have previously been a member, and did in fact "whistle." I was an active member for five years before I decided it was not quite right for me about 8-9 years ago. Nevertheless, the people in the Work are still very much a part of my life in some ways. I have NEVER encountered any of the conspiratorial nonsense you allege. The types of things you allege cannot be proven otherwise as you allege they are done secretly.

What I have seen within the Work are many highly gifted people who live saintly lives, and less gifted ones who are willing to struggle with themselves. As with any human organization, there is an occasional idiot or two hanging around that everyone tries to be patient with in the hope that they will grow.

What I have also seen much of is something else. I have seen people who, when they see the opportunity for much sacrifice in their life, the sacrifices that will really need to be done to reform their spiritual life, will recoil in disgust after making an initial attempt. This often happens in the spiritual development of any person and is referred to as the "the dark night." Saint John and Saint Theresa of Avila refer to these periods as occurring twice along the path to great spiritual perfection. This path is well know and is defined by three phases: Purgative, Illuminative and Unitive and are separated by these dark periods. This is all explained quite well in "Spiritual Passages" by Father Benedict Groeschel (not in Opus Dei).

Many people when they reach these dark phases, or encounter some other great temptation, give in to the temptation and just stop trying. These people sometime find their way back to spiritual development, sometimes not. Unfortunately, rather than realize that this failure is the result of their own weakness, these people will try and blame their own personal decision on factors controlled by others.

I see this often among ex-members who wish to justify there own personal decision to leave the "Work." They associate the demands of growing in the spiritual life, with the rigors associated with living the "Norms" and other activities that EVERY person, in and out of the Work will eventually need to undertake if they are to develop themselves and grow to be a person of great virtue (i.e., a saint).

You have left the Work for your own reasons. That is fine. That is your personal freedom and your right. No one in the Work disrespects that. But you sin greatly by maligning those who, of their own freedom, choose to stay and use the Work as a vehicle for their own spiritual growth. That is all that Opus Dei really is. Its a service-provider and a vehicle for what can be great spirtual growth for those who wish to take that ride.

The LIBROS website you refer to is trash. It is set up by bitter people who wish to justify the unhappiness they have with their personal decisions by maligning others. It teaches attacks on the Church herself. It is full of relativism, skepticism and cynicalism. These are the marks of people who have turned their eyes from the truth.

I will pray for you Atila, as I'm sure your true friends in the Work regularly do despite your absence and attacks upon them. But in charity, I tell you that your present crusade is guided by none other than the Father of Lies.

-- Pat Delaney (pat@patdelaney.net), February 26, 2004.

Authentically Catholic

By a political scientist, 3 October 2008

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Opus Dei by St Josemaria Escriva. I wish all my friends at Opus Dei a blessed anniversary!

The Opus Dei has been such a blessing to me. The priests there have heard my confession hundreds of times over the last three years (this has been such a gift). First Fr Michael and now Fr Marin have been such gentle, friendly and able spiritual guides for to me. At first I baulked at the idea of having a spiritual director and meeting him regularly. Now I can't do without it! It's so good to have someone wise and experienced to advice you and guide you. And they do it so gracefully. Spiritual direction is not scary or awkward at all ("so my friend, how has your week been?")

I've had circles (classes on the spiritual life) with Dr Ignacio, Claro and Dr Alvin and I've gained so much from them. It has helped me serve the Legion better too. I now attend, with Paul, Ferdi, Jordi, Ajith and Evan a super interesting class on Catholic doctrine with Dr Alvin. His lecturing abilities surpass most of my professors' and his jokes are priceless. He opens up for us the wealth of the Catholic Church's treasury of doctrine and teaching.

The spirituality of the Opus Dei is authentically and heroically Catholic, truly - as our Holy Father has said - "God's work"

It's great to have a beautiful oratory to pray at so near school - always a sanctuary where prayer is much easier.

The library has been a vital resource too for my own spiritual reading, for my apostolate and as help in writing allocutios and articles.

The Opus Dei retreats I have attended have been so refreshing and I come out of them with good resolutions and inspirations. The gatherings, the dinners, the barbeques, the interesting conversations about books, religion, philosophy are all cherished.

Yes I've been blessed! And I thank God for the Opus Dei!

By a political scientist

Benedict XVI: Escriva knew that we cannot make ourselves holy

Homily of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, at the thanksgiving Mass for the beatification of Josemaría Escrivá, In the Church of the Twelve Apostles, Rome, May 19, 1992

St John’s Apocalypse, which tells us of so many terrible events both past and future, also opens up Heaven upon the earth and shows us that God still holds the world in his hands. However great the power of evil, God’s victory is assured in the end.

From the depths of the world’s misery there rises a song of praise. God’s throne is surrounded by an ever-growing choir of souls who have achieved salvation, who, forgetful of self, have made their lives into a movement of joy and glory. This choir does not sing only in the next world, but is being prepared in the midst of the history of this world, and is already present among us, though hidden. This is clearly shown by the voice that comes from the throne of God himself: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great” (Apoc 19:5).

This is a call to our world, a call to commit ourselves to the one thing that matters and so form part of the eternal liturgy here and now.

The beatification of Josemaría Escrivá tells us that this priest of our times now forms part of the choir that is praising God in Heaven, and that in him too the words of today’s reading are fulfilled: “Those whom he predestined, he also glorified” (Rm 8:30). This glorifying does not belong to the future but has already taken place, as beatifications remind us. “Praise our God small and great”: Josemaría Escrivá heard this voice, and understood it as the vocation of his life, but he did not only apply it to himself and his own life. He considered it his mission to pass on the “voice which comes from the throne”, and make it heard in our times. He invited great and small to praise God, and by that very fact he glorified God.

Josemaría Escrivá realised very early on that God had a plan for him, that God wanted something of him. But he did not know what it was. How could he find the answer, where should he look for it? He started his search primarily by listening to the Word of God, Holy Scripture. He read the Bible not as a book of the past, nor as a book of problems to be argued about, but as a word for the present, that talks to us today: a word in which we are each the protagonist, and need to look for our place in it, so that we can find our way.

In this search, he was especially moved by the story of the blind man Bartimaeus, who, sitting at the roadside on the way to Jericho, heard that Jesus was passing by and shouted out his appeal for mercy (cf. Mk 10:46-52). While the disciples tried to make the blind beggar keep quiet, Jesus turned towards him and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus replied, “Lord, that I may see!” Josemaría recognised himself in Bartimaeus. “Lord, that I may see!” was his constant cry: “Lord, make me see your will!”

People only begin to see truly when they learn to see God. And they begin to see God when they see his will and are ready to make it their own.

The desire to see God’s will and to identify his will with God’s was always the basic motivation of Escrivá’s life. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This desire, this unceasing plea, prepared him to answer, in the moment of illumination, like Peter: “Lord, at your word I will let down the nets” (Lk 5:5). His “yes” was no less audacious than the Apostle’s, on Lake Genesareth, after a long and unproductive night.

Spain was convulsed with hatred for the Church, for Christ, and for God. People were trying to rip the Church out of the country at the time when Escrivá received the call to let down his nets for God. From that moment on, and throughout his life, as a fisher of God, he kept throwing out the divine nets tirelessly in the seas of our history, to bring great and small to the light, to return their sight to them.

The will of God. Saint Paul says of it to the Thessalonians: “This is the will of God: your sanctification” (I Thess 4:3). The will of God is, ultimately, very simple, and at its core it is always the same: holiness. And holiness means, as today’s reading tells us, becoming like Christ (cf. Rom 8:29).

Josemaría Escrivá considered this call as addressed not to himself alone, but above all as a message to pass on to others: to encourage them to seek for holiness, and to gather a community of brothers and sisters for Christ.

The meaning of the word “holy” has undergone a dangerous narrowing in the course of time, and this certainly still influences it today. It makes us think of the saints whose statues and paintings we see at the altars, of miracles and heroic virtues, and it suggests that holiness is for a few chosen ones, among whom we cannot be included. Then we leave holiness to the few, the unknown number, and content ourselves with being just the way we are.

Amidst this spiritual apathy, Josemaría Escrivá issued a wake-up call, shouting: “No! Holiness is not something extra, it is what is normal for every baptised person. Holiness does not consist of the sort of heroism that is impossible to imitate, but has a thousand forms and can become a reality anywhere, in any job. It is normal, and it consists of directing one’s ordinary life towards God and filling it through with the spirit of faith.”

Conscious of this message, our new Blessed journeyed untiringly through different continents, speaking to everyone to encourage them to be saints, to live the adventure of being Christians wherever their lives took them. In that way he became a great man of action, who lived by God’s will and called others to it, without ever becoming a “moralizer”.

He knew that we cannot make ourselves holy. Just as love presupposes the passive – being loved –, so too holiness always goes together with the passive: accepting the fact of being loved by God.

The Work he founded was called Opus Dei, not Opus nostrum: the Work of God, not a work of ours. He did not want to create his work, the work of Josemaría Escrivá: he wasn’t aiming to build a monument to himself. “My work is not mine,” he could and did say, in line with Christ’s words and in identification with Christ (cf. Jn 7:16): he did not want anything of his own, but to make room for God to do his Work.

He was certainly also aware of what Jesus tells us in St John’s Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe” (Jn 6:29); in other words, to surrender ourselves to God so that he can act through us.

Thus we come to another point of identification with the word of Sacred Scripture. The words of St Peter in today’s Gospel were something Josemaría Escrivá also made his own: Homo peccator sum: I am a sinful man. When our new Blessed saw the abundant catch he had achieved with his life, he was appalled, like St Peter, on seeing his own wretchedness in comparison with what God wanted to do in and through him.

He used to call himself a “founder without foundation” and “a clumsy instrument”. He knew and saw clearly that all of this was not done by himself, that he could not do it, but that it was God acting through an instrument which seemed totally disproportionate. And that is what “heroic virtue” ultimately means: making a reality of what God alone can do.

Josemaría Escrivá recognised his own wretchedness, but surrendered himself to God without worrying about himself, holding himself ready, instead, for whatever God wanted. He got rid of self, and of all self-interest.

Again and again he would speak of his “madnesses”: the madness of beginning without any means, beginning in impossible circumstances. They seemed to be madnesses that he had to stake everything on, and he ran the risk. In this context, the words of his great compatriot Miguel de Unamuno come to mind: “Only madmen do what is reasonable: the wise can only do foolishness.”

He dared to be something like a Don Quixote of God. After all, does it not seem quixotic to teach, in the middle of today’s world, about humility, obedience, chastity, detachment from material possessions, and forgetfulness of self? God’s will was what was really reasonable to him, and that showed that the most seemingly irrational things were really reasonable.

The will of God. God’s will has a specific place and a specific shape in this world: it has a body. The Body of Christ has remained in the Church. Hence, obedience to God’s will cannot be separated from obedience to the Church. Only if I include my mission in my obedience to the Church do I have the guarantee that my own ideals can be considered God’s will, the guarantee that I am really following his call.

So for Josemaría Escrivá the basic measure of his mission was always obedience to and union with the hierarchical Church. This does not imply any kind of positivism or dictatorship.

The Church is not a power-structure, nor is she an association for religious, social or moral purposes that has to work out methods of achieving her aims better, updating and replacing those methods as necessary. The Church is a Sacrament. That means that she does not belong to herself. She does not do her own work, but has to be ever available to do God’s. She is bound up with God’s will. The Sacraments structure her life, and the centre of the Sacraments is the Eucharist, in which we touch the real presence of Jesus Christ in the most direct way.

And so, for our new Blessed, ecclesiality meant first and foremost living in the centre of the Church, which is the Eucharist. He loved and proclaimed the Eucharist in all its dimensions: as adoration of our Lord present among us in a hidden but real way; as a gift in which Jesus gives himself to us again and again; as a sacrifice, in accordance with the words of Scripture, “Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me” (Heb 10:5; cf. Ps 40:6-8).

Only Christ can share himself out, because he has offered himself up in sacrifice, because he has surpassed himself out of love, because he has surrendered himself, and surrenders himself still. We will only manage to become like the Image of the Son if we enter into this movement of self-giving love, if we become sacrifice. Love is not possible without the passive aspect of the passio which transforms us, opening us up.

When Josemaría Escriva fell seriously ill at the age of two and was despaired of by the doctors, his mother decided to dedicate him to Mary. Despite huge difficulties, she took her son up the steep, rough path to the shrine of Our Lady of Torreciudad, and there she offered him to the Mother of the Lord, asking her to be his mother. So all his life Josemaria knew that he was under the protection of our Lady, who was his Mother.

In the room where he worked, opposite the door, there was a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe; whenever he went in, his first glance was for her. And his last glance of all was also for her. At the moment he died, he had just gone into that room and looked at the picture of his Mother, when he collapsed on the floor. As he died, the Angelus bells were ringing, announcing Mary’s “fiat” and the grace of the Incarnation of her Son, our Saviour. Under that sign, which had been there at the beginning of his life and had shown him his road, he returned to God.

Let us thank God our Lord for this witness of faith in our times, for this untiring herald of his will, and let us ask, “Lord, may I also see! May I recognise your will and do it!” Amen.

Benedict XVI: Work is a Means and Path of Holiness

By Benedict XVI's address to Italian Artisans. Benedict XVI refers to the founder of Opus Dei as a "Saint of our times."

Dear friends, continue with tenacity and perseverance to preserve and put to good use the productive craft culture that can give life to important opportunities for balanced financial progress and encounters between men and peoples.

Furthermore, may you as Christians be committed to living and testifying to the "Gospel of work", in the awareness that the Lord calls all the baptized to holiness through their daily occupations.

Josemaría Escrivá, a Saint of our times, notes in this regard that since Christ who worked as a craftsman took it into his hands, "work has become for us a redeemed and redemptive reality. Not only is it the background of man's life, it is a means and path of holiness. It is something to be sanctified and something which sanctifies" (Christ Is Passing By, Homily, n. 47).

Benedict XVI on Opus Dei

By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, October 6, 2002. An article by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, published on the occasion of the canonization of Josemaría Escrivá. This is one of the best and most concise explanations of Opus Dei.

I have always been struck by the interpretation which Josemaría Escrivá gave of the name Opus Dei—an interpretation which we could call biographical and which allows us to understand the founder in his spiritual dimension. Escrivá knew that he should found something, but he was always aware that whatever it was was not his work, that he had not invented anything, that the Lord had simply made use of him. Thus it was not his work, but Opus Dei [Latin for "work of God"]. He was only an instrument with which God had acted.

While I was pondering this fact, there came to mind the words of the Lord reported in the Gospel of John (5:17): “My Father is always working.” These are words spoken by Jesus in the course of a discussion with some religious specialists who did not want to recognize that God could act even on the Sabbath. This is a debate that is still going on, in a certain way, among people and even Christians of our own time. Some people think that after creation God “retired” and no longer has any interest in our everyday affairs. According to this manner of thinking, God could no longer enter into the fabric of our daily life. But the words of Jesus affirm the opposite. A man open to the presence of God discovers that God is always working and still works today: We should, then, let him enter and let him work. And so things are born which open to the future and renew mankind.

All this helps us to understand why Josemaría Escrivá did not consider himself “founder” of anything, but only a person who wants to fulfill the will of God, to second his action, the work, precisely, of God. In this sense, the theocentrism of Escrivá, in accordance with the words of Jesus, means this confidence in the fact that God has not retired from the world, that God is working now and we ought only to put ourselves at his disposal, to be ready, capable of reacting to his calling. This, for me, is a message of greatest importance. It is a message which leads to overcoming what could be considered the great temptation of our times: the pretense, that is, that after the "big bang" God retired from history. God’s action did not “stop” at the moment of the "big bang", but continues throughout time in the world of nature and the world of man.

The founder of Opus Dei said: I am not the one who invented anything; there is Another who acts, and I am only ready to serve as an instrument. So the name, and all the reality which we call Opus Dei, is deeply bound up with the interior life of the founder. He, while remaining very discreet on this point, makes us understand that he was in permanent dialogue, in real contact, with Him who created us and works through us and with us. The Book of Exodus (33:11) says of Moses that God spoke with him “face to face, as a friend speaks with a friend.” I think that, even if the veil of discretion hides many details from us, still from some small references we can very well apply to Josemaría Escrivá this “speaking as a friend speaks with a friend,” which opens the doors of the world so that God can become present, to work and transform everything.

In this light one can understand even better what holiness means, as well as the universal calling to holiness. Knowing a little about the history of saints, and understanding that in the causes of canonization there is inquiry into “heroic” virtue, we almost inevitably have a mistaken concept of holiness: “It is not for me,” we are led to think, “because I do not feel capable of attaining heroic virtue. It is too high a goal.” Holiness then becomes a thing reserved for some “greats” whose images we see on the altars, and who are completely different from us ordinary sinners. But this is a mistaken notion of holiness, a wrong perception which has been corrected—and this seems to me the central point—precisely by Josemaría Escrivá.

Heroic virtue does not mean that the saint performs a type of “gymnastics” of holiness, something that normal people do not dare to do. It means rather that in the life of a person God’s presence is revealed—something man could not do by himself and through himself. Perhaps in the final analysis we are rather dealing with a question of terminology, because the adjective “heroic” has been badly interpreted. Heroic virtue properly speaking does not mean that one has done great things by oneself, but rather that in one’s life there appear realities which the person has not done himself, because he has been transparent and ready for the work of God. Or, in other words, to be a saint is nothing other than to speak with God as a friend speaks with a friend. This is holiness.

To be holy does not mean being superior to others; the saint can be very weak, with many mistakes in his life. Holiness is this profound contact with God, becoming a friend of God: it is letting the Other work, the Only One who can really make the world both good and happy. And if, then, Josemaría Escrivá speaks of the calling of all to be saints, I think that he is actually referring to this personal experience of his of not having done incredible things by himself, but of having let God work. And thus was born a renewal, a force for good in the world, even if all the weaknesses of mankind will remain ever present. Truly we are all capable, we are all called to open ourselves up to this friendship with God, to not leave the hands of God, to not neglect to turn and return to the Lord, speaking with him as if speaking with a friend, knowing well that the Lord really is a true friend of everyone, including those who cannot do great things by themselves.

From all this I have better understood the inner character of Opus Dei, this surprising union of absolute fidelity to the Church’s great tradition, to its faith, and unconditional openness to all the challenges of this world, whether in the academic world, in the field of work, or in matters of the economy, etc. The person who is bound to God, who has this uninterrupted conversation, can dare to respond to these challenges, and no longer has fear. For the person who stands in God’s hands always falls into God’s hands. And so fear vanishes, and in its place is born the courage to respond to today’s world.

Christian-bashing: the last acceptable bigotry

By Charles Moore in The Telegraph-Journal. Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotia based freelance writer and editor whose column appears weekly at the Telegraph-Journal.

Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe's attack on a Quebec Conservative candidate over her membership in the Catholic prelature Opus Dei, and lack of any consequential significant expression of media censure or popular outrage, further underscores that Christian-bashing is the one remaining socially-acceptable form of discrimination and intolerance in Canada.

While it's unremarkable that Mr. Duceppe, a former communist and still thoroughgoing left-winger, despises traditionalist Christianity, that his criticism of Nicole Charbonneau Barron, Conservative candidate in the Montreal-area riding of St. Bruno-St. Hubert, for her Opus Dei affiliation received only cursory and passing mention from the commentariat speaks volumes about popular acceptance of anti-Christian bigotry in our increasingly secular humanist culture.

Opus Dei, you see, adheres faithfully to official Catholic doctrine condemning abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage, unlike some (more socially acceptable) "cafeteria Catholics" who imagine they can legitimately pick and choose among which Church doctrines and moral teachings they will affirm or oppose. The mission statement of the organization, founded in 1928 by Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002, is "to spread the message that work and the circumstances of everyday life are occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society."

Opus Dei's first Canadian member was Jacques Bonneville of Montreal who established the group's work there in Canada in 1957 at the invitation of Cardinal Paul-Emile Léger. There are now an estimated 600 Opus Dei members in this country (some 87,000 worldwide), mostly married men and women, as well as approximately 1,600 co-operators who pray for the group's work and help with apostolic initiatives, including programs for young people, professionals, and families such as seminars for high school students, parenting courses, summer camps, and student residences at several universities intended to provide an environment for Christian formation and help participants become "sowers of peace and joy." There are now 16 Opus Dei centres in five Canadian cities: Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver.

Opus Dei was viciously slandered in Dan Brown's amateurishly-written but wildly popular pulp-fiction fantasy novel The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 Tom Hanks film derived from it, in which the organization is caricatured as a sinister, murderous cult, a stereotype Mr. Duceppe presumably sought to channel with his assault on Ms. Barron's religious beliefs.

While he didn't call for Ms. Barron to resign as a parliamentary candidate, Duceppe was clearly fear-mongering in attempting to portray her as a member of a "secret society" with an agenda to impose "fundamentalist" Christian views on Parliament. That's pretty much lib-left boilerplate referencing any devout Christian participating in public life, but what especially rankles is that had Mr. Duceppe delivered a similar critique of the religious beliefs of, say, a Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh candidate, the political correctness brigades would have been over him like flies on a garbage truck, condemning him as an in tolerant racist. However, attack serious Christianity and the silence is deafening.

The double-standard is infuriating. It's become abundantly clear that at least among media chatterati, devout Christians are about as welcome in electoral politics as fire ants at a picnic, the message being that Christian social conservatives should be disqualified from holding political power and influence because in the estimation of lib-left self-appointed elites they are moral interventionists promoting hidden agendas - ideologically out of sync with a society allegedly comprised mainly of social liberals. The further implication is that religious people who actually take seriously and try to practice the principles, standards, and doctrines of their faith must be relegated to second-class citizenship. A topical example is the bleating from stage left over U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's evangelical/pentecostal faith affiliation.

To draw a clearer bead on just how offensive this trope is, try inserting the words "Jew" or "Jewish" in place of "Christian" or "social conservative," or "religious right" in news reports and commentaries expressing shock and alarm that "fundamentalist" Christians are actually participating in the political process.

Sounds ugly, doesn't it? So why do secular humanists think it's perfectly OK to say such things about Christians seeking office? It's nothing less than selective, left-wing, secularist bigotry.

A struggle within our reach

By a priest of Midwestern United States in his blog, Clerical Reform.

I received a question about the quote from St. Josemaria appearing in the blog header: "A priest should be exclusively a man of God. He should reject any desire to shine in areas where other Christians do not need him."

St. Josemaria is quite a lightning rod. He is loved and revered as well as hated and reviled. It is in not enough to say, "So was our Lord." His model of priestly service is amazing on its own terms. He was sinful man, a broken man, a man whose sins were borne on the Holy Cross. Yet, he is also a saint. This ought to give us great comfort. This is not to say that we ought to embrace sin. It is rather to say that there is no place for discouragement. Yes, we shall sin. Yes, we have sinned. Yes, our sins make us foolish. However, they are not stronger than Jesus Christ. If we submit to Him and not to the sin, sanctity may be in our reach as well. Here's a quote that I think sums up St. Josemaria and his view on this:

"The Church, the souls, of all continents, of all times present and to come, expect a lot from you... But you should have it very firmly fixed in your head and in your heart that you will be fruitless if you are not a saint or, let me put it better, if you don’t struggle to be a saint." (From The Forge, 873)

Our job as priests is not perfection; it is the struggle for perfection. The struggle is within our reach.