The most simple way to try to become a saint

By Chuck in National Catholic Register

Opus Dei is not a member organization in the sense that you fill out an application and get a membership card.  It’s a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.  The name means Work of God.  Opus Dei does have an organizational structure though that includes a Bishop in Rome, centers, priests and lay people who provide support.  Its mission is to help people turn their work and daily activities into occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society.  It’s all about living holiness in the “middle of the world” as St. Josemaria describes it.  I find it to be the most simple way to try to become a saint that there is.

I was introduced to Opus Dei many years ago and am a Cooperator in central Missouri where we have a growing group of men and women who are trying to live our lives according to the teaching of Jesus.  We receive formation through meetings and living a plan of life that includes daily prayer, Mass, frequent confession and an annual retreat.  I’ve had the opportunity to visit Opus Dei centers here in the U.S. in St. Louis, New York and in Belgium, Germany and Italy.  The priests I’ve met are some of the most joyful I know of.

Opus Dei has had an incredibly positive influence on my life.  My wife and oldest daughter also participate in Opus Dei retreats and feel like its a very important part of their spiritual development.

I am amazed to see the amount of misinformation that is circulated on the internet about Opus Dei.  It’s not a secret society.  There’s actually nothing secret about it.  You can learn more at the Opus Dei website: www.opusdei.org.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls: Vatican Spokesman

Catholic News Agency

During his 22 years as spokesman for St. John Paul II, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls became somewhat of a legend in the Vatican – not only for his keen professional abilities and insight into the Pope's mind, but also for his genuine kindness and deep spiritual life.

In a word, most who knew the late Spanish layman, who died earlier this week, have referred to him as a “gentleman” who was elegant, professional, kind and incredibly savvy. 

John Allen

When I spoke to Navarro for the last time, I tried to tell him what he had meant to me, and how much he had helped me when I was just starting out. I’m not sure he took it all in, because by that stage in the conversation he was obviously fatigued and drifting in and out.

If he didn’t quite get it, let me say it now: I’m probably not here, writing this appreciation or doing anything else in journalism, had it not been for Joaquin Navarro-Valls. To quote Shakespeare, “Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”

New York Times

Navarro, as he was widely known, had little in common with the partisan attack dogs of modern-day political warfare.

“Grace under pressure,” Greg Burke, the Vatican’s current spokesman, wrote on Twitter upon his death. In a subsequent email, Mr. Burke attested to Mr. Navarro-Valls’s storytelling skills: “When talking about John Paul, he could have you hanging on every word.”

But Mr. Navarro-Valls’s influence extended beyond the press office.

In 1994, he led the Holy See’s delegation at a conference in Cairo, where he helped form an alliance of Catholic and Muslim nations to oppose the legal recognition of abortion as a human right. He challenged the Clinton administration’s position on the topic. 

National Catholic Reporter

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, who succeeded Navarro-Valls as Vatican press director beginning in 2006, remembered him as a "master in the way he carried out his service."

"Navarro always remained a friend for me, an example of discreet spiritual life, true and profound, fully integrated in his work, a model of dedication at the service of the pope and the church, a master of communications, although for me — as I have already said, but repeat — inimitable," Lombardi said in an editorial published July 6 on Vatican Radio.

Greg Erlandson, director and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service, covered the Vatican for CNS from 1986-89. He said that as the first lay director of the Vatican press office, Navarro-Valls "was a groundbreaking figure in Vatican communications."

"He raised the level of professionalism at the press office and embodied that professionalism in his relationship with the world's news media. He exemplified the ideal that one could be a fully professional communicator and at the same time be a person of deep faith," Erlandson said in a July 6 statement.

"In this way, he was the perfect collaborator with the pope he so loyally served, St. John Paul II," he said.

Fr. Raymond de Souza, National Catholic Register

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, one of the most unusual figures in Curial history, died Wednesday and was buried Friday in Rome. St. John Paul’s longtime papal spokesman offered a most extraordinary — and successful — service, one that has lessons for today.

Navarro-Valls was a pioneer. His intimate collaboration with John Paul will unlikely be replicated in any other pontificate. John Paul was unusual, in that he entrusted his papacy over long years to a few key people who therefore were enormously influential: Navarro-Valls; his personal secretary, Stanislaw Dziwisz; his prefect of doctrine, Joseph Ratzinger; his vicar for Rome, Camillo Ruini.

Nevertheless, there are lessons for today from Navarro-Valls’ example.

First, a spokesman is only as effective as his principal permits him to be. A spokesman who does not regularly have direct access to the pope will be very limited in his effectiveness. The Vatican press corps must know that the press spokesman has sufficient access to the Holy Father and that his statements do in fact reflect the reality of the situation, and not merely his commentary upon it. When Navarro-Valls clarified something for the press corps, they knew that he was speaking the Holy Father’s mind.

That was not the case after Navarro-Valls retired. His successor, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, was a true gentleman, whose genial manner and generous spirit served the Church well in many difficult moments, but he did not have similar access to either Pope Benedict or Pope Francis. Thus his comments were too often regarded as attempts to spin the events, rather than an authoritative presentation of them.

Second, professional competence matters. It is not essential to have been a journalist to serve as an effective spokesman, but it is necessary to know what journalists need and how they think. That Pope Francis appointed Greg Burke, like Navarro-Valls a veteran journalist, to the post underscores that this lesson has been learned.

Though Navarro-Valls’ principal work was in the Holy See Press Office, he also was a key figure behind the professional training offered to Church communications personnel at the University of the Holy Cross, the Opus Dei university in Rome. Indeed, by sheer force of example, Navarro-Valls led a global shift in the way the Church approached communications. The Holy Cross courses were an institutional expression of it. 

Strategic Directions of the Prelature of Opus Dei 2017: Action Items Relevant to Formators

Last March 3, the website of Opus Dei published the Letter of the Prelate of Opus Dei containing the resolutions of the General Congress which delineates the strategic directions of the Prelature under its new head, Msgr. Fernando Ocariz. 

Since the letter covers apostolic undertakings like schools and other educational initiatives, here is a list of the priority action items in outline form that are relevant to formators in schools whose inspiration comes from the teachings of St. Josemaria and Opus Dei. 

Action Items Relevant to Religion Teachers, Mentors and other Formators

St. Josemaria: not true that people are closed to the faith. To everyone, announce Jesus Christ.

All with Peter to Jesus through Mary

Reaffirm filial union with Pope

Build on rock

Renew desire to incarnate and communicate spirit of Opus Dei, the teachings of St. Josemaria 

Current Challenges in the Adventure of Formation
In the first place, the centrality of the Person of Jesus Christ.

This means:

Go deeper into contemplative prayer in the midst of the world, and to help others to walk in paths of contemplation;

Rediscover value of ascetical means;

Reach whole person: intelligence, will, heart, relationships with others;

Foster inner freedom, to do things out of love;

Help to think, so decide with personal responsibility;

Trust in the grace of God, to deal with voluntarism [relying on willpower alone] and sentimentality [influenced by feelings than by thought]

Expound the ideal of the Christian life not confused with perfectionism, teaching to live with one's own weakness and that of others;

Take on attitude of hopeful abandonment, based on divine filiation.

Seek resources for the development of apostolic work
Students must have great desires to build society
Promote in all a great professional drive
Renewed urgency: Promote many vocations
Dynamism of “going forth.”

More necessary: Give priority to personal dealings: brings greatest fruit

Giving and receiving formation

First place: supernatural means

Effort to (a) use understandable language, positive, encouraging, hopeful, (b) facilitate the active participation of those attending; (c) show the practical impact on family and social life, so that the unity of life grows

Sincere interest for others

Training and formation of those in personal spiritual direction, priests or laity
Strengthen the Christian identity of the undertaking, the quality of its management and the service offered to society

In the Church

Develop mutual appreciation among the faithful of the Church: relationship with people of other institutions and realities of the Church
Deal closely with Bishops and priests of geographical area, and to collaborate with them if possible
Collaborate in catechesis, premarital courses, social work, in parishes or other places that need it
 

New apostolic challenges

All including young to be protagonists of new culture, new legislation, new fashion. To overcome the contemporary relativist mentality
Continuous self-improvement in gift of tongues. Empathy: take into account concerns of neighbor; not to overwhelm, not to fall into monologue; respect the dignity of each person, over and above their errors
Get help of experts to understand complex areas. Demand for professional competency: to perfect creation

Form those experts
Develop, with prudence and with daring, a plan of formation adapted to each person
Train opinion leaders; to promote information initiatives

Importance of witness so as to be heard. Present attractive witnesses of Christian life.
Full support to undertakings [schools]. Through schools, make it possible that more people are dealt with
Start new educational centers from the earliest childhood: form parents and children.

Importance of family

Families to learn deep meaning of the virtue of hope

Study practical ways to support mutual love between spouses and Christian life in families, to promote the sacramental life of grandparents, parents and children, especially frequent confession [family catechesis]
Create public opinion in favor of large families and reinforce the attention to these families who are already in contact
Priority: Guiding and educating families [Educhild, etc]
Initiatives to reach many young families

Apostolate with youth

Young as apple of our eyes

Clear priority of formation of the young: Help to become souls of prayer, talk and listen to God
They learn value of true friendship, the importance of study, reading and professional excellence to serve the Church and society; fortitude, temperance, service
They learn to give reason for their faith
Help youth and their parents to value attractiveness of a total self-giving to God, and vocation to form a Christian family

Develop attractive ways to continue dealings with graduates (former parents and students): young professionals, single or newly married. Professionalize alumni associations

Young and married: do works of mercy, spiritual and corporal
Deep study of Social Doctrine of the Church, through courses and conferences

Promote research with wide impact. Collaborate with prestigious intellectuals 

Some priorities

Spread of the complete works of Saint Josemaria
First priority above all: union with God, starting with contemplating Jesus. Jesus in Bread and Word

Important: Accompany the family and the young
Urgent: enlarge the heart: tenderness to all poor, in need