Vocation to Opus Dei: Slow down and take time for discernment

By Pete Vere. This is an excerpt of an article in Catholic Light.

St. Josemaria Escriva always saw Opus Dei as an apostolate of Christ embracing the world. Subsequently, Opus Dei members interact with the world quite a bit through social activities, education and the pursuit of professional practice and credentials. Rather than ship teenage boys off to apostolic schools, these young men are encouraged to pursue spiritual and academic excellence, to develop a trade or profession toward which they are suited, and to be active in the world.

There's no pressure to join Opus Dei as a numerary or supernumerary. The vast majority of people I have encountered at Opus Dei events are cooperators - that is, non-members who support Opus Dei's work but who do not feel called to membership. They participate in some spiritual and social activities, insofar as they feel called and find time to do so.

And Opus Dei is happy with that. They understand that a vocation to numerary or supernumerary is a calling from God that needs to be discerned carefully through prayer and contemplation. So Opus Dei's usual reaction when someone wishes to become a cooperator, numerary or supernumerary, is to tell the individual to slow down and take time for discernment before Our Lord.

Yet what about priestly vocations? Some priests discern a vocation to Opus Dei having already been ordained, but the majority are called from the ranks of numeraries - that is, the celibate male members. Most of these individuals are well-established in professional careers as doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, business professionals, university professors, etc. In other words, they're out there in the world, interacting with other people, living in the world, conversant of the world, but not of the world, yet attempting to embrace the world as Christ embraced the world from the cross. Far from being sheltered throughout most of their lives, Opus Dei seminarians enter their seminary formation with proven track-records as spiritual and professional leaders.