Feast of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, Mass for the Members of the Opus Dei Prelature

 1.     One of the myths of our time is that Opus Dei is a revisionist movement which would roll back the exciting developments of the Second Vatican Council and so take the Church backwards, not forwards. However, once a person becomes acquainted with the life of the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaria Escriva, who was called to God on this day, 26^th June 1975 (just 4 days before I was ordained a priest!), it is clear that St. Josemaria did not just not take the church backwards, but that he anticipated one of the central themes of the Second Vatican Council, the theme of the universal call to holiness.

2.     The day after the saint’s canonisation in 2002, the late Pope John Paul II said in audience: “Saint Josemaria was chosen by the Lord to proclaim the universal call to holiness and to indicate that everyday life, its customary activities, are a path towards holiness.” And so the members of Opus Dei have been inspired since the foundation of their movement to find the Lord and be faithful to the Lord in the life that they live and in the work that they do, and to discern in what appear to be the ordinary events and happenings of life a real encounter with the living God and the way to holiness. This fundamentally simple yet profound insight has been an inspiration to all those who revere St. Josemaria Escriva. At the Mass of Canonisation, Pope John Paul II explained: “To raise the world to God and transform it from within: this is the ideal the holy founder indicates to you.” The Book of Genesis tells us this evening: “The Lord God took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it.” The Creator God assigned to man and woman, made in his image and likeness, responsibility for the good of the creation.  Especially now that the world is no longer the original paradise, we have the responsibility to care for the world principally by working for its renewal in Christ so as to prepare it to become the “new heavens and the new earth”. St. Josemaria’s vision of discipleship involved a total commitment of the Christian to the true good of the world, a very contemporary insight which should continue to galvanize the efforts both of Christians, and of all people of good will.

3.     And not just is St. Josemaria a prophetic witness to a central theme of the Second Vatican Council, but he is also a champion of the new evangelisation. It has become blindingly clear that the new evangelisation must aim for a renewal of holiness, and, conversely, that a renewal of holiness is the key to the success of the Church’s work of evangelisation. “The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness,” says St. Paul to us this evening. The Holy Spirit is the divine source of sanctification through whom we are renewed in the image of Christ and in faithfulness to his Gospel. If we are led by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will turn to prayer, which leads us to friendship and intimacy with the Lord. If we are led by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will centre our lives on the Eucharist and on the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, through which we can offer our lives to God.  If we are led by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will make salutary and regular use of the sacrament of reconciliation, so that we may experience a true conversion of the heart.  If we are led by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will read, consult and pray the Sacred Scriptures to be inspired and nourished by the Word of God. This is the only authentic plan of evangelisation, this is the only way we can hope to carry out our service to creation and raise the world once more to God. Strangely enough, or maybe not, this is what we learned as children: say your prayers, go to Mass; go to confession; listen to what God is saying to you. The experience of the Church in recent decades has taught us that the gimmicks and the short-cuts just don’t work. We need to re-learn the perennial wisdom of Catholic spirituality for our own time. I see that many of you are here with your children. Be sure to pass on to them your faith. Teach them to pray. Let them know the importance of Mass and of going to confession. Help them to love and read the Scritpures. Teach them the rosary and introduce them to Mary who will love and protect them as a Mother. If you give them this, you will be giving them the basis of a sound spiritual formation which will serve them well and which will endure.

 4.     Of course this work of evangelisation will not be easy. “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing” cried Peter plaintively to Jesus. And this could be the cry of the Church in the western world at this moment in our history. We are immersed in a difficult time for faith. This era, with some justification, has been described as a culture war for the Christian soul of Europe. In this situation, nonetheless the Lord still tells us. “Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!” That’s what Peter and the Apostles did, and the results were astounding. With trust in the Lord, the results can yet be more than we ever dared expect, as we seek to be the fishers of the men and women of this time that the Lord calls us to be.

5.     At the beginning of my remarks this evening, I referred to a myth about your holy prelature. More recently, other myths have been promulgated in popular literature and in film. We all know that this was naked opportunism, but perhaps we all suffered a bit from it. Even if it was fiction, it still distorted our truth in the most unprincipled way, the truth about your prelature, about our Church and about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And this was not very nice at all. The fact that the film was judged laughable even by non-believers is some consolation and perhaps a small sign of God’s favour on the Church and on the Prelature of Opus Dei. My dear brothers and sisters, your membership of Opus Dei is a specification, a determination of your baptismal vocation through which the Lord calls you to holiness. As we celebrate the feast of your founder, Saint Josemaria Escriva, and with his intercession, I encourage you to pursue that way in full fidelity to the Church so that you may grow in all holiness and virtue, and help to consecrate the world to the Lord.

St. Mirin’s Cathedral, Paisley

26^th June 2006.