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Bishop Javier Echevarría, Prelate of Opus Dei. Rome, June 26, 2007
Bishop Javier Echevarría
Nearly five years have now gone by since St Josemaría’s canonization, but the tidal wave of his example and teachings continues to spread around the world. His reputation for holiness keeps reaching new places, awakening in many souls the desire to seek God and converse with Him in life’s ordinary circumstances.
I would like to share with you a great reason for joy that is filling my soul today. This very day, on the feast of St Josemaría, the apostolate of the faithful of the Opus Dei Prelature has started in Russia, that great country that extends from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific, and from the Black Sea to the Arctic Circle. This is the fulfilment of a dream St Josemaría had: he always wanted to take the spirit of Opus Dei to the whole world, and therefore to the nations of Eastern Europe as well. You can’t imagine how much he longed for this moment to come!
Thank God, the faithful of the Prelature are now working in those countries and many others. But for many years the fulfilment of this dream in Central and Eastern Europe was held up by the lack of freedom in those countries. In 1955, on a trip to Vienna, St Josemaría entrusted that intention expressly to the intercession of the Mother of God, invoking her with the aspiration Sancta Maria, Stella Orientis, filios tuos adiuva! – Holy Mary, Star of the East, help your children! He never tired of praying for this intention, although there seemed not a single gleam of hope as the years went on.
Afterwards, when the walls that were built up by violence began to collapse so unexpectedly, our much-loved Bishop Alvaro del Portillo opened the path for the apostolic expansion of Opus Dei in those lands. In Poland first; then Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic countries. In recent years, in Slovenia and Croatia. Today, finally, the time has come to begin the apostolic activities in Russia. We thank God for this and pray through the intercession of our Lady and St Josemaría, for God’s help on these beginnings.
This happy coincidence of dates gives me the opportunity to recall the means that are necessary for all apostolate to be done. We all know it very well, but it’s good for us to meditate on it from time to time, so that we can correct the course of our actions if necessary.
One fact is very clear: human means, however abundant, are not sufficient for carrying out an undertaking that is strictly supernatural in nature. The Gospel of today’s Mass teaches us this. St Luke gives plenty of details about the first miraculous catch of fish achieved by St Peter and his fellow-workers. They had worked all night long. As on so many other occasions, they had thrown the nets into Lake Tiberias, a lake they were very familiar with, at night, the best time for fishing, but it had all been in vain. When Jesus invited them to put out into deep water and pay out their nets again, Peter, who was the captain of the boat, replied frankly: Master, we toiled all night and took nothing. But he added straight away, At your word I will let down the nets. The result was amazing. When they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and their nets were breaking (Lk 5:5-6).
The first, indispensable condition for harvesting apostolic fruits is to employ supernatural means. Prayer, mortification – which is nothing other than the “prayer of the senses”, as St Josemaría used to say –, offering to God our work that we try to do perfectly: all this is indispensable. I remind you of our Father’s teaching: “In your apostolic undertakings you are right – it’s your duty – to consider what means the world can offer you (2+2=4), but don’t forget – ever! – that, fortunately, your calculations must include another term: God+2+2...” (St Josemaría, The Way, 471).
At the same time, God our Lord also wishes us to place at his service the material means we may possess. He could do everything himself, but he has not chosen to act like that. This is what the first reading teaches us. After having created the world with his almighty power, and, with special love, the first man and the first woman, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed… to till it and keep it (First Reading: Gen 2:8, 15).
This passage from Holy Scripture was one St Josemaría kept very much in mind. From the moment when God our Lord made His Will known to him, he understood that those words in the book of Genesis hold one of the keys to the obligation of sanctifying one’s own work and sanctifying oneself through one’s work. Another key is the example of Jesus, who worked in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth for thirty years. This is where the obligation springs of using human means as well, to establish the kingdom of God, but without ever forgetting the absolute priority of the supernatural means.
To carry out any apostolic activity, we have to trust above all in God’s help, and also place material means at the service of the apostolate. That also applies to all the apostolic activities of Opus Dei, which need the help of many people: both their prayers and their material assistance. In this way, with God’s grace and the generous contribution of many men and women from very different walks of life, an ever-growing work of evangelization is being done throughout the world in the service of the Church.
Before finishing, I would like to dwell briefly on the second reading. In the Letter to the Romans, St Paul strengthens our hope, showing us that we should not be afraid of difficulties. For, he tells us, you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (Second Reading, Rom 8:15-16).
If we seek to fulfil the will of our Father God in everything, if we obey the words of Jesus when he commands us to put into deep water, if we entrust everything to prayer and sacrifice, fully united to the Cross of our Lord, if we do our ordinary work with human responsibility, then the Holy Spirit will bestow abundant fruit on our apostolic activities.
To finish with, let’s meditate on some words of Benedict XVI, taken from a homily on the feast of Pentecost. “Anyone who has come across something true, beautiful and good in his life – the one true treasure, the precious pearl – hastens to share it everywhere, in the family and at work, in all the contexts of his life. He does so without any fear, because he knows he has received adoption as a son; without any presumption, for it is all a gift; without discouragement, for God’s Spirit precedes his action in people’s ‘hearts’ and as a seed in the most diverse cultures and religions. He does so without restraint, for he bears a piece of good news which is for all people and for all the peoples (Benedict XVI, Homily on the Vigil of Pentecost, June 3, 2006).
May these words of the Holy Father (let’s pray every day for him and for his intentions) spur us on in our personal apostolate with relatives and friends; let’s try to bring them to our Lord especially in the Eucharist and through Confession, the sacrament of a personal encounter with God who is a Father and is always ready to forgive our sins.
With sure hope we entrust the supernatural fruits of the apostolate of all Christians, now and in the future, to our Lady, Queen of Apostles. May our mother the Church, with the help of the Paraclete and the generous work of everyone, gather an abundant harvest. Amen.
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