God Does Not Repeat Himself

November 23, 2009

Tags: Opus Dei prelature

The Holy Spirit has never ceased surprising us down through the centuries, enriching the Church and filling her with color. At the end of the second millennium there was a flowering of new features in the Church.

Some of them have already found their place within the institutional framework of the Church; others have not, or not completely. But each of them contributes new rays, and the Mystical Body of Christ shines with the light of these new charismas.

Opus Dei, the personal prelature of Opus Dei, possesses its own charisma, a special gift of the Holy Spirit, which contributes to the radiance of Christ’s truth. Like every single piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the Church, it has its own specific design. God does not repeat himself.

The vast majority of people in Opus Dei are lay-people: men and women, married and celibate, with all sorts of professions or jobs. They are ordinary faithful from any diocese in the world, and they have the same spirit, the same specific formation, and the same governance. They are called to spread a universal message: the call to holiness and apostolate in the middle of the world. That means a full, committed encounter with Christ in their ordinary daily work and in their family and social life.

Within the Church there are some pieces that shine spectacularly in a specific field: teaching, for instance, or charitable projects for the poor and marginalized. Others don’t stand out, but provide crucial help and support to the rest: for example, enclosed orders of religious brothers or sisters, with all the strength of their prayer and sacrifice. Others act for preference at the edges of, or outside, the social structure of the Church, such as ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.

Still others, like Opus Dei, have received a charisma addressed to all the faithful who by their calling, want to be helped to respond fully to all the ascetical and apostolic demands of their baptismal promises, in and through their ordinary job of work. Their situation is parallel to the early Christians in pagan society, and Opus Dei provides them with special pastoral assistance to live out their vocation.

Ut sit, make it happen!
The declaration Prelaturae Personales, by the Congregation for Bishops, was published in the November 27 1982 edition of the Osservatore Romano, which carried the date November 28. It was accompanied by two substantial comments, one by Cardinal Baggio and one by Msgr. Costalunga.

Months later, at midday on March 4, 1983, I brought Don Alvaro the elegant parchment bearing the authentic text of the Apostolic Constitution Ut Sit, a top-level canonical document that solemnly formalized the Holy Father’s decision to establish Opus Dei as a personal prelature.

The Constitution’s title itself carried the vivid presence of St Josemaria. The Holy See had very kindly chosen to head the document with a well-known aspiration that the founder of Opus Dei used incessantly, begging for God’s grace through our Lady’s mediation, so that what he sensed God wanted of him would be done: Domina, ut sit! Domine, ut sit! Lady, make it happen! Lord, make what you want happen!

Extract from Julian Herranz’s book En las afueras de Jerico. Recuerdos de los años con san Josemaría y Juan Pablo II (“On the outskirts of Jericho. Memories of years with St Josemaria and John Paul II”), pp. 182-3 and 310-11, Madrid: Rialp, 2007.