English
Documentation
Priestly Fraternity in the Life of Josemaría Escrivá
Javier Echevarría
Bishop Javier Echevarria, who worked with St Josemaria for many years and is now the prelate of Opus Dei, explains how St Josemaria saw the priesthood and taught others to see it – a life of unity and fraternity in close identification with Christ. Above all, he would say, every priest needs to be “a man of prayer”.
They were remarks made as if in passing, during the familiar human and supernatural conversations in which he tried to enkindle the love of God in the souls of those of us who were at his side. Observations, short comments: “Your lives are just beginning”, said Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer to us one June morning in Rome. “Some are just starting out while others are bringing their lives to a close, but all of us are living the same Life of Christ. There are so many things to do in the world! Let us ask Our Lord that we may always be faithful, that we may continue our work and that we may live this Life with a capital ‘L’, which is the only one that is worth living. The other life is not worth the effort, it passes away, it escapes us like water running through our fingers. But Life, with a capital L, is different!” 1
We could not have imagined that a few days later on June 26th, 1975, the time would come when the Lord to called him into His Presence. This was the definitive step which he had been looking forward to with increasing intensity, repeating with the Psalmist: vultum tuum, Domine, requiram! Your face, O Lord, do I seek!2
Many years have passed since then. So many details of his life come to mind spontaneously so many times a day: the warmth of his words, his continual joy, and his insistent reminders that we are children of God through grace, and that we need to act as such in the midst of our work and our daily duties.
The years, far from having distanced Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá from us, have actually brought him closer to us. Each day there are more testimonies of people from every nation, men and women from the most varied walks of life, and with every kind of job and occupation, who tell how their encounter with the Founder of Opus Dei has led them to return to a close relationship with God, to quicken their step in following the Lord, to struggle with a sense of determination in their search for sanctity, following the three stages which he pointed out in The Way: “May you seek Christ: may you find Christ: may you love Christ.”3
Priestly Unity and Priestly Fraternity
“Work closely with one another, be united in your struggle, suffer, sleep and wake up all at the same time, as administrators of God, as his assistants and servants.”4 This exhortation of St. Ignatius of Antioch highlights one of Saint Josemaría’s outstanding spiritual characteristics: the continual and increasing effort which he made from the earliest years of his priesthood to practice priestly fraternity in its deepest meaning, and to help others to do the same. “This is our great task,” he would repeat to the priests who went to listen him. “To love our brother priests. We have to feel the satisfaction of being the servants of all souls, but first of all, of priests, who are our brothers.”5
His desires were not limited to mere sentiments or conventional attitudes. In no way could it be said that he lived by appearances; he preferred to let his deeds speak for themselves and he struggled to live in accordance with what God expected of him. For this reason, he always believed that the union among priests should be manifested in their effort to help one another to perform the duties of their ministry better, more effectively. This was a form of assistance that was full of human and supernatural affection, so that no priest would ever feel alone in the task which had been entrusted to him or in his struggle for sanctity.
From the beginning of Saint Josemaría’s priestly vocation, he sought, as a true and loyal friend, to enkindle a burning love for Jesus Christ and deep piety in other priests, especially in those whose piety had perhaps slackened off somewhat. His youth was no obstacle to his efforts; or rather, his zeal for souls overcame the disadvantage represented by his youth. These words of Scripture could well be applied to him: “I understand more than the elders, because I keep your precepts.”6 And this was why even elderly priests found a father in him, and trusted him with their friendship and the direction of their souls.
Only a deeply-rooted faith could move one to undertake such daring feats. The force of the Founder of Opus Dei’s complete gift of self nourished this supernatural virtue in his soul. With the eyes of faith, he was able to see his beloved Saviour in his brother priests and he understood that each of them was entitled to the same generosity from him. “What is the identity of the priest?” he often used to ask in the talks that he gave. And the answer would quickly spring forth, with the conviction of faith: “That of Christ. All of us Christians can and should be not just other Christs, alter Christus, but Christ himself: ipse Christus! But in the priest this happens in a direct, sacramental way.”7
Priests are united to one another in Christ, through their common ordination. It is this that configures each of them with Jesus Christ the Priest, so that they can act in persona Christi Capitis.8 Rooted in this common ontological character, they are also united by their common mission, which they have received in order to build up the Body of Christ.9 For this reason, as Vatican Council II teaches, “all priests are bound together in intimate brotherhood, which naturally and freely manifests itself in mutual aid, spiritual as well as material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in communion of life, of labor and charity.”10 This unity among priests, as John Paul II affirms, “is not a unity or fraternity that is an end in itself. It exists for love of the Gospel, in order to symbolize, through the actions of the priest, the essential path to which everyone is called by the Gospel: union of love with Him and with others.”11
St Josemaría immersed himself in intense activity with the same faith and ideals as at the beginning of his priesthood, and with the conviction that he was carrying out the Will of God. While Opus Dei was growing and beginning its expansion throughout the world in the 1940s, he found time – despite periods of tiredness and illness – to preach innumerable retreats to the clergy. Invited by the bishops of many Spanish dioceses, he went here and there, without accepting any remuneration, and overcoming any doubts with his humility about preaching to his brother priests, which he used to describe as “selling honey to beekeepers”.
He had a great love for all the religious, and he gladly remembered how he had preached many retreats to religious communities throughout Spain. Nevertheless, he felt especially dedicated to the service of the secular clergy: “I have the same vocation as you. I have never had any other. And so, I do not offend the religious – whom I love so much – if I love you in a very special way. It is a special duty of fraternity.”12
Many of the thousands of priests who heard him over the years remember particularly the vibrancy of the Love with which he confirmed his brother priests in their vocations, and how he infused them with renewed zeal for souls and spurred them on to make the firm decision to fulfill God’s Will at all times.
In order to clearly express what motivated him to struggle to rekindle priestly fraternity, he once told what he had heard during a retreat from a priest who was suffering because a serious calumny had been made about him. “And our brothers who are close to you, don’t they keep you company?” he asked. The reply filled him with sorrow: “I get together by myself.” Remembering this episode, he would insist: “Don’t allow anyone to mistreat one of our brother priests!”13
Having himself experienced the bitter taste of calumny as part of the path which the Lord had prepared for him, the Founder of Opus Dei knew the antidote to loneliness very well: “It is not true that priests do not have love in their lives; we are in love with Love Himself. It’s not true that we priests are alone: we have more company than anyone else, because we have the continuous company of the Lord, with whom we are in constant contact.”14
Jesus Christ is the Love of the priest; it is He who has entered into his soul and made him hear His call: “I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are mine.”15 The complete gift of self to the love of Christ, which is made especially manifest in celibacy, enables the priest to have his heart more affectively and effectively open to all souls.16 And it is due to this love that the priest knows that he is accompanied by Jesus Christ, even in times of adversity, when life seems harder, when following his path can become more difficult. “Priests should remember,” we read in the Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, “that in performing their office they are never alone; but strengthened by the power of Almighty God, and believing in Christ who called them to share in his Priesthood, they should devote themselves to their ministry with complete trust, knowing that God can cause charity to grow in them.”17
“Let them be mindful of their brothers in the priesthood as well,” adds the Decree “and also of the faithful of the entire world who are associated with them.”18 St. Josemaría knew that the priest, like any other man on earth, needs the support and affection of others. “Help one another; love one another. No one of you should ever feel alone”, he kept insisting. “Keep one another company, on the human level as well. Have a heart of flesh, as the heart with which we love Jesus and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is made of flesh. If you see that one of your brothers is having a hard time, go and help him, and don’t wait for him to call you!”19 This will also show that the words and the prayer of the priest form “an eloquent testimony of our God, who is rich in mercy.”20
Personal Sanctity: The Foundation and Goal of Fraternal Service
The grace of God worked through the words of Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá to provoke desires for interior struggle among his listeners. They felt moved, spurred on, carried along – and with what momentum – on the path of fidelity and Love. He set before each person specific demands that could be summarized in one concept: personal sanctity.
He wanted to help them avoid the state of lukewarmness and lack of love for God that could easily develop if they settled for merely accomplishing their duties in a routine and external fashion. No-one can just give in like that; the Christian vocation as such calls each person to live a truly holy life. The last Council taught that priests, like all Christians, “have received in the sacrament of Baptism the symbol and gift of such a calling and such grace that even in human weakness they can and must seek for perfection, according to the exhortation of Christ: ‘Be you therefore perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48).”21
The Founder of Opus Dei never slackened in his determination to spread this doctrine. “By requirement of their common Christian vocation, as something which derives from the one baptism which they have received,” he wrote in 1945, “the priest and the lay person should equally aspire to sanctity, which is a participation in the divine life (cf. St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis, 21:2). This sanctity to which they are called is not greater for the priest than for the lay person because the lay person is not a second-class Christian. For priest and layperson alike, sanctity is nothing other than the perfection of the Christian life, the fullness of divine filiation.”22
Furthermore, priests have additional motives as they “have been consecrated by God in a new manner at their ordination and made living instruments of Christ the Eternal Priest, that they may be able to carry on in time his marvelous work whereby the entire family of man is again made whole by power from above.”23 St. Josemaría ceaselessly insisted on this fact: “Because of its sacred functions the priesthood requires something more than just an honest life: it demands a holy life in those who exercise it, constituted as they are as mediators between God and men.”24
Freedom, this magnificent natural gift which the Lord has granted to the created spirit, far from acting as a safeguard for one’s personal comfort, demands a mature sense of responsibility from each person. As the Founder of Opus Dei said, every priest “is free in his spiritual and ascetic life and in his acts of piety to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and to choose, from among the many means which the Church counsels or permits, those which are most suited to his own particular circumstances.”25 In effect, God asks each of us to seek sanctity with all of our strength, through the proper exercise of our personal autonomy, during the time in which He gives us His grace.
Vatican Council II also “strongly urges all priests that they strive always for that growth in holiness by which they will become consistently better instruments in the service of the whole People of God, using for this purpose those means which the Church has approved.”26 The faithful response of the priest to the calling of Jesus Christ has importance above and beyond the priest himself, since on it also depends the effectiveness of his priestly ministry for the good of the souls who have been entrusted to him.
“And for their sake I consecrate myself,”27 said the Lord. These words do not indicate a process of growth in sanctity in Christ, but rather the offering of Himself in sacrifice for all men.28 However, they do invite each priest – alter Christus, ipse Christus – to a self-giving which is a sacrifice made for others, and which cannot have any other root but personal sanctity: the increasing effort to identify himself with Him who is the High Priest.29
For this reason, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá utterly rejected the deformed vision which viewed the ministry of the priest as if it conflicted with his spiritual life: “I do not believe a priest can carry out an effective ministry unless he is a man of prayer.”30 By taking his own vocation very seriously and struggling to let Jesus take possession of his soul, he became convinced that the priestly ministry is only truly effective when it is nourished by a continually renewed relationship with God. He came to the conclusion that it is the spiritual life that both drives and stimulates ministerial action.31 This has always been borne out in the lives of holy priests. And it has certainly been made manifest by the life of Blessed Josemaría.
The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross
It is impossible in so few pages even to begin to consider the heroism with which the Founder of Opus Dei lived his priestly fraternity. There was nevertheless one moment in his time upon this earth which was particularly significant and which, consequently, I did not want to omit.
Saint Josemaría Escrivá possessed a refinement of spirit which enabled him to discover God’s Will in every moment, and to act upon it without hesitation, despite the sacrifices entailed by God’s plans. Seeing that the Lord needed him to work with priests, and that Opus Dei had already reached a certain degree of development and was nearing its definitive approval, he decided to leave Opus Dei in order to dedicate all of his energy to found an Association dedicated to these brothers. He did this for “love of you”, as he explained on one occasion to a group of priests, “which is love of Jesus Christ.”32 After having received the approval of the Holy See, he communicated this decision to those who worked most closely with him in the governance of Opus Dei.
I can imagine the profound sorrow that they must have felt, even though they could understand why this new foundation was necessary for the apostolate. But, above all, one must be impressed by the heroism with which St. Josemaría was always ready to respond to what the Lord asked of him, even if it meant abandoning that which he himself had brought into the world with so much prayer and sacrifice, in faithful fulfillment of God’s Will.
However, at that point, the Lord allowed him to see the canonical solution that he needed. And with the pontifical approval of Opus Dei in 1950, diocesan priests were able to join the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, an association inseparably united to Opus Dei, without making any change in their legal or canonical status.
It is an essential characteristic of the spirituality of the Prelature of Opus Dei that each person, without leaving his place in society and within his own state, seeks his own sanctification by sanctifying his professional work, in accordance with his mission in the Church and in the world. It was evident that this spirit was also suited to diocesan priests. And in fact, by joining the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, the priest “neither modifies nor abandons any part of his diocesan vocation. His dedication to the service of the local Church in which he is incardinated, his full dependence on his own Ordinary, his secular spirituality, his solidarity with other priests etc., are not changed. On the contrary, he undertakes to live his vocation to the full, because he knows that he must seek perfection precisely in fulfilling his obligations as a diocesan priest.”33
Saint Josemaría Escrivá considered the ministerial priesthood as professional work, a professional task of incomparable dignity. He saw it as work which is service, because service – diaconia – is the sacra potestas, the ministerial participation in the exousia of Christ34. This service, which requires an unconditional gift of self for the benefit of all souls, should take up all of the energy and all of the dreams of the priest. And the deeds born of this spirit of service should enable him to speak to all in our Lord’s words: “I am among you as one who serves.”35 “We priests do not have any rights: I like to feel that I am the servant of all, and I am proud of this title. We only have duties, and therein lies our joy: the duty of administering the sacraments, of visiting the sick and the healthy; the duty of bringing Christ to the rich and to the poor, that of not allowing the Most Blessed Sacrament to be abandoned, since it is really Christ present under the appearance of bread; the duty of being the good shepherd for souls, he who heals the sick sheep and who seeks the one who strayed without taking account of the hours that he has to spend in the confessional.”36
With the possibility of admitting diocesan priests into the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, the Founder of Opus Dei saw the institutionalization of the work which he had carried out from the beginning of his vocation: that of helping priests to be completely faithful to their vocation and ministry. Brotherly help and ascetical help offered with a secular and diocesan spirituality; this is what would be found in the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross from that point on, by the priests who exercised their rights and their freedom by joining this Priestly Assocation. They would receive “personal spiritual guidance which continues no matter where they are, and which complements the common guidance imparted by the bishop, while always, as a grave duty, giving it full respect.”37
“To serve the Church as the Church wants to be served”38: this was the only ambition of Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. And this was why he was overjoyed by the following words of Vatican Council II: “One should hold also in high regard and eagerly promote those associations which, having been recognized by competent ecclesiastical authority, encourage priestly holiness in the ministry by the use of an appropriate and duly approved rule of life and by fraternal aid, intending thus to do service to the whole order of priests.”39
His life on earth was consumed by this desire of his soul, by this love for the Church. Barely two hours before he died, the Founder of Opus Dei said to his daughters in Castel Gandolfo: “I will tell you as I do whenever I come here that you, by the simple fact of being Christians, have priestly souls. With your priestly soul and with God’s grace, you can and should help the priestly ministry which we priests carry out. Together, we shall work effectively.
“In everything you do, find a motive to talk to God and to his Blessed Mother, who is our Mother, and to St. Joseph, our Father and Lord, and to our Guardian Angels, so as to help this Holy Church, our Mother, which is in such great need, and which is having such a difficult time in the world these days. We should love the Church and the Pope very much. Ask Our Lord that our service on behalf of the Church and the Pope may be effective.”40
On November 28th, 1982, by means of the Apostolic Constitution Ut sit, John Paul II erected Opus Dei as a personal prelature, to which the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross is intrinsically united as an Association of clergy. During the many years I spent at the side of the Founder of Opus Dei, I witnessed the intensity of the prayer and mortification with which he “pestered” and got others to “pester” the Lord, so that He would grant us this definitive canonical solution.
This canonical figure, so perfectly suited to the spirit of Opus Dei, confirms and seals its secular character, and at the same time, clearly manifests what St. Josemaría had always maintained, even by means of extraordinary measures: that the diocesan priests who are members of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross do not have any ecclesiastical Superior other than their own Bishop. Their dependence on the Association is not a dependence of government or jurisdiction, “but rather a voluntary relationship of spiritual assistance”41, which is exclusively restricted to the private sphere of the personal life of the priest, where each can and should make his own free decisions.
This blessed duty of priestly fraternity forms part of the inheritance that the Founder of Opus Dei has left to his children. It is a legacy which places the responsibility on our shoulders to follow in his footsteps on the divine path which he opened with his heroic response to the God’s inspirations. While this is no easy task, we rely on the help that we receive from heaven.
Palabra, 239 June 1985, p. 274-279
Notes
1. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 7-VI-1975 (AGP, P01 1975, p. 847).
2. Ps 26:8.
3. The Way, 382.
4. ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, Epistola ad Polycarpum, VI (PG 5, 724).
5. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 26-X-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II p. 765).
6. Ps 118:100.
7. In Love with the Church, 38.
8. Cfr. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 2.
9. Cfr. Ef 4:12.
10. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Dogm. Const. Lumen Gentium, 28.
11. JOHN PAUL II, Homily, Philadelphia, 4-X-1979, 4; “Insegnamenti” II (1979) 604.
12. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 3-VI-1974 (AGP, P04 1974, I, p. 201).
13. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 17-VI-1974 (AGP, P04 1974, I, p. 619).
14. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 15-III-1969 (AGP, P04 1969, I, p. 318).
15. Is 43:1.
16. Cfr. PAUL VI, Enc. Sacerdotalibus caelibatus, 24-VI-1967, 32.
17. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 22.
18. Ibid.
19. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 26-X-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II, p. 767).
20. JOHN PAUL II, Discourse, Tokyo, 23-II-1981, “Insegnamenti” IV (1981) 492.
21. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
22. Cited by A. DEL PORTILLO, Escritos sobre el sacerdocio, Madrid 1979, p. 111-112.
23. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
24. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Letter 2-II-1945, 4.
25. Conversations, 8.
26. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
27. Jn 17:19.
28. Cfr. ST. JOHN CRYSOSTYM, In Ioan, 17:19 (PG 59, 443).
29. Cfr. Heb 7:26.
30. Conversations, 3.
31. Cfr. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 13.
32. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 14-XI-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II, p. 475).
33. Conversations, 16.
34. Cfr. Mt 28:18; VATICAN COUNCIL II, Dogm. Const. Lumen Gentium, 28.
35. Lk 22:27.
36. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 15-III-1969 (AGP, P02 1969, pp. 319-320).
37. Conversations, 16.
38. Cfr. Postulación de la Causa de Beatificación y Canonización del siervo de Dios Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Fundador del Opus Dei. Artículos del Postulador, Rome 1979, 294.
39. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 8.
40. S. BERNAL, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer: A Profile of the Founder of Opus Dei, London 1977, p. 93
41. Conversations, 16.
We could not have imagined that a few days later on June 26th, 1975, the time would come when the Lord to called him into His Presence. This was the definitive step which he had been looking forward to with increasing intensity, repeating with the Psalmist: vultum tuum, Domine, requiram! Your face, O Lord, do I seek!2
Many years have passed since then. So many details of his life come to mind spontaneously so many times a day: the warmth of his words, his continual joy, and his insistent reminders that we are children of God through grace, and that we need to act as such in the midst of our work and our daily duties.
The years, far from having distanced Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá from us, have actually brought him closer to us. Each day there are more testimonies of people from every nation, men and women from the most varied walks of life, and with every kind of job and occupation, who tell how their encounter with the Founder of Opus Dei has led them to return to a close relationship with God, to quicken their step in following the Lord, to struggle with a sense of determination in their search for sanctity, following the three stages which he pointed out in The Way: “May you seek Christ: may you find Christ: may you love Christ.”3
Priestly Unity and Priestly Fraternity
“Work closely with one another, be united in your struggle, suffer, sleep and wake up all at the same time, as administrators of God, as his assistants and servants.”4 This exhortation of St. Ignatius of Antioch highlights one of Saint Josemaría’s outstanding spiritual characteristics: the continual and increasing effort which he made from the earliest years of his priesthood to practice priestly fraternity in its deepest meaning, and to help others to do the same. “This is our great task,” he would repeat to the priests who went to listen him. “To love our brother priests. We have to feel the satisfaction of being the servants of all souls, but first of all, of priests, who are our brothers.”5
His desires were not limited to mere sentiments or conventional attitudes. In no way could it be said that he lived by appearances; he preferred to let his deeds speak for themselves and he struggled to live in accordance with what God expected of him. For this reason, he always believed that the union among priests should be manifested in their effort to help one another to perform the duties of their ministry better, more effectively. This was a form of assistance that was full of human and supernatural affection, so that no priest would ever feel alone in the task which had been entrusted to him or in his struggle for sanctity.
From the beginning of Saint Josemaría’s priestly vocation, he sought, as a true and loyal friend, to enkindle a burning love for Jesus Christ and deep piety in other priests, especially in those whose piety had perhaps slackened off somewhat. His youth was no obstacle to his efforts; or rather, his zeal for souls overcame the disadvantage represented by his youth. These words of Scripture could well be applied to him: “I understand more than the elders, because I keep your precepts.”6 And this was why even elderly priests found a father in him, and trusted him with their friendship and the direction of their souls.
Only a deeply-rooted faith could move one to undertake such daring feats. The force of the Founder of Opus Dei’s complete gift of self nourished this supernatural virtue in his soul. With the eyes of faith, he was able to see his beloved Saviour in his brother priests and he understood that each of them was entitled to the same generosity from him. “What is the identity of the priest?” he often used to ask in the talks that he gave. And the answer would quickly spring forth, with the conviction of faith: “That of Christ. All of us Christians can and should be not just other Christs, alter Christus, but Christ himself: ipse Christus! But in the priest this happens in a direct, sacramental way.”7
Priests are united to one another in Christ, through their common ordination. It is this that configures each of them with Jesus Christ the Priest, so that they can act in persona Christi Capitis.8 Rooted in this common ontological character, they are also united by their common mission, which they have received in order to build up the Body of Christ.9 For this reason, as Vatican Council II teaches, “all priests are bound together in intimate brotherhood, which naturally and freely manifests itself in mutual aid, spiritual as well as material, pastoral as well as personal, in their meetings and in communion of life, of labor and charity.”10 This unity among priests, as John Paul II affirms, “is not a unity or fraternity that is an end in itself. It exists for love of the Gospel, in order to symbolize, through the actions of the priest, the essential path to which everyone is called by the Gospel: union of love with Him and with others.”11
St Josemaría immersed himself in intense activity with the same faith and ideals as at the beginning of his priesthood, and with the conviction that he was carrying out the Will of God. While Opus Dei was growing and beginning its expansion throughout the world in the 1940s, he found time – despite periods of tiredness and illness – to preach innumerable retreats to the clergy. Invited by the bishops of many Spanish dioceses, he went here and there, without accepting any remuneration, and overcoming any doubts with his humility about preaching to his brother priests, which he used to describe as “selling honey to beekeepers”.
He had a great love for all the religious, and he gladly remembered how he had preached many retreats to religious communities throughout Spain. Nevertheless, he felt especially dedicated to the service of the secular clergy: “I have the same vocation as you. I have never had any other. And so, I do not offend the religious – whom I love so much – if I love you in a very special way. It is a special duty of fraternity.”12
Many of the thousands of priests who heard him over the years remember particularly the vibrancy of the Love with which he confirmed his brother priests in their vocations, and how he infused them with renewed zeal for souls and spurred them on to make the firm decision to fulfill God’s Will at all times.
In order to clearly express what motivated him to struggle to rekindle priestly fraternity, he once told what he had heard during a retreat from a priest who was suffering because a serious calumny had been made about him. “And our brothers who are close to you, don’t they keep you company?” he asked. The reply filled him with sorrow: “I get together by myself.” Remembering this episode, he would insist: “Don’t allow anyone to mistreat one of our brother priests!”13
Having himself experienced the bitter taste of calumny as part of the path which the Lord had prepared for him, the Founder of Opus Dei knew the antidote to loneliness very well: “It is not true that priests do not have love in their lives; we are in love with Love Himself. It’s not true that we priests are alone: we have more company than anyone else, because we have the continuous company of the Lord, with whom we are in constant contact.”14
Jesus Christ is the Love of the priest; it is He who has entered into his soul and made him hear His call: “I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are mine.”15 The complete gift of self to the love of Christ, which is made especially manifest in celibacy, enables the priest to have his heart more affectively and effectively open to all souls.16 And it is due to this love that the priest knows that he is accompanied by Jesus Christ, even in times of adversity, when life seems harder, when following his path can become more difficult. “Priests should remember,” we read in the Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, “that in performing their office they are never alone; but strengthened by the power of Almighty God, and believing in Christ who called them to share in his Priesthood, they should devote themselves to their ministry with complete trust, knowing that God can cause charity to grow in them.”17
“Let them be mindful of their brothers in the priesthood as well,” adds the Decree “and also of the faithful of the entire world who are associated with them.”18 St. Josemaría knew that the priest, like any other man on earth, needs the support and affection of others. “Help one another; love one another. No one of you should ever feel alone”, he kept insisting. “Keep one another company, on the human level as well. Have a heart of flesh, as the heart with which we love Jesus and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is made of flesh. If you see that one of your brothers is having a hard time, go and help him, and don’t wait for him to call you!”19 This will also show that the words and the prayer of the priest form “an eloquent testimony of our God, who is rich in mercy.”20
Personal Sanctity: The Foundation and Goal of Fraternal Service
The grace of God worked through the words of Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá to provoke desires for interior struggle among his listeners. They felt moved, spurred on, carried along – and with what momentum – on the path of fidelity and Love. He set before each person specific demands that could be summarized in one concept: personal sanctity.
He wanted to help them avoid the state of lukewarmness and lack of love for God that could easily develop if they settled for merely accomplishing their duties in a routine and external fashion. No-one can just give in like that; the Christian vocation as such calls each person to live a truly holy life. The last Council taught that priests, like all Christians, “have received in the sacrament of Baptism the symbol and gift of such a calling and such grace that even in human weakness they can and must seek for perfection, according to the exhortation of Christ: ‘Be you therefore perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48).”21
The Founder of Opus Dei never slackened in his determination to spread this doctrine. “By requirement of their common Christian vocation, as something which derives from the one baptism which they have received,” he wrote in 1945, “the priest and the lay person should equally aspire to sanctity, which is a participation in the divine life (cf. St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis, 21:2). This sanctity to which they are called is not greater for the priest than for the lay person because the lay person is not a second-class Christian. For priest and layperson alike, sanctity is nothing other than the perfection of the Christian life, the fullness of divine filiation.”22
Furthermore, priests have additional motives as they “have been consecrated by God in a new manner at their ordination and made living instruments of Christ the Eternal Priest, that they may be able to carry on in time his marvelous work whereby the entire family of man is again made whole by power from above.”23 St. Josemaría ceaselessly insisted on this fact: “Because of its sacred functions the priesthood requires something more than just an honest life: it demands a holy life in those who exercise it, constituted as they are as mediators between God and men.”24
Freedom, this magnificent natural gift which the Lord has granted to the created spirit, far from acting as a safeguard for one’s personal comfort, demands a mature sense of responsibility from each person. As the Founder of Opus Dei said, every priest “is free in his spiritual and ascetic life and in his acts of piety to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and to choose, from among the many means which the Church counsels or permits, those which are most suited to his own particular circumstances.”25 In effect, God asks each of us to seek sanctity with all of our strength, through the proper exercise of our personal autonomy, during the time in which He gives us His grace.
Vatican Council II also “strongly urges all priests that they strive always for that growth in holiness by which they will become consistently better instruments in the service of the whole People of God, using for this purpose those means which the Church has approved.”26 The faithful response of the priest to the calling of Jesus Christ has importance above and beyond the priest himself, since on it also depends the effectiveness of his priestly ministry for the good of the souls who have been entrusted to him.
“And for their sake I consecrate myself,”27 said the Lord. These words do not indicate a process of growth in sanctity in Christ, but rather the offering of Himself in sacrifice for all men.28 However, they do invite each priest – alter Christus, ipse Christus – to a self-giving which is a sacrifice made for others, and which cannot have any other root but personal sanctity: the increasing effort to identify himself with Him who is the High Priest.29
For this reason, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá utterly rejected the deformed vision which viewed the ministry of the priest as if it conflicted with his spiritual life: “I do not believe a priest can carry out an effective ministry unless he is a man of prayer.”30 By taking his own vocation very seriously and struggling to let Jesus take possession of his soul, he became convinced that the priestly ministry is only truly effective when it is nourished by a continually renewed relationship with God. He came to the conclusion that it is the spiritual life that both drives and stimulates ministerial action.31 This has always been borne out in the lives of holy priests. And it has certainly been made manifest by the life of Blessed Josemaría.
The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross
It is impossible in so few pages even to begin to consider the heroism with which the Founder of Opus Dei lived his priestly fraternity. There was nevertheless one moment in his time upon this earth which was particularly significant and which, consequently, I did not want to omit.
Saint Josemaría Escrivá possessed a refinement of spirit which enabled him to discover God’s Will in every moment, and to act upon it without hesitation, despite the sacrifices entailed by God’s plans. Seeing that the Lord needed him to work with priests, and that Opus Dei had already reached a certain degree of development and was nearing its definitive approval, he decided to leave Opus Dei in order to dedicate all of his energy to found an Association dedicated to these brothers. He did this for “love of you”, as he explained on one occasion to a group of priests, “which is love of Jesus Christ.”32 After having received the approval of the Holy See, he communicated this decision to those who worked most closely with him in the governance of Opus Dei.
I can imagine the profound sorrow that they must have felt, even though they could understand why this new foundation was necessary for the apostolate. But, above all, one must be impressed by the heroism with which St. Josemaría was always ready to respond to what the Lord asked of him, even if it meant abandoning that which he himself had brought into the world with so much prayer and sacrifice, in faithful fulfillment of God’s Will.
However, at that point, the Lord allowed him to see the canonical solution that he needed. And with the pontifical approval of Opus Dei in 1950, diocesan priests were able to join the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, an association inseparably united to Opus Dei, without making any change in their legal or canonical status.
It is an essential characteristic of the spirituality of the Prelature of Opus Dei that each person, without leaving his place in society and within his own state, seeks his own sanctification by sanctifying his professional work, in accordance with his mission in the Church and in the world. It was evident that this spirit was also suited to diocesan priests. And in fact, by joining the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, the priest “neither modifies nor abandons any part of his diocesan vocation. His dedication to the service of the local Church in which he is incardinated, his full dependence on his own Ordinary, his secular spirituality, his solidarity with other priests etc., are not changed. On the contrary, he undertakes to live his vocation to the full, because he knows that he must seek perfection precisely in fulfilling his obligations as a diocesan priest.”33
Saint Josemaría Escrivá considered the ministerial priesthood as professional work, a professional task of incomparable dignity. He saw it as work which is service, because service – diaconia – is the sacra potestas, the ministerial participation in the exousia of Christ34. This service, which requires an unconditional gift of self for the benefit of all souls, should take up all of the energy and all of the dreams of the priest. And the deeds born of this spirit of service should enable him to speak to all in our Lord’s words: “I am among you as one who serves.”35 “We priests do not have any rights: I like to feel that I am the servant of all, and I am proud of this title. We only have duties, and therein lies our joy: the duty of administering the sacraments, of visiting the sick and the healthy; the duty of bringing Christ to the rich and to the poor, that of not allowing the Most Blessed Sacrament to be abandoned, since it is really Christ present under the appearance of bread; the duty of being the good shepherd for souls, he who heals the sick sheep and who seeks the one who strayed without taking account of the hours that he has to spend in the confessional.”36
With the possibility of admitting diocesan priests into the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, the Founder of Opus Dei saw the institutionalization of the work which he had carried out from the beginning of his vocation: that of helping priests to be completely faithful to their vocation and ministry. Brotherly help and ascetical help offered with a secular and diocesan spirituality; this is what would be found in the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross from that point on, by the priests who exercised their rights and their freedom by joining this Priestly Assocation. They would receive “personal spiritual guidance which continues no matter where they are, and which complements the common guidance imparted by the bishop, while always, as a grave duty, giving it full respect.”37
“To serve the Church as the Church wants to be served”38: this was the only ambition of Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. And this was why he was overjoyed by the following words of Vatican Council II: “One should hold also in high regard and eagerly promote those associations which, having been recognized by competent ecclesiastical authority, encourage priestly holiness in the ministry by the use of an appropriate and duly approved rule of life and by fraternal aid, intending thus to do service to the whole order of priests.”39
His life on earth was consumed by this desire of his soul, by this love for the Church. Barely two hours before he died, the Founder of Opus Dei said to his daughters in Castel Gandolfo: “I will tell you as I do whenever I come here that you, by the simple fact of being Christians, have priestly souls. With your priestly soul and with God’s grace, you can and should help the priestly ministry which we priests carry out. Together, we shall work effectively.
“In everything you do, find a motive to talk to God and to his Blessed Mother, who is our Mother, and to St. Joseph, our Father and Lord, and to our Guardian Angels, so as to help this Holy Church, our Mother, which is in such great need, and which is having such a difficult time in the world these days. We should love the Church and the Pope very much. Ask Our Lord that our service on behalf of the Church and the Pope may be effective.”40
On November 28th, 1982, by means of the Apostolic Constitution Ut sit, John Paul II erected Opus Dei as a personal prelature, to which the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross is intrinsically united as an Association of clergy. During the many years I spent at the side of the Founder of Opus Dei, I witnessed the intensity of the prayer and mortification with which he “pestered” and got others to “pester” the Lord, so that He would grant us this definitive canonical solution.
This canonical figure, so perfectly suited to the spirit of Opus Dei, confirms and seals its secular character, and at the same time, clearly manifests what St. Josemaría had always maintained, even by means of extraordinary measures: that the diocesan priests who are members of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross do not have any ecclesiastical Superior other than their own Bishop. Their dependence on the Association is not a dependence of government or jurisdiction, “but rather a voluntary relationship of spiritual assistance”41, which is exclusively restricted to the private sphere of the personal life of the priest, where each can and should make his own free decisions.
This blessed duty of priestly fraternity forms part of the inheritance that the Founder of Opus Dei has left to his children. It is a legacy which places the responsibility on our shoulders to follow in his footsteps on the divine path which he opened with his heroic response to the God’s inspirations. While this is no easy task, we rely on the help that we receive from heaven.
Palabra, 239 June 1985, p. 274-279
Notes
1. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 7-VI-1975 (AGP, P01 1975, p. 847).
2. Ps 26:8.
3. The Way, 382.
4. ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, Epistola ad Polycarpum, VI (PG 5, 724).
5. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 26-X-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II p. 765).
6. Ps 118:100.
7. In Love with the Church, 38.
8. Cfr. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 2.
9. Cfr. Ef 4:12.
10. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Dogm. Const. Lumen Gentium, 28.
11. JOHN PAUL II, Homily, Philadelphia, 4-X-1979, 4; “Insegnamenti” II (1979) 604.
12. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 3-VI-1974 (AGP, P04 1974, I, p. 201).
13. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 17-VI-1974 (AGP, P04 1974, I, p. 619).
14. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 15-III-1969 (AGP, P04 1969, I, p. 318).
15. Is 43:1.
16. Cfr. PAUL VI, Enc. Sacerdotalibus caelibatus, 24-VI-1967, 32.
17. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 22.
18. Ibid.
19. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 26-X-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II, p. 767).
20. JOHN PAUL II, Discourse, Tokyo, 23-II-1981, “Insegnamenti” IV (1981) 492.
21. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
22. Cited by A. DEL PORTILLO, Escritos sobre el sacerdocio, Madrid 1979, p. 111-112.
23. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
24. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Letter 2-II-1945, 4.
25. Conversations, 8.
26. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 12.
27. Jn 17:19.
28. Cfr. ST. JOHN CRYSOSTYM, In Ioan, 17:19 (PG 59, 443).
29. Cfr. Heb 7:26.
30. Conversations, 3.
31. Cfr. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 13.
32. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 14-XI-1972 (AGP, P04 1972, II, p. 475).
33. Conversations, 16.
34. Cfr. Mt 28:18; VATICAN COUNCIL II, Dogm. Const. Lumen Gentium, 28.
35. Lk 22:27.
36. St. JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ, Notes taken in conversation, 15-III-1969 (AGP, P02 1969, pp. 319-320).
37. Conversations, 16.
38. Cfr. Postulación de la Causa de Beatificación y Canonización del siervo de Dios Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Fundador del Opus Dei. Artículos del Postulador, Rome 1979, 294.
39. VATICAN COUNCIL II, Decr. Prebyterorum ordinis, 8.
40. S. BERNAL, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer: A Profile of the Founder of Opus Dei, London 1977, p. 93
41. Conversations, 16.
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