The joy of being with the Founder of Opus Dei

José María Casciaro

Tags: Joy, cheerfulness, Charity

The joy of Saint Josemaria and the other members of the Work also impressed me deeply from the time of my first contact with Opus Dei. What I saw was not something merely natural. Saint Josemaria had written, “The cheerfulness you should have is not the kind we might call physiological good spirits like the happiness of a healthy animal. You must seek something more: the supernatural happiness that comes from the abandonment of everything and the abandonment of yourself into the loving arms of our Father-God.” Then and later I very often heard him say a short phrase which sums up the deepest root of joy: “Being sad is for people who don’t know they are God’s children”.

Saint Josemaria, as can clearly be seen in the biographies that have been written of him, was a joyful man, right from the very first times when he felt that God was asking him for something and he was absolutely generous, not refusing him anything that he asked. He overflowed with supernatural joy and spread it to others. To be near him, join in conversations with him, and listen to his preaching, was always stimulating. He was very demanding with reference to the fulfilment of the Christian virtues, but that demanding approach was imbued with humanity and cheerfulness. Everyone who knew him agrees that one really enjoyed being with him, while at the same time one understood in greater depth the urgency of the struggle for Christian holiness, not just in general or in theory, but when it came to applying it to the specific details of every day and every moment. Amidst the adversities that God allowed him to undergo in order to forge his soul and make it steadfast, Josemaria Escrivá was at one and the same time profound, serious, and funny, because he lived by faith and love for God at every moment. Among the many supernatural charisms which God granted him were his cheerfulness and his humorous way of speaking.

Charity and affection
In a meditation during those months I heard him say something that made a deep impression on me. He related the story of a young woman who was ill and was being looked after by some good nuns. When a priest went to see her to give her spiritual care, he asked how she was. She replied that she was all right, that she was being well looked after and did not lack anything, but she added, “Here they treat me charitably, but my mother treated me affectionately.” The Father took this little story as a starting-point to explain what our fraternity was like in the Work: full of supernatural love, charity, but imbued with human affection, real, self-sacrificing affection, without any pious pretence but coming straight from the heart; affection which puts its heart into big things and little details alike, which radiates a warmth that is at once fraternal, fatherly, and motherly. This sort of divine-human love is not merely what shapes the way the members of the Work treat each other in daily living, but it also gives colour and joy to their lives, with the confidence that other people are there to support them when needed, while always avoiding the slightest interference in the professional sphere, which is an exclusively personal responsibility.

Of course this way of understanding and practising fraternity gave me a profound sense of security when I was with the Father and my brothers, and has done so from the very first time right up until the moment I am writing these pages. It was practised like that at the beginning of the Work, in the warmth of the Father’s physical presence; and it is still practised like that now, in the warmth of his spiritual and human legacy, a family inheritance. But this is not just my impression: it is something that has been experienced by people who have met 'Saint Josemaria and his spiritual children. It is what my mother, for example, found when she met “Pedro’s friends”.

“Pepe, you’re getting as round as a barrel”
There comes to my mind a little story from about ten years after the period I am relating. It was at the beginning of 1952, not many months after my ordination to the priesthood. I had recently arrived in Rome, and at the age of twenty-eight I had what is called a healthy appetite. The different types of pasta asciutta, from spaghetti to macaroni, which form the basis for Italian cooking, were noticeably fattening, so that my cassock, which had been made some months before, showed up my “middle-age spread”.

One day when I was standing with the Father, he said to me merrily, “Pepe, you’re getting as round as a barrel.” He was making me see, in a friendly and cheerful way but still very clearly, that I needed to moderate my appetite, or in other words that I needed to practise temperance better at meals.

This sort of supernatural joy is not something that belonged to bygone times: it is still thriving more than seventy-five years after Opus Dei was born, and we have the sure hope that with God’s grace it will continue to give its serene warmth to the hearts of all the men and women who follow 'Saint Josemaria’s teaching: “I want you to be happy always, for cheerfulness is an essential part of your way. Pray that the same supernatural joy may be granted to us all.”

When Saint Josemaria was explaining the unlimited scope of supernatural joy, I heard him say several times, almost literally, “‘And, Father, if they break my head, will I still have to be happy then?’ ‘Yes, my son, you will, because that’ll be a sign that God wants you to go around with a split head.’”

Later on I sometimes thought over the joy that had made such an impression on me when I met the Founder and the first people in the Work. It seems to me that it perfectly matches what we know of the first followers of Jesus Christ, as described by St Luke in the Acts of the Apostles; and the Christian writings from the beginning of the second century. Among these, as just one example, I remember the Shepherd of Hermas. Through the whole of the book there runs a note of joy which flows from the main character and all who make up the visions. What is more, the same sort of rejoicing is seen in Hermas himself, following his conversion and his sincere fight to persevere and make progress in exercising the virtues despite his weaknesses.

José María Casciaro, It is Worth While, Scepter, 2000.