Fwd: Letter from the Prelate
Tina Avenido
From: AIDEA: Ethel Olaer <e.o...@aidea.com.ph>
Date: Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:33 AM
Subject: Letter from the Prelate
To: "AIDEA: Ethel Olaer" <e.o...@aidea.com.ph>
Letter from the Prelate (March 2008)
With Holy Week drawing close, the Prelate invites us to
redouble our efforts to grow in our love for God and neighbor, picking up our
pace just as runners do when they see the finish line.
March 10, 2008
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
Two weeks ago, I had
the joy of spending forty-eight hours in The Netherlands. As always on these
brief trips (as on other longer ones), I give abundant thanks to God for the
tangible reality of the unity of the Work: for the cor unum et anima una,[1] one heart and one mind, and yet
everyone is different. Our Father, who prayed for this diversity from the
beginning, raised many acts of thanksgiving on seeing how it was becoming a
reality, and also on seeing that this variety gave rise to a stronger, more
joyful unity.
We are drawing close to Holy Week and Easter. Half of Lent has already gone by
and we have to speed up our pace. In sporting events, athletes redouble their
effort as they get close to the finish line. If they had been conserving their
strength, now they pour it out generously, hoping to place well or even win the
competition. The thought sometimes goes through my head that time is going more
rapidly than our eagerness for sanctity, for conversion, which shouldn't
be the case, since we have to go at God's pace.
Let's do as the athletes do. What are these weeks but a time of training
to arrive well purified at the Easter Triduum, which offers us once more the
possibility of participating even more intimately in Christ's victory
over sin and over death? This well-known sporting metaphor, with its Pauline
connotations,[2] has been amply developed by the Fathers of the Church. Look at
how it was expressed, for example, by St. Leo the Great. Exhorting Christians
to redouble their efforts "to gain the crown of victory in the race in the
spiritual stadium,"[3] he gave us a reason for expending greater effort
during these weeks: "None of us is so perfect and so holy that we cannot
be even more perfect and more holy. Therefore, all together, without difference
of dignity or distinction of merits, let us run with pious eagerness from where
we are to where we have not yet arrived."[4]
Last month I urged you to be especially vigilant in your spirit of
mortification and penance. Today I want to consider the practice of the works
of mercy, both material and spiritual, which Lent also gives great importance
to. In his message for Lent this year, the Pope centered his talk on
almsgiving, stressing that this act of charity, besides providing assistance to
the needy, is also an ascetical practice that helps keep the soul detached from
material goods.[5]
By going to the aid of those in need, fulfilling the conditions indicated by
Jesus in the Gospel,[6] we identify ourselves more and more closely with our
Lord, who came to earth to free men from their miseries, above all from sin. At
the same time, we offer a service to Jesus, who wanted to identify himself with
his smallest brothers and sisters: I was
hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a
stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and
you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.[7]
In the light of these words of our Lord, we see that the works of charity, and
specifically almsgiving, transcend the purely material dimension and show
themselves to be, above all, a manifestation of the charity with which God loves
us: "Every time when, for love of God, we share our goods with our
neighbor in need, we discover that the fullness of life comes from love and all
is returned to us as a blessing in the form of peace, inner satisfaction and
joy."[8]
Let us carry out, then, to the extent of each one's possibilities, this
work of charity that is so deeply rooted in the Gospel, to which our Lord
himself has united special spiritual fruit. For love covers a multitude of sins,[9] and all of us are very
much in need of God's forgiveness.
As is logical, and this is how the Church has always understood it, charity
towards our neighbor cannot be limited to the purely material sphere. In
reality there are many who are poor, not in financial terms, but in terms of
affection, of love—people who find themselves in a sad loneliness or
surrounded by the coldness of indifference. From this perspective, the meaning
of St. Josemaría's constant teaching becomes clear: "Charity
consists not so much in giving as in understanding."[10] This spiritual maxim
has many applications in our daily life and is always very timely.
Even though social progress may one day lead to the most important physical
requirements of people being met (food, clothes, a place to live, health care,
etc.), it will never be able to provide for all the interior
needs—affection, understanding, forgiveness, acceptance—that so
many people experience. While the first can be addressed by government
programs, the second touch on each one's intimacy, where personal
relationships are indispensable. Here we Christians can play a great role in
bringing to others the consolation of Christ's charity.
"Love—caritas—will
always prove necessary, even in the most just society," the Pope wrote in
his first encyclical. "There is no ordering of the State so just that it
can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love
is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which
cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will
always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love
of neighbor is indispensable. The State which would provide everything,
absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy
incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every
person—needs: namely, loving personal concern."[11]
We discover this by attentively reading the Gospels. Certainly Jesus was
concerned about the multitudes who had nothing to eat, about the sick who came
to him to be cured, about the crowds eager to receive his saving doctrine.[12]
But he was equally concerned about individuals: he helps the leper who throws
himself at his feet begging for health; he speaks privately with Nicodemus, who
was seeking the truth; he converses at length with the Samaritan woman by the
well at Sichar, to convert her; he welcomes the repentant woman in the
Pharisee's house, filling her soul with God's forgiveness.[13]
People said of the first Christians, with admiration: See how they love one another! [14] This
praise for our first brothers and sisters in the faith should also be heard
today, wherever a disciple of the Master is found. St. Josemaría's advice
is very timely: "If you think, looking at yourself now or in so many
things you do each day, that you do not deserve such praise; that your heart
does not respond as it should to the promptings of God, then consider that the
time has come for you to put things right. Listen to St. Paul's invitation, 'Let us do
good to all men, and especially to those who are of one family with us in the
faith'(Gal 6:10), who make up the Mystical Body of Christ."[15] Therefore, our Father continued,
"The principal apostolate we Christians must carry out in the world, and
the best witness we can give of our faith, is to help bring about a climate of
genuine charity within the Church. For who indeed could feel attracted to the
Gospel if those who say they preach the Good News do not really love one
another, but spend their time attacking one another, spreading slander and
quarrelling?"[16]
On the upcoming March 15th we will liturgically celebrate the solemnity of St. Joseph, brought
forward this year because the 19th is Wednesday in Holy Week. The
Patriarch's life, completely dedicated to caring for Jesus and Mary,
speaks to us of a love that reaches total forgetfulness of oneself. When
renewing our dedication to God on the 19th, with the marvelous example of this
just man, let us meditate deeply on St.
John's insistence that the truth of our love for
God is shown in our specific deeds of charity towards our neighbor. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for
us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the
world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against
him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love
in word or speech, but in deed and in truth.[17]
In his message for Lent, the Pope reminds us of the widow who threw a few coins
into the Temple
treasury. That poor woman received Jesus' praise for her generosity: she
offered all that she had. Recalling that this event took place in the days
immediately preceding our Lord's passion and death, the greatest
manifestation of God's love, Benedict XVI suggests: "we can learn to
make of our lives a total gift; imitating Him, we are able to make ourselves
available, not so much in giving a part of what we possess, but our very
selves.
"Cannot the entire Gospel be summarized perhaps in the one commandment of
love? The Lenten practice of almsgiving thus becomes a means to deepen our
Christian vocation. In gratuitously offering himself, the Christian bears
witness that it is love and not material richness that determines the laws of
his existence."[18]
I pray that our devout participation in the liturgical rites of the Holy
Triduum will lead us, on the one hand, to renew our sorrow for sin, which was
the cause of our Lord's surrendering himself to the Passion. And on the
other hand, that it will deepen our love and gratitude to God, spurring us to
make an ever greater effort to provide material and spiritual assistance to
those God places at our side. How have you resolved to accompany Jesus during
these days? Are you determined not to overlook even a single gesture of the
Master, to stand vigil over his holy Body when it lies in the tomb, with the
refinement of your prayer and your expiation, which are two ways of loving?
In addition to these liturgical feasts, we have other commemorations in the
month of March. The 11th is the anniversary of the birth of our beloved Don
Alvaro; and the 23rd, of his passage to our home in heaven, fourteen years ago
now. During the days just prior to this, he walked in the footsteps of our Lord
through the Holy Land, leaving us a marvelous
example of piety. Let us ask God to grant us, each and every one of us, a
fidelity to the spirit of the Work as great as that which shone in the life of
this most faithful Father and Shepherd of Opus Dei.
I cannot fail to mention that the 19th is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
implementation of the Pontifical Bull erecting Opus Dei as a personal
prelature. We need only cast a glance at the past quarter century to discover
(and we don't know all of them!) so many reasons for giving thanks to the
Blessed Trinity. Let us put our whole heart into caring for the Work, my
daughters and sons, frequently repeating that aspiration of St. Josemaría,
completed by his first successor: Cor Mariae
Dulcissimum, iter para et serva tutum! Most sweet heart of Mary, prepare
and preserve a safe path for us! And let us thank the Servant of God John Paul
II for having been a docile instrument in our Lord's hands. St. Josemaría
brought this intention to his Mass every day, and we naturally want to unite
ourselves to his Eucharistic piety, also taking advantage of the anniversary of
his priestly ordination on the 28th of this month.
Today I just finished my retreat. I ask you for the support of your prayers so
that I too may undergo a deep conversion this Lent and reach the Easter
celebration well purified, enkindled with love for God, for my daughters and
sons, and for all souls.
With all my affection, I bless you,
Your Father
+
Javier
Rome, March 1,
2008
1. Acts 4:32 (Vulg.)
2. Cf. 1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil 3:12-14.
3. Leo the Great, Homily 7 on Lent.
4. Leo the Great, Homily 2 on
Lent.
5. Cf. Benedict XVI, Message for Lent 2008, October 30, 2007, no. 1.
6. Cf. Mt 6:2-4.
7. Mt 25:35-36.
8. Benedict XVI, Message for Lent 2008, October 30, 2007, no. 4.
9. 1 Pet 4:8.
10. St. Josemaría, The Way,no.
463.
11. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus Caritas
Est,December 25, 2005, no. 28.
12. Cf. Mt 14:13-21; Mk 1:32-34; Mk 6:33-34.
13. Cf. Mt 8:1-4; Jn 3:1-21; Jn 4:7-30; Lk 7:
36-50.
14. Tertullian, Apologia, 39.
15. St. Josemaría, Friends of God,no.
225.
16. Ibid., no. 226.
17. 1 Jn 3:16-18.
18. Benedict XVI, Message for Lent 2008, October 30, 2007, no. 5.
--
Sincerely,
Tina Avenido
0915.850.3505 | 895.3352