June 23, 2026 • 23 mins
In this meditation for the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva, Fr. Donncha Ó hAodha reflects personal freedom as the capacity to love. Drawing upon a simple aspiration St. Josemaria learned as a child— “Yours am I, I was born for thee. What is it, O Jesus, you want of me?”—Fr. Donncha explains how St. Josemaria’s spirituality was shaped by a docility to the Holy Spirit which allowed him to see that ordinary Christians can become saints through their daily work, relationships, and responsibilities.
Through prayer and reflection, we are encouraged to deepen our awareness of our identity as children of God and to discover new ways of loving and serving him in the ordinary circumstances of life.
Listen and reflect on:
- Our identity as beloved children of God
- Holiness in ordinary life
- The sanctification of work
- Freedom fulfilled through love
- Sharing the spirit of St. Josemaría with others
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are
here, that you see me, that youhear me.
I adore you with profoundreverence.
I ask you for pardon of my sinsand grace to make this time of
prayer fruitful.
My Mother Immaculate, SaintJoseph, my father and Lord, my
(00:34):
guardian angel, intercede forme.
We could ask also SaintHosamuria to intercede for me,
to intercede for us in the monthof June, in which we celebrate
his liturgical feast.
And straight away when we prayto Saint Hosamuria or pray about
him, one word that comes to mindimmediately is Father, very much
(01:00):
our Father.
And he himself was conscious,even from a very young age, that
his vocation was to be thefather spiritually to many
people.
And we know that he's a lovingfather, that he is in heaven,
that he helps us so much fromthere.
unknown (01:22):
St.
SPEAKER_00 (01:23):
Jose Muria at times encouraged people to make their
prayer liturgical.
In other words, that ourspiritual life, our relationship
with God, would take intoaccount the sacred liturgy and
kind of live with the liturgyand live within the liturgy.
(01:43):
And maybe we can follow hisadvice here in this period of
prayer just by looking at one ofthe prefaces of the Mass, a
liturgical prayer, a part of theEucharistic prayer, and that is
the preface for holy pastors,which is the preface that the
church uses in celebrating theMass of St.
Hose Maria, because he is indeeda holy pastor.
(02:07):
And there the church addressesGod the Father in these words.
For as on the festival of SaintHose Maria, you bid your church
rejoice, so too you strengthenher by the example of his holy
life, teach her by his words ofpreaching, and keep her safe in
(02:33):
answer to his prayers.
First of all, I guess weshouldn't lose sight of it.
You bid your church rejoice onthe festival of St.
Josemuria.
So on the feast of St.
Jose Muria, in this month of St.
Jose Muria, we rejoice, werejoice.
And when we pray about thisparticular saint, we naturally
(02:54):
enough we rejoice because, well,he was a man of tremendous good
humor, and so many photographsand footage that we have of him
show him smiling, laughing,transmitting joy, transmitting
cheerfulness.
That's a very salient part ofhis spirit.
And then we could pray brieflyabout those three aspects of the
(03:16):
liturgical prayer.
You strengthen her, the church,by the example of his holy life.
You teach her by his words ofpreaching, and keep her safe in
answer to his prayers.
So, first of all, Lord, in ourprayer, we reflect on the fact
that you strengthen the church,the people of God, by the holy
(03:40):
life of this pastor of SaintHosa Maria.
We are strengthened by his holylife.
Indeed, we are.
In the first place, perhapsbecause he, as Saint John Paul
II put it at his canonization,he is the saint of ordinary
life.
Saint Hosa Maria is the greatreminder that we're all called
(04:04):
to holiness, that we're allcalled to be saints.
And that's a great blessing tobe reminded of that.
Everyone is called to be holy.
You and I, in our baptism, we'reclothed with that white robe,
the baptismal garment, whichsymbolizes the holiness of God,
in which we partake throughsacramental grace at baptism,
(04:26):
and we're called to keep thatpristine, white, holy grace
pure, and even to intensify itthroughout our lives, all by the
grace of God, of course.
Maria undoubtedly was inspiredby God to remind women and men,
(04:46):
children, young people, oldpeople, healthy people, sick
people, all kinds of people,from every place, from every
period of history, that you areto be perfect as your heavenly
Father is perfect.
Those words of you, Lord Jesus,in the Sermon on the Mount.
It's like the summary of theBeatitudes.
(05:08):
It's like the summing up of thewhole moral teaching of the New
Testament.
All are called to holiness asthe as the Father Himself is
holy.
You strengthen us, Lord, by theexample of his holy life.
Well, the holiness of SaintRosemaria was very much deter a
(05:30):
determined holiness.
He was determined to be a saint.
He was a man who asked the Lordvery often for grace, for help,
for light, for support, also forforgiveness.
He taught us by his example thatholiness is not the same as
perfectionism.
(05:51):
Holiness rather is perfection inlove.
It's not all down to us.
It's fundamentally a work of theHoly Spirit in us.
Then Josimaria, like all thesaints, with the exception of
Our Lady, had to struggleagainst his own weaknesses.
He even said on one occasionthat he would like to write a
(06:14):
book called The Defects of theSaints.
He didn't get around to writingit, but he made the point
clearly, didn't he?
That the saints are not perfectbeings who cruise through life,
who float through life with nodifficulties, with no
temptations, with no weaknesses,with no sins.
(06:35):
No, holiness is not having aperfect report card where
everything just adds up, just so100% in faith, 100% in hope,
100% in love, and in temperance,and in justice, and in
fortitude, and in prudence, andin all the virtues.
It's not a matter ofperfectionism.
It's a matter of being entirelyopen to the Holy Spirit.
(06:59):
Let the sanctifier, the love ofGod in person, the paraclete,
make us saints.
To have that radical openness tothe love of God.
And in practice, we know thatfor each one of us that often
means beginning and beginningagain.
With a holy stubbornness.
(07:21):
Again, to quote Saint RosaMaria, it's a great phrase,
isn't it?
Holy stubbornness.
All the saints had that greatholy stubbornness.
Otherwise, they'd never becomesaints.
Lord, I trust in your love forme.
I trust in the power of yourHoly Spirit.
I trust in your understanding ofme.
(07:42):
Lord, you know me and you loveme much more than I know and
love myself.
I do indeed want to be a saint.
And I understand that that istrying to put one foot in front
of the other each day, relyingon your almighty love, on your
compassion, on your enthusiasmfor each one of us, your
(08:04):
children.
Not giving up.
Saint Teresa of Avala in The Wayof Perfection, she talks about
this determination for holiness.
She says, it matters a greatdeal.
It is essential that one havevery great, very determined
(08:27):
resolution not to halt until oneattains it.
Come what may, however much onesuffers, however much people may
gossip, whether I get there ornot, even if I die on the way,
or am not able to face all theeffort involved, even if the
world collapses around me.
(08:49):
She's so graphic, isn't she?
She's so direct in her approach.
I mean, Saint José Maria is veryreminiscent of Teresa Vavala.
They have the same affectionateway of addressing their readers,
of making demands, and at thesame time of understanding human
weakness that they alsoexperience.
So, on the one hand, a greatdetermination to be a saint.
(09:13):
This is one of the ways that St.
Josemaria undoubtedly inspiresus.
As the preface says, youstrengthen her, the church, by
the example of his holy life,Lord.
And one way we're strengthenedis just seeing his own
determination to be a saint.
Saint Jose Maria's own vigor,you might say, his love, his
(09:35):
determination, in spite of hisobvious human weaknesses, such
as we all have.
We could think here of thatfamous phrase by Léon Blois, the
French writer.
The only real sadness, the onlyreal failure, the only great
(09:56):
tragedy in life, is not tobecome a saint.
It's true, isn't it?
Everything else is secondary.
The one thing that matters isholiness.
Only one thing is needful, ourLord says to us in the Gospel.
And Saint Jose Maria also saidthat to us.
But we might say that thesanctity, the holiness Saint
(10:17):
Jose Maria presents us with, isprofoundly human.
It doesn't water down thedemands of Christian holiness.
Not at all.
It is heroic sanctity.
But heroic sanctity isn't somekind of elaborate superhuman
gymnastics of the spirit.
Heroic sanctity is ordinary,everyday things, trying to do
(10:40):
them with love.
And when we don't do them withlove, or when we don't do them
well, or when we don't even dothem sometimes, beginning again
with confidence in our Lord'simmeasurable fatherly love.
(11:03):
So too you strengthen her by theexample of his holy life.
Teach her by his words ofpreaching.
Aha.
Here we could pray for a longtime.
How the Lord teaches us throughthe words of Saint Jose Maria's
preaching.
And it's a wonderful thing thatmore and more of his letters,
(11:26):
different forms of hispreaching, you might say, are
being published in differentlanguages made available.
I mean, there are real gemsthere.
(11:47):
And perhaps if some of us arevery familiar with the spirit of
Saint José Maria, we can kind oftake them for granted.
Not through any bad will, butjust because we get used to
them.
We get used to these treasures.
And Lord, I don't want to getused to these treasures.
I want to treasure thesetreasures.
unknown (12:08):
St.
SPEAKER_00 (12:08):
Jose Maria's emphasis, for example, on our
fundamental identity as beloveddaughters and sons of God.
I mean, what a wonderful thingfor us to go to time and again
in our prayer, in our thoughts,in our ongoing dialogue with the
Lord, wherever we are in thetraffic, in the workplace, on
(12:29):
the squash court, with ourfamilies, with our friends,
wherever we are, once and againto consider our divine
filiation, that we are belovedchildren of God.
This is something that we canunpack more and more as we go
along.
Our St.
Rosen Maria's teaching onprecisely the universal call to
(12:51):
holiness, with an emphasis, wemight say, on secularity,
holiness in the ordinary.
Not only is everybody called toholiness, that is indeed the
case, but one can be holyanywhere.
Anywhere that's honest and good,obviously, which is most places,
(13:14):
nearly every human situation.
Here's a succinct description ofthe Christian vocation as seen
by St.
Jose Murilla.
This comes from his personalspiritual notes from June of
1930.
So at this stage he's 28 yearsof age, he's very young.
Opus Day, the work has only beenfounded two years.
(13:37):
And here he writes ordinaryChristians, though in
fermentation.
What is ordinary is ours withnaturalness.
The means, professional work.
Everybody, saints.
(13:57):
It's like a telegraphicdescription of the vocation to
holiness in secular ordinaryrealities.
Ordinary Christians, dough infermentation.
We're like dough, you know, thatmakes the bread to rise,
fermenting there quietly,unobtrusively, discreetly, not
(14:19):
seeking attention.
What is ordinary is ours.
Well, Lord, I thank you for St.
Hosemaria, because that isimportant for me personally, and
for so many people to realizethat what is ordinary is
extraordinary by your grace.
After all, what did our lady andSaint Joseph and the Lord
(14:40):
Himself do in Nazareth?
They did what was ordinary.
And in and through the grace ofGod, in and through God's love
through the Holy Spirit, allthat is ordinary can be
extraordinarily fruitful,extraordinarily beautiful.
The means, he says, professionalwork.
(15:01):
Aha.
Here we're at a fundamentalpoint in the spirit of Opus Dei
and in the spirit of St.
Jose Maria.
And I'm sure it's an area thatwe can delve in more and more
and deepen in more and morework.
What does it mean to sanctifyone's work?
(15:22):
What does it mean to say thatwork is truly a language of
love?
What is it to say that work?
Each one of us here can fill inour own work.
What is it?
Is it uh a computer screen?
Is it uh fixing cars?
Is it peeling potatoes?
Is it educating children?
Is it writing a book?
(15:44):
Is it the work of suffering anillness?
Is it the work of caring thosewho suffer an illness?
Is it the work of um whatever,carpentry, technology, artistry,
you name it?
That that work is prayer, thatthat work is praise and
(16:05):
thanksgiving and adoration andreparation and petition, that
that work is evangelization,that that work is outreach, love
of others, that that work buildsup the edifice of the church.
How what a beautiful teaching ofSaint Jose Maria and and it's
one that we can always exploremore.
(16:27):
Yes, indeed, Lord, you teach thechurch by his words of
preaching, and especially in inthese areas.
So many aspects of his teaching.
Freedom, personal freedom,freedom and self-giving as an
(16:49):
expression of a loving freedom,of a love-filled freedom.
Freedom not simply as thecapacity to choose, which it is
partially that, but freedomabove all as the capacity to
love.
It is love that fulfills ourfreedom.
Lord, help me to give myself toyou freely.
(17:11):
Help me to love you freely.
That is something we learn alsofrom Saint Jose Maria.
He he had learned a prayer as achild from his um, I think from
his grandmother, uh beautifulprayer.
Very simple, but you know, it'sa prayer of real holiness, you
might say.
It opens us up to holiness.
(17:34):
The prayer is, yours am I.
I was born for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
Yours am I, I was born for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
Well, if I can say that prayernow, you know, in this period of
(17:55):
conversation with with the Lord,in this period of meditation, if
I can put my hand on my heartand say, Yours am I, I was born
for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
That's a powerful prayer.
I I will discover my vocation,or maybe I will rediscover it,
or I will see what my vocationis calling me to do today.
(18:19):
And above all, I will find whereI can engage my free love for
the Lord, where I can freelypledge myself to Him and to His
people, perhaps especially thosewho are most needy.
And that's surely the supremeexercise of human freedom.
What's human freedom for if notto love is not to give, if it's
(18:41):
not about making of my life aself-gift?
So many aspects of the teachingof St.
Jose Maria that we couldmeditate on.
For example, friendship asevangelization, not using
friendship as an instrument ofevangelizing, but just simply
(19:05):
loving people.
And to love people, fraternallove, spousal love, filial love,
love of friendship in all itsforms, to will the good of the
other.
That is, without further ado,that is evangelization, that is
a proclamation of Christ, a verypowerful proclamation of Christ.
(19:30):
So Lord, I thank you for theways in which you strengthen
your church by the holy life ofSaint Jose Maria, and by you,
and I thank you for teaching herby his words of preaching.
And perhaps it's good on apractical note to think, well,
how could I spread, you know,the teaching, um, the charism,
the spirit which the Lord hasgiven us through Saint Jose
(19:52):
Maria?
How could I spread that a bitmore?
Uh, maybe it's sharing copies ofthe way uh with people.
We know that in recent yearsthere's been a huge increase in
interest in that book, The Way,among many, many young people
and many people of all ages.
And maybe we need to buy a fewcopies of the way and share
them, get them out there,because that book is dynamite in
(20:14):
the best sense of the word.
It's it's it's full of lights,it's full of insights.
The third and final aspect ofthe preface of holy pastors that
we can meditate on is where wesay to the Lord, to God our
Father, you keep her, thechurch, safe in answer to his
(20:35):
prayers.
Undoubtedly, this is the case.
The saints, all of them,beginning with our Blessed Lady,
keep the church safe with theirprayers because they are members
of the church.
They don't leave the church andgo into heaven, they are the
church at home.
And the church at home is alwayscaring for the church that's
still on the way home.
(20:57):
Those of us who are on thejourney, the church, a pilgrim
church, the church militant.
And of course, we remember too,the church suffering, the church
going through purgatory.
All of us are one in Christ.
According to the motto of ourHoly Father Pope Leo, we are in
him we are all one.
(21:17):
In in Christ we are all one.
And it's in that great communionof saints that Saint Josemaria
now exercises his paternal love.
And that's why so many people,countless people, pray to him
every day in many differentlanguages, in many different
places.
Maybe we should spread aroundthe prayer card among our
friends and our family more, putit online more to people,
(21:40):
whatever it might be.
He did always say to us, SaintJosé Maria used to say, Look,
from heaven I'm gonna help youmore.
From heaven, I'm gonna help youmore.
Many of the saints said that.
We think of Saint Teresa ofLesieux.
She also said that she wouldshower down flowers or graces
from heaven to us.
Um, well, Josemaria, our father,our holy founder, uh we pray to
(22:08):
you, we trust in you, and in youwe see the gentleness, the
compassion, the enthusiasm ofour Father God.
I thank you, my God, for thegood resolutions, affections,
and inspirations you havecommunicated to me in this time
of prayer.
I ask you for help to put theminto effect.
(22:31):
My Mother Immaculate, SaintJoseph, my father and lord, my
guardian angel intercede for me.
My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are
here, that you see me, that youhear me.
I adore you with profoundreverence.
I ask you for pardon of my sinsand grace to make this time of
prayer fruitful.
My Mother Immaculate, SaintJoseph, my father and Lord, my
(00:34):
guardian angel, intercede forme.
We could ask also SaintHosamuria to intercede for me,
to intercede for us in the monthof June, in which we celebrate
his liturgical feast.
And straight away when we prayto Saint Hosamuria or pray about
him, one word that comes to mindimmediately is Father, very much
(01:00):
our Father.
And he himself was conscious,even from a very young age, that
his vocation was to be thefather spiritually to many
people.
And we know that he's a lovingfather, that he is in heaven,
that he helps us so much fromthere.
unknown (01:22):
St.
SPEAKER_00 (01:23):
Jose Muria at times encouraged people to make their
prayer liturgical.
In other words, that ourspiritual life, our relationship
with God, would take intoaccount the sacred liturgy and
kind of live with the liturgyand live within the liturgy.
(01:43):
And maybe we can follow hisadvice here in this period of
prayer just by looking at one ofthe prefaces of the Mass, a
liturgical prayer, a part of theEucharistic prayer, and that is
the preface for holy pastors,which is the preface that the
church uses in celebrating theMass of St.
Hose Maria, because he is indeeda holy pastor.
(02:07):
And there the church addressesGod the Father in these words.
For as on the festival of SaintHose Maria, you bid your church
rejoice, so too you strengthenher by the example of his holy
life, teach her by his words ofpreaching, and keep her safe in
(02:33):
answer to his prayers.
First of all, I guess weshouldn't lose sight of it.
You bid your church rejoice onthe festival of St.
Josemuria.
So on the feast of St.
Jose Muria, in this month of St.
Jose Muria, we rejoice, werejoice.
And when we pray about thisparticular saint, we naturally
(02:54):
enough we rejoice because, well,he was a man of tremendous good
humor, and so many photographsand footage that we have of him
show him smiling, laughing,transmitting joy, transmitting
cheerfulness.
That's a very salient part ofhis spirit.
And then we could pray brieflyabout those three aspects of the
(03:16):
liturgical prayer.
You strengthen her, the church,by the example of his holy life.
You teach her by his words ofpreaching, and keep her safe in
answer to his prayers.
So, first of all, Lord, in ourprayer, we reflect on the fact
that you strengthen the church,the people of God, by the holy
(03:40):
life of this pastor of SaintHosa Maria.
We are strengthened by his holylife.
Indeed, we are.
In the first place, perhapsbecause he, as Saint John Paul
II put it at his canonization,he is the saint of ordinary
life.
Saint Hosa Maria is the greatreminder that we're all called
(04:04):
to holiness, that we're allcalled to be saints.
And that's a great blessing tobe reminded of that.
Everyone is called to be holy.
You and I, in our baptism, we'reclothed with that white robe,
the baptismal garment, whichsymbolizes the holiness of God,
in which we partake throughsacramental grace at baptism,
(04:26):
and we're called to keep thatpristine, white, holy grace
pure, and even to intensify itthroughout our lives, all by the
grace of God, of course.
Maria undoubtedly was inspiredby God to remind women and men,
(04:46):
children, young people, oldpeople, healthy people, sick
people, all kinds of people,from every place, from every
period of history, that you areto be perfect as your heavenly
Father is perfect.
Those words of you, Lord Jesus,in the Sermon on the Mount.
It's like the summary of theBeatitudes.
(05:08):
It's like the summing up of thewhole moral teaching of the New
Testament.
All are called to holiness asthe as the Father Himself is
holy.
You strengthen us, Lord, by theexample of his holy life.
Well, the holiness of SaintRosemaria was very much deter a
(05:30):
determined holiness.
He was determined to be a saint.
He was a man who asked the Lordvery often for grace, for help,
for light, for support, also forforgiveness.
He taught us by his example thatholiness is not the same as
perfectionism.
(05:51):
Holiness rather is perfection inlove.
It's not all down to us.
It's fundamentally a work of theHoly Spirit in us.
Then Josimaria, like all thesaints, with the exception of
Our Lady, had to struggleagainst his own weaknesses.
He even said on one occasionthat he would like to write a
(06:14):
book called The Defects of theSaints.
He didn't get around to writingit, but he made the point
clearly, didn't he?
That the saints are not perfectbeings who cruise through life,
who float through life with nodifficulties, with no
temptations, with no weaknesses,with no sins.
(06:35):
No, holiness is not having aperfect report card where
everything just adds up, just so100% in faith, 100% in hope,
100% in love, and in temperance,and in justice, and in
fortitude, and in prudence, andin all the virtues.
It's not a matter ofperfectionism.
It's a matter of being entirelyopen to the Holy Spirit.
(06:59):
Let the sanctifier, the love ofGod in person, the paraclete,
make us saints.
To have that radical openness tothe love of God.
And in practice, we know thatfor each one of us that often
means beginning and beginningagain.
With a holy stubbornness.
(07:21):
Again, to quote Saint RosaMaria, it's a great phrase,
isn't it?
Holy stubbornness.
All the saints had that greatholy stubbornness.
Otherwise, they'd never becomesaints.
Lord, I trust in your love forme.
I trust in the power of yourHoly Spirit.
I trust in your understanding ofme.
(07:42):
Lord, you know me and you loveme much more than I know and
love myself.
I do indeed want to be a saint.
And I understand that that istrying to put one foot in front
of the other each day, relyingon your almighty love, on your
compassion, on your enthusiasmfor each one of us, your
(08:04):
children.
Not giving up.
Saint Teresa of Avala in The Wayof Perfection, she talks about
this determination for holiness.
She says, it matters a greatdeal.
It is essential that one havevery great, very determined
(08:27):
resolution not to halt until oneattains it.
Come what may, however much onesuffers, however much people may
gossip, whether I get there ornot, even if I die on the way,
or am not able to face all theeffort involved, even if the
world collapses around me.
(08:49):
She's so graphic, isn't she?
She's so direct in her approach.
I mean, Saint José Maria is veryreminiscent of Teresa Vavala.
They have the same affectionateway of addressing their readers,
of making demands, and at thesame time of understanding human
weakness that they alsoexperience.
So, on the one hand, a greatdetermination to be a saint.
(09:13):
This is one of the ways that St.
Josemaria undoubtedly inspiresus.
As the preface says, youstrengthen her, the church, by
the example of his holy life,Lord.
And one way we're strengthenedis just seeing his own
determination to be a saint.
Saint Jose Maria's own vigor,you might say, his love, his
(09:35):
determination, in spite of hisobvious human weaknesses, such
as we all have.
We could think here of thatfamous phrase by Léon Blois, the
French writer.
The only real sadness, the onlyreal failure, the only great
(09:56):
tragedy in life, is not tobecome a saint.
It's true, isn't it?
Everything else is secondary.
The one thing that matters isholiness.
Only one thing is needful, ourLord says to us in the Gospel.
And Saint Jose Maria also saidthat to us.
But we might say that thesanctity, the holiness Saint
(10:17):
Jose Maria presents us with, isprofoundly human.
It doesn't water down thedemands of Christian holiness.
Not at all.
It is heroic sanctity.
But heroic sanctity isn't somekind of elaborate superhuman
gymnastics of the spirit.
Heroic sanctity is ordinary,everyday things, trying to do
(10:40):
them with love.
And when we don't do them withlove, or when we don't do them
well, or when we don't even dothem sometimes, beginning again
with confidence in our Lord'simmeasurable fatherly love.
(11:03):
So too you strengthen her by theexample of his holy life.
Teach her by his words ofpreaching.
Aha.
Here we could pray for a longtime.
How the Lord teaches us throughthe words of Saint Jose Maria's
preaching.
And it's a wonderful thing thatmore and more of his letters,
(11:26):
different forms of hispreaching, you might say, are
being published in differentlanguages made available.
I mean, there are real gemsthere.
(11:47):
And perhaps if some of us arevery familiar with the spirit of
Saint José Maria, we can kind oftake them for granted.
Not through any bad will, butjust because we get used to
them.
We get used to these treasures.
And Lord, I don't want to getused to these treasures.
I want to treasure thesetreasures.
unknown (12:08):
St.
SPEAKER_00 (12:08):
Jose Maria's emphasis, for example, on our
fundamental identity as beloveddaughters and sons of God.
I mean, what a wonderful thingfor us to go to time and again
in our prayer, in our thoughts,in our ongoing dialogue with the
Lord, wherever we are in thetraffic, in the workplace, on
(12:29):
the squash court, with ourfamilies, with our friends,
wherever we are, once and againto consider our divine
filiation, that we are belovedchildren of God.
This is something that we canunpack more and more as we go
along.
Our St.
Rosen Maria's teaching onprecisely the universal call to
(12:51):
holiness, with an emphasis, wemight say, on secularity,
holiness in the ordinary.
Not only is everybody called toholiness, that is indeed the
case, but one can be holyanywhere.
Anywhere that's honest and good,obviously, which is most places,
(13:14):
nearly every human situation.
Here's a succinct description ofthe Christian vocation as seen
by St.
Jose Murilla.
This comes from his personalspiritual notes from June of
1930.
So at this stage he's 28 yearsof age, he's very young.
Opus Day, the work has only beenfounded two years.
(13:37):
And here he writes ordinaryChristians, though in
fermentation.
What is ordinary is ours withnaturalness.
The means, professional work.
Everybody, saints.
(13:57):
It's like a telegraphicdescription of the vocation to
holiness in secular ordinaryrealities.
Ordinary Christians, dough infermentation.
We're like dough, you know, thatmakes the bread to rise,
fermenting there quietly,unobtrusively, discreetly, not
(14:19):
seeking attention.
What is ordinary is ours.
Well, Lord, I thank you for St.
Hosemaria, because that isimportant for me personally, and
for so many people to realizethat what is ordinary is
extraordinary by your grace.
After all, what did our lady andSaint Joseph and the Lord
(14:40):
Himself do in Nazareth?
They did what was ordinary.
And in and through the grace ofGod, in and through God's love
through the Holy Spirit, allthat is ordinary can be
extraordinarily fruitful,extraordinarily beautiful.
The means, he says, professionalwork.
(15:01):
Aha.
Here we're at a fundamentalpoint in the spirit of Opus Dei
and in the spirit of St.
Jose Maria.
And I'm sure it's an area thatwe can delve in more and more
and deepen in more and morework.
What does it mean to sanctifyone's work?
(15:22):
What does it mean to say thatwork is truly a language of
love?
What is it to say that work?
Each one of us here can fill inour own work.
What is it?
Is it uh a computer screen?
Is it uh fixing cars?
Is it peeling potatoes?
Is it educating children?
Is it writing a book?
(15:44):
Is it the work of suffering anillness?
Is it the work of caring thosewho suffer an illness?
Is it the work of um whatever,carpentry, technology, artistry,
you name it?
That that work is prayer, thatthat work is praise and
(16:05):
thanksgiving and adoration andreparation and petition, that
that work is evangelization,that that work is outreach, love
of others, that that work buildsup the edifice of the church.
How what a beautiful teaching ofSaint Jose Maria and and it's
one that we can always exploremore.
(16:27):
Yes, indeed, Lord, you teach thechurch by his words of
preaching, and especially in inthese areas.
So many aspects of his teaching.
Freedom, personal freedom,freedom and self-giving as an
(16:49):
expression of a loving freedom,of a love-filled freedom.
Freedom not simply as thecapacity to choose, which it is
partially that, but freedomabove all as the capacity to
love.
It is love that fulfills ourfreedom.
Lord, help me to give myself toyou freely.
(17:11):
Help me to love you freely.
That is something we learn alsofrom Saint Jose Maria.
He he had learned a prayer as achild from his um, I think from
his grandmother, uh beautifulprayer.
Very simple, but you know, it'sa prayer of real holiness, you
might say.
It opens us up to holiness.
(17:34):
The prayer is, yours am I.
I was born for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
Yours am I, I was born for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
Well, if I can say that prayernow, you know, in this period of
(17:55):
conversation with with the Lord,in this period of meditation, if
I can put my hand on my heartand say, Yours am I, I was born
for thee.
What is it, O Jesus, you want ofme?
That's a powerful prayer.
I I will discover my vocation,or maybe I will rediscover it,
or I will see what my vocationis calling me to do today.
(18:19):
And above all, I will find whereI can engage my free love for
the Lord, where I can freelypledge myself to Him and to His
people, perhaps especially thosewho are most needy.
And that's surely the supremeexercise of human freedom.
What's human freedom for if notto love is not to give, if it's
(18:41):
not about making of my life aself-gift?
So many aspects of the teachingof St.
Jose Maria that we couldmeditate on.
For example, friendship asevangelization, not using
friendship as an instrument ofevangelizing, but just simply
(19:05):
loving people.
And to love people, fraternallove, spousal love, filial love,
love of friendship in all itsforms, to will the good of the
other.
That is, without further ado,that is evangelization, that is
a proclamation of Christ, a verypowerful proclamation of Christ.
(19:30):
So Lord, I thank you for theways in which you strengthen
your church by the holy life ofSaint Jose Maria, and by you,
and I thank you for teaching herby his words of preaching.
And perhaps it's good on apractical note to think, well,
how could I spread, you know,the teaching, um, the charism,
the spirit which the Lord hasgiven us through Saint Jose
(19:52):
Maria?
How could I spread that a bitmore?
Uh, maybe it's sharing copies ofthe way uh with people.
We know that in recent yearsthere's been a huge increase in
interest in that book, The Way,among many, many young people
and many people of all ages.
And maybe we need to buy a fewcopies of the way and share
them, get them out there,because that book is dynamite in
(20:14):
the best sense of the word.
It's it's it's full of lights,it's full of insights.
The third and final aspect ofthe preface of holy pastors that
we can meditate on is where wesay to the Lord, to God our
Father, you keep her, thechurch, safe in answer to his
(20:35):
prayers.
Undoubtedly, this is the case.
The saints, all of them,beginning with our Blessed Lady,
keep the church safe with theirprayers because they are members
of the church.
They don't leave the church andgo into heaven, they are the
church at home.
And the church at home is alwayscaring for the church that's
still on the way home.
(20:57):
Those of us who are on thejourney, the church, a pilgrim
church, the church militant.
And of course, we remember too,the church suffering, the church
going through purgatory.
All of us are one in Christ.
According to the motto of ourHoly Father Pope Leo, we are in
him we are all one.
(21:17):
In in Christ we are all one.
And it's in that great communionof saints that Saint Josemaria
now exercises his paternal love.
And that's why so many people,countless people, pray to him
every day in many differentlanguages, in many different
places.
Maybe we should spread aroundthe prayer card among our
friends and our family more, putit online more to people,
(21:40):
whatever it might be.
He did always say to us, SaintJosé Maria used to say, Look,
from heaven I'm gonna help youmore.
From heaven, I'm gonna help youmore.
Many of the saints said that.
We think of Saint Teresa ofLesieux.
She also said that she wouldshower down flowers or graces
from heaven to us.
Um, well, Josemaria, our father,our holy founder, uh we pray to
(22:08):
you, we trust in you, and in youwe see the gentleness, the
compassion, the enthusiasm ofour Father God.
I thank you, my God, for thegood resolutions, affections,
and inspirations you havecommunicated to me in this time
of prayer.
I ask you for help to put theminto effect.
(22:31):
My Mother Immaculate, SaintJoseph, my father and lord, my
guardian angel intercede for me.
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