Q&A 48
*Back to the questions on Opus Dei... Apologies this one went well over the word limit.
Q. Dude! That 100% self-giving story is neither encouraging nor exciting... It's cute but too risky; too vulnerable...
A. Too "loving" you mean? This is the way God loves us: a risky, vulnerable, 100% self-giving love. Take a good look at a crucifix: does it get any more risky, vulnerable, 100%?
Q. But isn't it like prudent to have a backup plan, some plan B?
A. Will Smith would contest that and say "plan B distracts us from plan A, so stick to plan A!"
Only plan A - plan self-giving 100% - has made saints whether married couples or high school students or nuns or palace guards or doctors or accountants. "Can you imagine what twelve more Mother Teresas would do for the world? Can you imagine what would happen if just twelve readers of this article offered Christ 100% of their hearts and held back nothing, absolutely nothing?
No, you can’t imagine it, any more than anyone could imagine how twelve nice Jewish boys could conquer the Roman Empire. You can’t imagine it, but you can do it. You can become a saint. Absolutely no one and nothing can stop you. It is your free choice. Here is one of the truest and most terrifying sentences I have ever read (from William Law’s Serious Call): “If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be.”
That insight is terrifying because it is an indictment. But it is also thrillingly hopeful because it is an offer, an open door. Each of us can become a saint. We really can.
What holds us back? Fear of paying the price.
What is the price? The answer is simple... The price is everything: 100%. A worse martyrdom than the quick noose or stake: the martyrdom of dying daily, dying to all your desires and plans, including your plans about how to become a saint. A blank cheque to God. Complete submission, “islam,” (Arabic for "submission") “fiat” (Latin for "let it be done (to me according to your word)" Lk 1:38) — Mary’s thing. Look what that simple Mary-thing did 2000 years ago: It brought God down and saved the world. It was meant to continue.
If we do that Mary-thing—and only if we do that—then all our apostolates will “work”: our missioning and catechizing and fathering and mothering and teaching and studying and nursing and businessing and priesting and bishoping—everything.
A bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations on ways to increase vocations. The priest replied: The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, Your Excellency, would be your canonization.
Why not yours?"
30th November 2015