Q&A 55
Q. And all these members effectively have the same calling to be saints in the middle of the world, there wherever their work and life finds them?
A. Correct. Whether married or unmarried, they all have to ardently seek this closeness to God (personal sanctity). And because the joy we get from this intimate, personal closeness with God is real and extraordinary, then we naturally and consequently want as many other people to experience it for themselves. This is what apostolate is.
Q. And each of them has a real vocation?
A. Yes. And they each have to discover that vocation and freely commit themselves to it. Discover it through those three general means we mentioned earlier. Commit to it with the help of the aides and aids that you get with that vocation.
Q. Could we go through those again one last time? The three general means and then the aides and aids?
A. Sure.
So because vocation is a call from God, you have to listen to God, speak with him. Vocation is not us who walk through a supermarket of vocation options and pick the one that we fancy. Vocation is an invitation into a relationship. Relationships are one-on-one. Vocation is God trying to “ingiza us box”. A particular box. That calling, listening, speaking with God, that relationship all happens and grows in prayer. To discover your vocation, you need to pray. Whether your vocation is as a numerary or a supernumerary, whether it is to marry this girl or that girl, you need to pray for and about it. Prayer is the first and most important means to discovering your vocation.
Then is the objective element. All these vocations mean that you’ll be taking on some rights, but also some obligations. The rights are never really the issue; what troubles many people are the obligations, the duties. A man who marries acquires new rights and obligations. He has the right to the companionship of his wife, he has the right to be taken care of by his wife, he has the right to sexual intimacy with his wife, and so on. But he also takes on certain marital obligations: he has to provide for his wife, take care of his wife, protect his wife, pray for his wife, be available for sexual intimacy with his wife and so on. As you can see, these are objective duties. They’re like the same for everyone who marries. For this reason, a third party can advise or reprimand you on how you are meeting those obligations. So too with a vocation to be an associate or a numerary: it too has objective obligations that a third party can evaluate and advise you on. This is what we meant by spiritual direction: a third party that can evaluate these objective elements and tell you that you need to improve in this or that, or that you objectively don’t have the qualities to attend to this or that objective obligation.
Sometimes it also happens that a third party (the priest in spiritual direction or your mentor whom you chat with) can also tell you, that even though you haven’t considered it, you have the objective strengths of character that can objectively attend to the objective obligations of a certain vocation. And he can propose to you to consider whether God could be calling you to that vocation. On the same rationale, he can also tell you that you objectively do not have what it takes to follow a certain vocation. That you should think of getting married, or that you shouldn’t. That you should think of becoming a numerary, or that you shouldn’t. I have friends who’ve requested to join Opus Dei as supernumeraries and were advised in spiritual direction that they objectively have what it takes to be an associate or a numerary. Conversely, others who wanted to join as numeraries were advised that they don’t objectively have what it takes to discharge the obligations of that vocation.
The second way of discovering your vocation is through spiritual direction. But keep in mind spiritual direction is only as effective as you are docile and as you are sincere.
Aside from prayer and spiritual direction, the third means of knowing if this is really your vocation is a certain subjective element. Prayer concerns God: he’s the one that calls. Spiritual direction concerns the objective element: you are being called to an external reality with objective rights and obligations. The third element is now the subjective part: it is you that God is calling to an external, objective reality. At the end of the day, you have to make the decision. You have to be the one to answer God’s call. You have to be the one that takes the advice from spiritual direction and puts it into practice or rejects it.
Let’s look at it from the perspective of a young man planning to marry. Marriage is a vocation, meaning God calls you to it. So our young man has to pray about it as well. And because the institution of marriage is an external, objective reality, he can and should get advice whether he has the necessary strengths of character to live as a faithful married man. He can speak to his spiritual director; he can also get advice from other good friends who are already married. Friends who know him and know what marriage is and can then advise him appropriately. Similarly, for one considering to become a numerary or an associate, aside from spiritual direction, he too can also speak to other good friends of his who are already associates or numeraries. And they can advise him appropriately.
Q. A lot of food for thought…
A. And for prayer… And for spiritual direction…
Q. And what were the aides and aids you were speaking about?
A. Because every vocation is a call from God, He himself has established people (aides) and things (aids) that not only guide as along that path, but also accompany, encourage and preserve us along that path.
In the case of your married young man who is not in the Work, the aides would be the best couple he and his bride chose. If he’s a good Christian, he will also speak to his “shepherd” – his pastor or priest. A supernumerary member of Opus Dei would have exactly the same: the best couple from their wedding, his spiritual director (a priest). On top of that, he will also additionally have that brother of his in Opus Dei, that mentor, with whom he chats with regularly (weekly even). A non-marrying member of Opus Dei has the same as these married guys have, except that because he’s not married, then he doesn’t have a best couple or best man to advise him on married life.
Q. So the guy in Opus Dei has more aides?
A. Correct.
Q. And what about the aids?
A. So lawyers have what we call Continuous Legal Education just to make sure they don’t go out of date in their legal training; married people also have marriage courses, priests have their post-presbyterarum exams or continuous priestly assessment just to keep up in their priestly formation; pilots have proficiency checks they do every six months to make sure they are still capable of competently flying and to renew their licenses. We can even say that every Christian has continuous, life-long formation to make sure that he doesn’t go out of date, or that he doesn’t become an incompetent Christian. Well, very much in the same sense, all members of Opus Dei have some “continuous education” that they take on to preserve and grow in their vocation. This continuous, life-long education we can summarise into the norms of the plan of life, and the means of formation. Norms of the plan of life that are those practices of piety that he does as a Christian man to grow in union with Christ; means of formation meaning those group meetings for a talk or a recollection, or the personal and personalised means of formation given one by one such as the Sacrament of Confession, spiritual direction or the weekly chat.
These are the aids that not only help you discover your vocation, but also remain faithful to it to your dying day.
Q. Wow!
Can you also say that for a married man, whether or not he’s in the Work, that living with his wife is also an aid?
A. Oh yes! Hadn’t thought of it that way, but now that you mention it, makes a lot of sense! Yes! Because living with his wife, enjoying family life with her, is precisely one means through which he grows in the character of a married man and through which he will remain faithful to her.
Q. Is there an analogy we can form there for the associates and numeraries?
A. Yes! For them as well, living or interacting with their fellow brothers in Opus Dei, that family life, definitely also helps them grow in the character of a celibate member of Opus Dei and to remain faithful to that path to their dying day.
Q. Interesting…
A. Thanks for that insight!
Q. Karibu!
14th July 2020