In his message for the 51^st World Communications Day, whose theme is “Fear not, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43: 5), Pope Francis decried “a constant focus on ‘bad news’ (wars, terrorism, scandals and all sorts of human failure). This has nothing to do with spreading misinformation that would ignore the tragedy of human suffering, nor is it about a naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil. Rather, I propose that all of us work at overcoming that feeling of growing discontent and resignation that can at times generate apathy, fear or the idea that evil has no limits. Moreover, in a communications industry which thinks that good news does not sell, and where the tragedy of human suffering and the mystery of evil easily turn into entertainment, there is always the temptation that our consciences can be dulled or slip into pessimism."

“I would like, then, to contribute to the search for an open and creative style of communication that never seeks to glamorize evil but instead to concentrate on solutions and to inspire a positive and responsible approach on the part of its recipients. I ask everyone to offer the people of our time storylines that are at heart ‘good news.’”

“This good news – Jesus himself – is not good because it has nothing to do with suffering, but rather because suffering itself becomes part of a bigger picture. It is seen as an integral part of Jesus’ love for the Father and for all mankind. In Christ, God has shown his solidarity with every human situation.”

“We need to nurture our hope by reading ever anew the Gospel, ‘reprinted’ in so many editions in the lives of the saints who become icons of God’s love in this world.”

The Pope’s message was published on January 24. World Communications Day takes place on May 28, 2017, the Sunday before Pentecost. The message was, as usual, published on the feast of Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.

Link to entire message for the 51st World Communications Day

Prelate of Opus Dei Names Central Advisory

Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, the new Prelate of Opus Dei, has named the members of the Central Advisory that, together with the general Council, assists in the pastoral government of the prelature.

With the approval of those participating in the General Congress, the Prelate has named Isabel Sánchez Serrano (Murcia, Spain, 1969) as the central secretary, and María Díaz Soloaga (Madrid, Spain, 1970) as secretary of the Advisory.

To look after the different areas of the formative and apostolic work with youth, families, as well as educational and social initiatives, the Prelate has also named: Nicola Waite (Oxford, Great Britain, 1979), Carla Vassallo (Palermo, Italy, 1976), Kathryn Plazek (Pittsburgh, United States, 1988), as vice-secretarias; Susana López (León, Spain, 1971) and Rosário Libano Monteiro (Lisbon, Portugal, 1960) as prefects of studies and assistance, respectively, and Inocencia Fernández (Madrid, Spain, 1954), as central procurator for the administration of resources.

Delegates of the Prelate for the various circumscriptions in which the apostolic work of the Prelature is divided geographically have also been named.

More information on the elective congress: http://opusdei.org/en/section/elective-congress-2017/

By Chinwuba Iyizoba

At the clinic, things got worse and she left. The second job she found was in Niger Foundation Hospital.

“I got to know about Niger Foundation one evening while chatting with friends. I asked them “which is the best private hospital in Enugu?”

“NFH”

“What?”

“Niger Foundation Hospital, it’s at Independence Layout.”

The next day she decided to go to NFH, and make inquiries. With memories of the difficulties of her first job still fresh in her mind, she wasn’t so sure what to expect. But when she entered the premises, she was disarmed.

"I saw flowers and manicured lawns.... in a hospital? I walked into the building and saw nurses, well dressed, smiling and friendly! A pleasant change from my first job.”

At the human resource department, she was told to apply. She applied, and was surprised when she was accepted! ”

"The first few days weren’t easy, though." Adaeze chuckled. "As a new nurse I didn’t know much about working in such an upscale hospital."

“But everyone was so friendly and ready to help. The Nurse in charge guided me through my new duties in the wards; and another taught me to deal with my tasks in the outpatient department. “

"I am deeply grateful for the good example of many of the doctors and nurses here. The cleaning staff here also teach me things. I am constantly amazed at the level of human refinement. Now I am in love with nursing again.”

But she first fell in love with nursing at the age of 8, while caring for her sick grandmother.

“It all started when I came to live with my Grandmother," Adaeze said, smiling and brushing a loose strand of hair from her face.

“Grandma was sick on and off, I had to be ready to be the nurse at a moment’s notice. I found to my surprise that I had a natural knack for nursing, and that I could be by her bedside all day without feeling worn out. “

Adaeze has 5 siblings and as the only girl, and having to prepare meals for 8 people daily, she learnt cooking in short order.

“For me, it wasn’t really a problem. I love cooking.”

She and her brothers had lots of fun together.

“My brothers and I have a special relationship and we love one another very much. Birthdays are fun-filled. The tradition is that the one celebrating buys things for the others, while the rest pretend to have forgotten, all the while keeping presents secret, until he begins to share out his. Then he gets a present from everyone else. It never fails to surprise and delight.”

"My mom and dad’s marriage is now 32yrs old, I must say they have lived as a good couple. And the way they brought us up really helped me to appreciate my life. Though we weren’t rich, we had everything we needed, because we had each other. Apart from cooking, I also like reading a lot; hardly a day goes by without my reading something.”

It was a few months after she began working at NFH that a friend and colleague invited her to a center of Opus Dei, after work hours, and she went.

“I was thrilled and so impressed with the Center. The girls were neat and well dressed, and the atmosphere so amiable. I was pleasantly surprised. “

Opus Dei’s women Center welcomes women and girls of all social backgrounds, young and old, rich and poor, helping them develop personally and spiritually.

“Opus Dei's message of sanctification of daily work has deeply impacted my attitude to work and helped me grow professionally as a nurse.”

“My relationship with other people has improved for the better since I began attending the means of formation at the Center."

“For instance, I used to be quarrelsome, ready to fight whenever I felt unjustly treated or my rights trampled on. These days, I let things pass. And it doesn’t mean I don't know my rights, I do know my rights, but I have learnt that at times, it is better to let things pass so that peace may reign."

“Each day, sanctification of my work is typically at the back of my mind when I show up for work. Now, even when people don’t appreciate my good work, I even have more reasons to offer it up, knowing that unappreciated good work will win me a better place in heaven.”

“Before now, when I am under stress, the quality of my work would deteriorate. But thanks to Opus Dei, I have learnt to work when I don't feel like working, and as soon as I offer it up to God, the work becomes lighter, less strenuous. It's like magic.

“At times, when I am caring for difficult patients who, no matter how hard you try, are never satisfied, recalling that I'm doing things for the love of Christ helps me to carry on. My definition of happiness is getting to know Christ better each day, and having confidence and trust in God that he will see me through. I pray that the man I marry will love God even more than I and that he will join me in raising our children in the love of Christ.”

More information about Niger Foundation Hospital

Jubilee for the Sick and Persons with Disabilities

Homily of his Holiness Pope Francis

Saint Peter's Square,

Sunday, June 12, 2016

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:19). In these words, the Apostle Paul powerfully expresses the mystery of the Christian life, which can be summed up in the paschal dynamic of death and resurrection received at baptism. Indeed, through immersion in water, each of us, as it were, dies and is buried with Christ (cf. Rom 6:3-4), and reemerging, shows forth new life in the Holy Spirit. This rebirth embraces every aspect of our lives: even sickness, suffering and death are taken up in Christ and in him find their ultimate meaning. Today, on the Jubilee day devoted to the sick and bearers of disabilities, this word of life has a special resonance for our assembly.

Each of us, sooner or later, is called to face – at times painfully – frailty and illness, both our own and those of others. How many different faces do these common yet dramatically human experiences take! Yet all of them directly raise the pressing question of the meaning of life. Our hearts may quietly yield to cynicism, as if the only solution were simply to put up with these experiences, trusting only in our own strength. Or we may put complete trust in science, thinking that surely somewhere in the world there is a medicine capable of curing the illness. Sadly, however, this is not always the case, and, even if the medicine did exist, it would be accessible to very few people.

Human nature, wounded by sin, is marked by limitations. We are familiar with the objections raised, especially nowadays, to a life characterized by serious physical limitations. It is thought that sick or disabled persons cannot be happy, since they cannot live the lifestyle held up by the culture of pleasure and entertainment. In an age when care for one’s body has become an obsession and a big business, anything imperfect has to be hidden away, since it threatens the happiness and serenity of the privileged few and endangers the dominant model. Such persons should best be kept apart, in some “enclosure” – even a gilded one – or in “islands” of pietism or social welfare, so that they do not hold back the pace of a false well-being. In some cases, we are even told that it is better to eliminate them as soon as possible, because they become an unacceptable economic burden in time of crisis. Yet what an illusion it is when people today shut their eyes in the face of sickness and disability! They fail to understand the real meaning of life, which also has to do with accepting suffering and limitations. The world does not become better because only apparently “perfect” people live there – I say “perfect” rather than “false” – but when human solidarity, mutual acceptance and respect increase. How true are the words of the Apostle: “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27)!

This Sunday’s Gospel (Lk 7:36-8:3) presents us with a specific situation of weakness. The woman caught in sin is judged and rejected, yet Jesus accepts and defends her: “She has shown great love” (7:47). This is the conclusion of Jesus, who is attentive to her suffering and her plea. This tenderness is a sign of the love that God shows to those who suffer and are cast aside. Suffering need not only be physical; one of today’s most frequent pathologies is also spiritual. It is a suffering of the heart; it causes sadness for lack of love. It is the pathology of sadness. When we experience disappointment or betrayal in important relationships, we come to realize how vulnerable and defenceless we are. The temptation to become self-absorbed grows stronger, and we risk losing life’s greatest opportunity: to love in spite of everything!

The happiness that everyone desires, for that matter, can be expressed in any number of ways and attained only if we are capable of loving. This is the way. It is always a matter of love; there is no other path. The true challenge is that of who loves the most. How many disabled and suffering persons open their hearts to life again as soon as they realize they are loved! How much love can well up in a heart simply with a smile! The therapy of smiling. Then our frailness itself can become a source of consolation and support in our solitude. Jesus, in his passion, loved us to the end (cf. Jn 13:1); on the cross he revealed the love that bestows itself without limits. Can we reproach God for our infirmities and sufferings when we realize how much suffering shows on the face of his crucified Son? His physical pain was accompanied by mockery, condescension and scorn, yet he responds with a mercy that accepts and forgives everything: “by his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:5; 1 Pet 2:24). Jesus is the physician who heals with the medicine of love, for he takes upon himself our suffering and redeems it. We know that God can understand our infirmities, because he himself has personally experienced them (cf. Heb 4:15).

The way we experience illness and disability is an index of the love we are ready to offer. The way we face suffering and limitation is the measure of our freedom to give meaning to life’s experiences, even when they strike us as meaningless and unmerited. Let us not be disturbed, then, by these tribulations (cf. 1 Th 3:3). We know that in weakness we can become strong (cf. 2 Cor 12:10) and receive the grace to fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for his body, the Church (cf. Col 1:24). For that body, in the image of the risen Lord’s own, keeps its wounds, the mark of a hard struggle, but they are wounds transfigured for ever by love.

Link to Pope Francis' Message for World Day of the Sick 2017

When a good person we love passes away, a thousand memories flood our heart. Even more so when that person happens to be a Father who showed over and over again how he lived only for us, in order to place us in Christ’s heart. Our acts of thanksgiving combine with desires to make reparation for our own lack of correspondence. And the reality of death and the passing of time become more present to us. The pain of someone’s absence unites with the glorious hope of heaven; and while praying for the repose of the soul of a fellow Christian, we also become aware of the presence of a new and powerful intercessor. This is how the death of Don Javier has resonated in the hearts of so many people in the Work, and in so many others who are close to us.

We can sense, almost better in hindsight, the singular value of a life spent in self-giving from youth, at first, close to Saint Josemaria and then with Blessed Alvaro.

The death of a Father like Don Javier brings to mind so many memories, some of them personal and others, as is often the case, heard as family stories told over and over again from generation to generation. We can sense, almost better in hindsight, the singular value of a life spent in self-giving right from youth, at first close to Saint Josemaria and then with Blessed Alvaro, and finally as successor to both, with his heart and intelligence always intent on transmitting faithfully the spirit he had received from God through their hands. The affection that Saint Josemaria showed Don Javier from very early on, responded to with filial admiration and obedience and with faith in God's action in his saints, made of Don Javier a loyal and brave son. His sense of divine filiation passed through the channel of filiation to the Father in the Work, first in his mission to attend to the material needs of Saint Josemaria, and then in the close assistance he rendered Don Alvaro.

Don Javier's constant and energetic service as custos of the Father, and the faithful fulfillment, ad mentem Patris, of the tasks entrusted to him, were an intense preparation for his long pastoral ministry as the Father and Prelate of Opus Dei. His close relationship with God, and the example and closeness of Saint Josemaria and Blessed Alvaro opened the heart of this faithful son so that God's grace could fill it with charity. He was a good son, and he was a good Father. Always giving his life for his daughters and sons in Opus Dei, and attentive to strengthening the ties of our supernatural fraternity, he was a son not only when Saint Josemaria and Don Alvaro were on this earth, but also afterwards. With his so evident strength of character, he yearned for these two giants of faith and love, and always knew he was in their presence. His heart beat with nostalgia for the years spent alongside Saint Josemaria, a man who knew how to love and who even today is so loved.

As Father and Prelate, he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his saintly predecessors, and never separate himself from that well-trodden path, caring lovingly for the spirit they had sculpted out. As a son, he was a courageous "co-heir with Christ" (cf. Rom 8:7); he joyfully carried the Cross, the blessed weight of souls, an easy yoke and light burden (cf. Mt 11:30). Sometimes Don Javier would say that we have to stake everything on the card of Love. This was his great desire, his constant endeavor.

He would tell us once again those words that, especially in his final years on earth, had become a frequent refrain on his lips: "love one another a lot, with an ever greater love!"

“If the one we have called Father for twenty-two years were here with us,” said Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, now Prelate of Opus Dei, in the homily at the funeral mass celebrated in Saint Eugene’s Basilica, “he would surely ask us to take advantage of these days to intensify our love for the Church and the Pope, and to remain closely united with one another and with all our brothers and sisters in Christ. And he would tell us once again those words that, especially in his final years on earth, had become a frequent refrain on his lips: ‘love one another a lot, with an ever greater love!’ And this was more than just words; it was moving to see how he loved others. I recall for example how the day before he died he told me he was worried about becoming a hindrance, since so many people were looking after him. And I told him spontaneously: ‘No, Father, it’s you who are sustaining all of us.’”

Now this good and faithful son continues to sustain all of us from heaven. Many people have noticed the ways in which Don Javier, since the day he died, helps them in so many aspects of their daily life, as though the Father who always had an active and generous temperament, and who so often invited us to go to the intercession of those who have preceded us, wanted to do all he could to help each one of us; maybe to thank us for that letter we wrote him; or to respond to that question that we never got to ask him. In other words, to continue helping us sense God's fatherhood.

Guillaume Derville

The custom of the Seven Sundays of Saint Joseph

Pope Gregory XVI encouraged this devotion to Saint Joseph by attaching many indulgences to it, and Blessed Pope Pius IX asked the faithful to petition Saint Joseph to alleviate the afflictions of the universal Church in those times.

Some resources to get to know Saint Joseph better:

Apostolic Exhortation "Redemptoris Custos" by Saint John Paul II

Seven sorrows and joys of Saint Joseph (shrine of Torreciudad)

"In Joseph's Workshop" (homily by Saint Josemaria)

"Saint Josemaria and the Role of Saint Joseph in Christian Life" (article by Lucas Mateo-Seco)

From "Los cerezos en flor" by José Miguel Cejas, Rialp, 2015

Chapter 20. JAPAN'S GREAT REVENGE

We have to give thanks:
the snow that covers the ground
also belongs to heaven.

Issa

My mother always recalled that day down to the smallest detail, as though it had just happened an hour before. Almost twelve years old then, she was in school on a hot August day. When they had finished the first class at eight in the morning, their teacher told them that during recreation time they were all going to clean up the patio of the school, to remove the crabgrass and weeds. This is something quite common in Japan, as it teaches the students to consider the school as their own and to learn to be orderly.

They were hard at work when, at a little after eight, they heard the sound of a plane. They looked up and suddenly sensed a fearful silence, amid a bright blinding flash. A second later a hurricane-like wind lifted them in waves, scattering them all over the patio. My mother fell ten yards from where she was working and thank God wasn’t hurt. The teachers didn’t know what to do. They quickly opened the doors of the school and all the children ran to their homes terrified, in a huge cloud of brown dust.

The school was situated on a hill on the outskirts of the city. From there one had a great view of the lovely city of Hiroshima with its buildings spread over the six islands formed by the seven rivers of the estuary. To the south were the docks and further on the inland sea with its many islands and islets. Every day when they came to school they would stop for a few seconds to contemplate the view, but that morning when they saw glimpses of the city as they ran down the hill they were almost paralyzed. Hiroshima had become a city of ruins with people screaming and crying and suffering from terrible burns.

The day became strangely dark and when my mother reached her house, which was half destroyed, she found her parents lying on the floor shocked and almost senseless with some bruises and burns. When they saw their daughter arrive they got up, and hugged one another, crying and giving thanks that they had all survived. They then gathered up a few indispensable things and began walking towards the home of some relatives, while there resounded around them city sirens and cries of Tasukete! Tasukete! (Help! help!)

Fortunately the home of the relatives was still standing, but on entering they found an aunt with her body completely burned, hovering between life and death. She died that same night.

Two days later when news arrived that Nagasaki had also been bombed, they fell into a deep depression. They were so confused that they thought the whole thing must be a bad dream, a nightmare that would end at any moment. That explains why on the 15th of August, when they heard on the radio—for the first time in their life—the voice of Emperor Tenno, who was announcing the end of the war, they experienced along with the whole country a great feeling of relief.

The emperor’s message, which they didn’t understand very well at the time owing to the poor radio transmission, was the following: The enemy has begun to use a new bomb, overwhelmingly cruel, whose capacity to provoke damage is truly incalculable, and which has caused the death of many innocent lives. If we continue fighting, not only will the result be the collapse and destruction of the Japanese nation, but it will also lead to the complete extinction of human civilization.

My mother never forgot that event and, although she wasn’t Christian, she taught me to never hold rancor against anyone, and to always forgive others, a lesson I always remembered.

Hisae’s conversion

I met my husband in Kyoto at the beginning of the seventies, when I was taking piano lessons and he was studying languages. A mutual friend of ours in Opus Dei, who knew of our common passion for music, introduced us. We went out together, fell in love, and grew together in our knowledge of the Christian faith.

During that time the two of us were studying the catechism, which we saw, in accord with the Japanese mentality, as a collection of guidelinesand rules to learn and respect. Later we discovered, thanks to the formation received in Opus Dei, that living as a Christian was not simply a matter of fulfilling precepts, but meant loving God and serving him with our whole heart in the midst of family and social life, and in ordinary work.

We were both baptized and later each of us responded to God’s call to become a member of the Work. This united us still more closely, since even before becoming Catholic, we were eager to form a “bright and cheerful” home, as Saint Josemaría said.

We got married and went to Rome during our honeymoon. There we were received by the Prelate of Opus Dei, Fr. Alvaro del Portillo. When he learned we were both in the Work, he told us that we should be an exemplary couple, thinking of so many people in our country whom our Lord would call in the future to dedicate themselves fully to Him within marriage.

He advised us never to quarrel in front of the children and gave each of us a rosary, after kissing it with affection.

Don Alvaro in Japan

It is easy to understand our joy when Don Alvaro del Portillo came to Nagasaki on February 14, 1987. We went to the airport with our children to welcome him. I offered him a flowering cherry branch and my daughter gave him a bouquet of flowers. Although it was winter, and snow was quite common in February, during those days the temperature rose and we enjoyed spring-like weather.

Like so many Christians who come to this city, which is called “the Rome of the Orient,” he prayed before the image of our Lady where the secret Christians used to meet, and visited the monument of the martyrs.

He recalled that one of them, the Mexican Felipe de Jesus, was a distant relative of his. And he told us: “The others thought that he wouldn’t be capable of martyrdom because he seemed somewhat weak. But God had such patience with him that in the end he gave a lesson of generosity and courage, and heroism in the face of death accepted for love of God. I have entrusted myself and all of you to him, so that we be people God can rely on.”

A get-together with Don Alvaro was organized in the school in Nagasaki, and hundreds of people attended. Most of them were Buddhists or without any religion, and they were surprised at how he created a warm and pleasant atmosphere around him.“I had the sensation,” a non-Christian woman said afterwards, “that I was in the living room of my house, chatting after dinner with a friend of the family.”

At the beginning he told us how much it would have pleased the Founder of Opus Dei to visit our country. “I recall his great desire to be able to do good in this country, where there are so many people filled with human virtues, capable of working with extraordinary effort and intensity. He reflected that, if all of them knew Christ, if all met Christ, if all loved Christ, what a great good this would be for humanity. Because all of those human virtues that are here, all of that industriousness in the people of Japan, placed at the service of God, would be something extraordinary.”

Then he said something that surprised me. He spoke about the Founder’s sorrow when he heard about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “He prayed for all the victims and the wounded, so that the people would not despair, so that they would find God in the midst of their suffering. He also prayed for those who later on would suffer after-effects from the radiation.”

I glanced from time to time at the faces of those around me, especially at the non-Christians. Although we Japanese do not ordinarily show our feelings outwardly, you could see that many were moved.

A Catholic music teacher spoke about her parents, who were practicing Buddhists and very generous people. What could she do, she asked, to bring them to Christ?

“If they ask you about the Christian religion, speak about what you have in your heart, but without arguing, because they are in good faith, and also because that is not the path. The faith is a gift, which one does not acquire by one’s own reasoning, on the strength of studying. God grants it to whomever he wants. There are persons who do not receive the gift of faith, and perhaps they behave better than many Christians. They give us an example of sincerity, of honesty, of understanding… In addition, my daughter, in this specific case they are your parents, for whom you should have nothing but love, gratitude and respect. And pray for them.”

That visit comforted us a lot. He visited various cities and spoke about God to all kinds of people. I was especially impressed (and I think my mother would have liked to have heard it) by what he said in Kyoto:

“When I was in high school,” Blessed Alvaro said, “I was told that the population of Japan was about one hundred million. Now you are a hundred and twenty million people, but very few know Christ. If the human virtues that you have here—industriousness, order, and so many others—were put at the service of God, what a great impact it would have throughout the world. It would be much more than an atomic bomb. This could be the ‘great revenge’of Japan.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Lent is a new beginning, a path leading to the certain goal of Easter, Christ’s victory over death. This season urgently calls us to conversion. Christians are asked to return to God “with all their hearts” (Joel 2:12), to refuse to settle for mediocrity and to grow in friendship with the Lord. Jesus is the faithful friend who never abandons us. Even when we sin, he patiently awaits our return; by that patient expectation, he shows us his readiness to forgive (cf. Homily, 8 January 2016).

Lent is a favourable season for deepening our spiritual life through the means of sanctification offered us by the Church: fasting, prayer and almsgiving. At the basis of everything is the word of God, which during this season we are invited to hear and ponder more deeply. I would now like to consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:19-31). Let us find inspiration in this meaningful story, for it provides a key to understanding what we need to do in order to attain true happiness and eternal life. It exhorts us to sincere conversion.

1. The other person is a gift

The parable begins by presenting its two main characters. The poor man is described in greater detail: he is wretched and lacks the strength even to stand. Lying before the door of the rich man, he fed on the crumbs falling from his table. His body is full of sores and dogs come to lick his wounds (cf. vv. 20-21). The picture is one of great misery; it portrays a man disgraced and pitiful.

The scene is even more dramatic if we consider that the poor man is called Lazarus: a name full of promise, which literally means God helps. This character is not anonymous. His features are clearly delineated and he appears as an individual with his own story. While practically invisible to the rich man, we see and know him as someone familiar. He becomes a face, and as such, a gift, a priceless treasure, a human being whom God loves and cares for, despite his concrete condition as an outcast (cf. Homily, 8 January 2016).

Lazarus teaches us that other persons are a gift. A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door of the rich is not a nuisance, but a summons to conversion and to change. The parable first invites us to open the doors of our heart to others because each person is a gift, whether it be our neighbour or an anonymous pauper. Lent is a favourable season for opening the doors to all those in need and recognizing in them the face of Christ. Each of us meets people like this every day. Each life that we encounter is a gift deserving acceptance, respect and love. The word of God helps us to open our eyes to welcome and love life, especially when it is weak and vulnerable. But in order to do this, we have to take seriously what the Gospel tells us about the rich man.

2. Sin blinds us

The parable is unsparing in its description of the contradictions associated with the rich man (cf. v. 19). Unlike poor Lazarus, he does not have a name; he is simply called “a rich man”. His opulence was seen in his extravagant and expensive robes. Purple cloth was even more precious than silver and gold, and was thus reserved to divinities (cf. Jer 10:9) and kings (cf. Jg 8:26), while fine linen gave one an almost sacred character. The man was clearly ostentatious about his wealth, and in the habit of displaying it daily: “He feasted sumptuously every day” (v. 19). In him we can catch a dramatic glimpse of the corruption of sin, which progresses in three successive stages: love of money, vanity and pride (cf. Homily, 20 September 2013).

The Apostle Paul tells us that “the love of money is the root of all evils” (1 Tim 6:10). It is the main cause of corruption and a source of envy, strife and suspicion. Money can come to dominate us, even to the point of becoming a tyrannical idol (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 55). Instead of being an instrument at our service for doing good and showing solidarity towards others, money can chain us and the entire world to a selfish logic that leaves no room for love and hinders peace.

The parable then shows that the rich man’s greed makes him vain. His personality finds expression in appearances, in showing others what he can do. But his appearance masks an interior emptiness. His life is a prisoner to outward appearances, to the most superficial and fleeting aspects of existence (cf. ibid., 62).

The lowest rung of this moral degradation is pride. The rich man dresses like a king and acts like a god, forgetting that he is merely mortal. For those corrupted by love of riches, nothing exists beyond their own ego. Those around them do not come into their line of sight. The result of attachment to money is a sort of blindness. The rich man does not see the poor man who is starving, hurting, lying at his door.

Looking at this character, we can understand why the Gospel so bluntly condemns the love of money: “No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money” (Mt 6:24).

3. The Word is a gift

The Gospel of the rich man and Lazarus helps us to make a good preparation for the approach of Easter. The liturgy of Ash Wednesday invites us to an experience quite similar to that of the rich man. When the priest imposes the ashes on our heads, he repeats the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. As it turned out, the rich man and the poor man both died, and the greater part of the parable takes place in the afterlife. The two characters suddenly discover that “we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Tim 6:7).

We too see what happens in the afterlife. There the rich man speaks at length with Abraham, whom he calls “father” (Lk 16:24.27), as a sign that he belongs to God’s people. This detail makes his life appear all the more contradictory, for until this moment there had been no mention of his relation to God. In fact, there was no place for God in his life. His only god was himself.

The rich man recognizes Lazarus only amid the torments of the afterlife. He wants the poor man to alleviate his suffering with a drop of water. What he asks of Lazarus is similar to what he could have done but never did. Abraham tells him: “During your life you had your fill of good things, just as Lazarus had his fill of bad. Now he is being comforted here while you are in agony” (v. 25). In the afterlife, a kind of fairness is restored and life’s evils are balanced by good.

The parable goes on to offer a message for all Christians. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, who are still alive. But Abraham answers: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them” (v. 29). Countering the rich man’s objections, he adds: “If they will not listen either to Moses or to the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead” (v. 31).

The rich man’s real problem thus comes to the fore. At the root of all his ills was the failure to heed God’s word. As a result, he no longer loved God and grew to despise his neighbour. The word of God is alive and powerful, capable of converting hearts and leading them back to God. When we close our heart to the gift of God’s word, we end up closing our heart to the gift of our brothers and sisters.

Dear friends, Lent is the favourable season for renewing our encounter with Christ, living in his word, in the sacraments and in our neighbour. The Lord, who overcame the deceptions of the Tempter during the forty days in the desert, shows us the path we must take. May the Holy Spirit lead us on a true journey of conversion, so that we can rediscover the gift of God’s word, be purified of the sin that blinds us, and serve Christ present in our brothers and sisters in need. I encourage all the faithful to express this spiritual renewal also by sharing in the Lenten Campaigns promoted by many Church organizations in different parts of the world, and thus to favour the culture of encounter in our one human family. Let us pray for one another so that, by sharing in the victory of Christ, we may open our doors to the weak and poor. Then we will be able to experience and share to the full the joy of Easter.

From the Vatican, 18 October 2016

The two new deacons are Ginés José Pérez Almela and Arturo Garralón Blas. Some photos are found below:

Ginés José Pérez was born in 1958, in Murcia (Spain). After earning a degree in Educational Sciences at the University of Murcia, he worked for more than 30 years in Monteagudo high school.

Arturo Garralón was born in Guadalajara (Spain), in 1975. He studied Economics at the University of Alcalá de Henares and worked for the banking group La Caixa.

The two new deacons are Ginés José Pérez Almela and Arturo Garralón Blas

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the tasks of deacons include, among others, that of assisting "the bishop and priest in the celebration of the divine mysteries, above all the Eucharist, in the distribution of Holy Communion, in assisting at and blessing marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel and preaching, in presiding over funerals, and in dedicating themselves to the various ministries of charity" (CCC 1570).

During the ordination ceremony, Arturo had to use crutches since he injured his leg when hit by a car last November, and will need several months to recover.

The accounts that will be published here in the upcoming months have been compiled by Javier Medina and Michele Dolz, priests and authors who are well-acquainted with the works of Saint Josemaria. The Way has reached the hearts of people all over the world and is now available in 43 different languages.

Owing to the personal nature of the stories offered, in some cases the names of the people involved will not be given.

The first story comes from South Korea:

“I had to abandon my plans to study in the United States, and set aside my dreams. Because of the financial crisis in 2008, I was no longer able to raise the tens of thousands of dollars required.

What made it especially difficult was that I had resigned from my previous job, and it was no longer easy for me to reclaim it or find a new position. The only thing that kept our family finances afloat was my wife’s job.

The situation was very humiliating for me and life started becoming meaningless. The days became empty. My wife’s efforts to console me didn’t help much and I started drinking heavily, and fell gravely ill. I knew that I had to start over in life but couldn’t see any light.

During that dark period in my life, Saint Josemaria’s book Gil (the Korean title of The Way) came into my hands. I can’t recall exactly how this happened, but I decided to read it slowly, and was greatly affected by it.

Right from the first words ('Don’t let your life be barren...'), I felt that the saint understood me perfectly. As I read each page, Saint Josemaria’s words tugged at my heart. Sometimes I was captivated by what I read; others times I sensed he was shouting at me. I realized he was carrying out a dialogue with me.

I devoured the book, and then read it a second and third time. My only regret was that I hadn’t known about it earlier.

Before reading Gil I thought that sanctity was a privilege reserved for priests and religious. But Saint Josemaria taught me that I had to strive for sanctity in the middle of the world. This book opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on my family, society and my entire life of faith. I changed my attitude towards others. I overcome my exhaustion and wounds, and remade my life. And I promised God that I would always stay close to Christ no matter how many crosses and sufferings I had to confront.

My married life also changed. At times I used to think that professional success was more important than my family life. Saint Josemaria taught me that the important thing is to make my life of faith, professional life and family life come together in harmony. I repented of how I had treated my wife. I tried to help out in the work at home, and speak more often with her to strengthen our love.

Now I try to always do God’s will. I know that problems and temptations will continue to arise, and that professional burdens and stress will cause me to suffer. But I also know that I am a child before God. And I’ve made the resolution to pray the holy Rosary and read a passage from Scripture each day.

We’ve also begun an amusing family custom. Each night before retiring I ask my wife to choose a number between 1 and 999, and we then read the corresponding point in The Way. She isn’t a Catholic so I find it hard to give her spiritual advice, but she is very happy to listen to the points from Saint Josemaria’s book."

Today at 12.15 pm, the Holy Father received the Prelate of Opus Dei, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, in an audience, accompanied by the Vicar General, Monsignor Mariano Fazio.

The Pope greeted them with an affectionate “abrazo,” or hug. In the audience, which lasted about 25 minutes, the Prelate thanked him for his warm telegram on the death of Bishop Javier Echevarría, his prayers for the Elective Congress, and his confirming his election as the new Prelate.

Monsignor Ocáriz made known to him the unanimous union of all the faithful of the Prelature with the Holy Father, and informed him of the pastoral priorities set by the Congress for the upcoming years: the family, youth, and an active concern for the most needy. Pope Francis thanked him for the Prelature’s apostolic efforts throughout the world, especially the spiritual care provided each person, fostering ecumenism in countries with a minority Catholic population, and projects of social integration. He also urged the Prelate to give priority to a specific “periphery: middle class people and the professional and intellectual sectors that are distant from God.

The Holy Father Francis, in giving his blessing to the Prelate and Vicar General, extended it to all the faithful of the Prelature, and asked that they pray for him.

19 March 2017 is the first anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Its 325 points are a deep tribute to human love, in perfect harmony with the Love of God. The whole of the magisterial text is a gem which gives new life to sincere and true love and serves to reflect on the most important virtue: charity.

In this first anniversary we offer a summary by way of short quotes taken from the Apostolic Exhortation. It is not a selection of the most important parts, as the whole document is important. Instead it is a selection of texts organized by topic (Love; Marriage; Children; Family; God, Church and family; Family and Society). They can be used to spread the content of this papal document which is a call to the heart of men and women, to the heart of families, to the heart of society.

It would be ideal if this extensive selection of quotes would encourage people to go back to Amoris Laetitia, to read it slowly, to meditate on it or even to read for the first time.

Contents

• Love• Marriage• Children• Family• God, Church and family• Family and society

Love

● Against this backdrop of love so central to the Christian experience of marriage and the family, another virtue stands out, one often overlooked in our world of frenetic and superficial relationships. It is tenderness.

● The experience of love in families is a perennial source of strength for the life of the Church.

● Love always has an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting the other person as part of this world, even when he or she acts differently than I would like.

● Love inspires a sincere esteem for every human being and the recognition of his or her own right to happiness. I love this person, and I see him or her with the eyes of God, who gives us everything “for our enjoyment”

● Those who love not only refrain from speaking too much about themselves, but are focused on others; they do not need to be the centre of attention.

● To love is also to be gentle and thoughtful.

● Love is not rude or impolite; it is not harsh. Its actions, words and gestures are pleasing and not abrasive or rigid. Love abhors making others suffer.

● Loving kindness builds bonds, cultivates relationships, creates new networks of integration and knits a firm social fabric.

● Those who love are capable of speaking words of comfort, strength, consolation, and encouragement.

● When a loving person can do good for others, or sees that others are happy, they themselves live happily and in this way give glory to God, for “God loves a cheerful giver”

● The other person loves me as best they can, with all their limits, but the fact that love is imperfect does not mean that it is untrue or unreal. It is real, albeit limited and earthly.

● Love trusts, it sets free, it does not try to control, possess and dominate everything. This freedom, which fosters independence, an openness to the world around us and to new experiences, can only enrich and expand relationships.

● Love does not yield to resentment, scorn for others or the desire to hurt or to gain some advantage. The Christian ideal, especially in families, is a love that never gives up.

● After the love that unites us to God, conjugal love is the “greatest form of friendship”.

● Let us be honest and acknowledge the signs that this is the case. Lovers do not see their relationship as merely temporary.

● A love that is weak or infirm, incapable of accepting marriage as a challenge to be taken up and fought for, reborn, renewed and reinvented until death, cannot sustain a great commitment. It will succumb to the culture of the ephemeral that prevents a constant process of growth.

● In marriage, the joy of love needs to be cultivated. When the search for pleasure becomes obsessive, it holds us in thrall and keeps us from experiencing other satisfactions. Joy, on the other hand, increases our pleasure and helps us find fulfilment in any number of things, even at those times of life when physical pleasure has ebbed.

● In a consumerist society, the sense of beauty is impoverished and so joy fades. Everything is there to be purchased, possessed or consumed, including people. Tenderness, on the other hand, is a sign of a love free of selfish possessiveness. It makes us approach a person with immense respect and a certain dread of causing them harm or taking away their freedom.

● Loving another person involves the joy of contemplating and appreciating their innate beauty and sacredness, which is greater than my needs.

● The aesthetic experience of love is expressed in that “gaze” which contemplates other persons as ends in themselves, even if they are infirm, elderly or physically unattractive.

● This “yes” tells them that they can always trust one another, and that they will never be abandoned when difficulties arise or new attractions or selfish interests present themselves.

● This love must be freely and generously expressed in words and acts. In the family, “three words need to be used. I want to repeat this! Three words: ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Sorry’. Three essential words!”.

● The right words, spoken at the right time, daily protect and nurture love.

● It is not helpful to dream of an idyllic and perfect love needing no stimulus to grow. A celestial notion of earthly love forgets that the best is yet to come, that ne wine matures with age.

● Love surmounts even the worst barriers.

● Virginity and marriage are, and must be, different ways of loving. For “man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him”.

● Celibacy can risk becoming a comfortable single life that provides the freedom to be independent, to move from one residence, work or option to another, to spend money as one sees t and to spend time with others as one wants. In such cases, the witness of married people becomes especially eloquent. Those called to virginity can encounter in some marriages a clear sign of God’s generous and steadfast fidelity to his covenant, and this can move them to a more concrete and generous availability to others.

● Longer life spans now mean that close and exclusive relationships must last for four, five or even six decades; consequently, the initial decision has to be frequently renewed.

● There is no guarantee that we will feel the same way all through life. Yet if a couple can come up with a shared and lasting life project, they can love one another and live as one until death do them part, enjoying an enriching intimacy.

● The love they pledge is greater than any emotion, feeling or state of mind, although it may include all of these. It is a deeper love, a lifelong decision of the heart.

● In the course of every marriage physical appearances change, but this hardly means that love and attraction need fade. We love the other person for who they are, not simply for their body. Although the body ages, it still expresses that personal identity that first won our heart.
Even if others can no longer see the beauty of that identity, a spouse continues to see it with the eyes of love and so his or her affection does not diminish.

● Love always gives life. Conjugal love “does not end with the couple... The couple, in giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living rejection of their love, a permanent sign of their conjugal unity and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being a father and a mother”.

● Love needs time and space; everything else is secondary. Time is needed to talk things over, to embrace leisurely, to share plans, to listen to one other and gaze in each other’s eyes, to appreciate one another and to build a stronger relationship.

● Each crisis has a lesson to teach us; we need to learn how to listen for it with the ear of the heart.

● Some love with the selfish, capricious and self-centred love of a child: an insatiable love that screams or cries when it fails to get what it wants.

●Love involves an intuition that can enable us to hear without sounds and to see the unseen.

Marriage

● As Christians, we can hardly stop advocating marriage simply to avoid countering contemporary sensibilities, or out of a desire to be fashionable or a sense of helplessness in the face of human and moral failings. We would be depriving the world of values that we can and must offer… We also need to be humble and realistic, acknowledging that at times the way we present our Christian beliefs and treat other people has helped contribute to today’s problematic situation. We need a healthy dose of self-criticism.

● We need to find the right language, arguments and forms of witness that can help us reach the hearts of young people, appealing to their capacity for generosity, commitment, love and even heroism, and in this way inviting them to take up the challenge of marriage with enthusiasm and courage.

● Our teaching on marriage and the family cannot fail to be inspired and transformed by this message of love and tenderness; otherwise, it becomes nothing more than the defence of a dry and lifeless doctrine.

● The sacrament of marriage is not a social convention, an empty ritual or merely the outward sign of a commitment. The sacrament is a gift given for the sanctification and salvation of the spouses, since “their mutual belonging is a real representation, through the sacramental sign, of the same relationship between Christ and the Church. The married couple are therefore a permanent reminder for the Church of what took place on the cross; they are for one another and for their children witnesses of the salvation in which they share through the sacrament”.

● Sexual union, lovingly experienced and sanctified by the sacrament, is in turn a path of growth in the life of grace for the couple.

● Married couples joined by love speak well of each other; they try to show their spouse’s good side, not their weakness and faults. In any event, they keep silent rather than speak ill of them. This is not merely a way of acting in front of others; it springs from an interior attitude.

● Marital joy can be experienced even amid sorrow; it involves accepting that marriage is an inevitable mixture of enjoyment and struggles, tensions and repose, pain and relief, satisfactions and longings, annoyances and pleasures, but always on the path of friendship, which inspires married couples to care for one another.

● After suffering and struggling together, spouses are able to experience that it was worth it, because they achieved some good, learned something as a couple, or came to appreciate what they have. Few human joys are as deep and thrilling as those experienced by two people who love one another and have achieved something as the result of a great, shared effort.

● Naturally, love is much more than an outward consent or a contract, yet it is nonetheless true that choosing to give marriage a visible form in society by undertaking certain commitments shows how important it is. It manifests the seriousness of each person’s identification with the other and their firm decision to leave adolescent individualism behind and to belong to one another.

● Marriage is a means of expressing that we have truly left the security of the home in which we grew up in order to build other strong ties and to take on a new responsibility for another person. This is much more meaningful than a mere spontaneous association for mutual gratification, which would turn marriage into a purely private affair.

● As a social institution, marriage protects and shapes a shared commitment to deeper growth in love and commitment to one another, for the good of society as a whole. That is why marriage is more than a fleeting fashion; it is of enduring importance. Its essence derives from our human nature and social character.

● Marital love is not defended primarily by presenting indissolubility as a duty, or by repeating doctrine, but by helping it to grow ever stronger under the impulse of grace. A love that fails to grow is at risk. Growth can only occur if we respond to God’s grace through constant acts of love, acts of kindness that become ever more frequent, intense, generous, tender and cheerful.

● Dialogue is essential for experiencing, expressing and fostering love in marriage and family life.

● The unity that we seek is not uniformity, but a “unity in diversity”, or “reconciled diversity”.

● Fraternal communion is enriched by respect and appreciation for differences within an overall perspective that advances the common good.

● The ability to say what one is thinking without offending the other person is important. Words should be carefully chosen so as not to offend, especially when discussing difficult issues. Making a point should never involve venting anger and in inflicting hurt. A patronizing tone only serves to hurt, ridicule, accuse and offend others. Many disagreements between couples are not about important things. Mostly they are about trivial matters. What alters the mood, however, is the way things are said or the attitude with which they are said.

● For a worth-while dialogue we have to have something to say. This can only be the fruit of an interior richness nourished by reading, personal reflection, prayer and openness to the world around us. Otherwise, conversations become boring and trivial. When neither of the spouses works at this, and has little real contact with other people, family life becomes stifling and dialogue impoverished.

● Marital love strives to ensure that one’s entire emotional life benefits the family as a whole and stands at the service of its common life.

● Sexuality is not a means of gratification or entertainment; it is an interpersonal language wherein the other is taken seriously, in his or her sacred and inviolable dignity.

● The ideal of marriage cannot be seen purely as generous donation and self-sacrifice, where each spouse renounces all personal needs and seeks only the other’s good without concern for personal satisfaction. We need to remember that authentic love also needs to be able to receive the other, to accept one’s own vulnerability and needs, and to welcome with sincere and joyful gratitude the physical expressions of love found in a caress, an embrace, a kiss and sexual union.

● When love is merely physical attraction or a vague affection, spouses become particularly vulnerable once this affection wanes or physical attraction diminishes.

● A persistently critical attitude towards one’s partner is a sign that marriage was not entered into as a project to be worked on together, with patience, understanding, tolerance and generosity. Slowly but surely, love will then give way to constant questioning and criticism, dwelling on each other’s good and bad points, issuing ultimatums and engaging in competition and self-justification.

● I recall an old saying: still water becomes stagnant and good for nothing. If, in the first years of marriage, a couple’s experience of love grows stagnant, it loses the very excitement that should be its propelling force.

● Among the causes of broken marriages are unduly high expectations about conjugal life. Once it becomes apparent that the reality is more limited and challenging than one imagined, the solution is not to think quickly and irresponsibly about separation, but to come to the sober realization that married life is a process of growth, in which each spouse is God’s means of helping the other to mature.

● Each crisis becomes an apprenticeship in growing closer together or learning a little more about what it means to be married. There is no need for couples to resign themselves to an inevitable downward spiral or a tolerable mediocrity. On the contrary, when marriage is seen as a challenge that involves overcoming obstacles, each crisis becomes an opportunity to let the wine of their relationship age and improve.

● When problems are not dealt with, communication is the first thing to go. Little by little, the “the person I love” slowly becomes “my mate”, then just “the father or mother of my children”, and finally a stranger.

● At these times, it becomes all the more important to create opportunities for speaking heart to heart. Unless a couple learns to do this, they will find it harder and harder as time passes. Communication is an art learned in moments of peace in order to be practised in moments of difficulty.

● It is becoming more and more common to think that, when one or both partners no longer feel fulfilled, or things have not turned out the way they wanted, sufficient reason exists to end the marriage. Were this the case, no marriage would last.

● Respect needs to be shown especially for the sufferings of those who have unjustly endured separation, divorce or abandonment, or those who have been forced by maltreatment from a husband or a wife to interrupt their life together. To forgive such an injustice that has been suffered is not easy, but grace makes this journey possible.I make this appeal to parents who are separated: “Never ever, take your child hostage! You separated for many problems and reasons. Life gave you this trial, but your children should not have to bear the burden of this separation or be used as hostages against the other spouse. They should grow up hearing their mother speak well of their father, even though they are not together, and their father speak well of their mother”.

Children

● The Gospel goes on to remind us that children are not the property of a family, but have their own lives to lead.

● The Church is called to cooperate with parents through suitable pastoral initiatives, assisting them in the fulfilment of their educational mission. She must always do this by helping them to appreciate their proper role and to realize that by their reception of the sacrament of marriage they become ministers of their children’s education. In educating them, they build up the Church.

● Children not only want their parents to love one another, but also to be faithful and remain together.

● Adoption is a very generous way to become parents. I encourage those who cannot have children to expand their marital love to embrace those who lack a proper family situation.

● Growing up with brothers and sisters makes for a beautiful experience of caring for and helping one another.

● Inevitably, each child will surprise us with ideas and projects born of that freedom, which challenge us to rethink our own ideas. This is a good thing. Education includes encouraging the responsible use of freedom to face issues with good sense and intelligence. It involves forming persons who readily understand that their own lives, and the life of the community, are in their hands, and that freedom is itself a great gift.

● When children no longer feel that, for all their faults, they are important to their parents, or that their parents are sincerely concerned about them, this causes deep hurt and many difficulties along their path to maturity. This physical or emotional absence creates greater hurt than any scolding which a child may receive for doing something wrong.

● Correction is also an incentive whenever children’s efforts are appreciated and acknowledged, and they sense their parents’ constant, patient trust. Children who are lovingly corrected feel cared for; they perceive that they are individuals whose potential is recognized.

● One of the things children need to learn from their parents is not to get carried away by anger.

● The family is the first school of human values, where we learn the wise use of freedom.
When children or adolescents are not helped to realize that some things have to be waited for, they can become obsessed with satisfying their immediate needs and develop the vice of “wanting it all now”. This is a grand illusion which does not favour freedom but weakens it.

● The family is the primary setting for socialization, since it is where we first learn to relate to others, to listen and share, to be patient and show respect, to help one another and live as one.

● It is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving. In such a way, the language of sexuality would not be sadly impoverished but illuminated and enriched.

● A sexual education that fosters a healthy sense of modesty has immense value, however much some people nowadays consider modesty a relic of a bygone era. Modesty is a natural means whereby we defend our personal privacy and prevent ourselves from being turned into objects to be used. Without a sense of modesty, affection and sexuality can be reduced to an obsession with genitality and unhealthy behaviours that distort our capacity for love, and with forms of sexual violence that lead to inhuman treatment or cause hurt to others.

● The home must continue to be the place where we learn to appreciate the meaning and beauty of the faith, to pray and to serve our neighbour.

● Education in the faith has to adapt to each child, since older resources and recipes do not always work.

● It is essential that children actually see that, for their parents, prayer is something truly important.

● I would like to express my particular gratitude to all those mothers who continue to pray, like Saint Monica, for their children who have strayed from Christ.

● The work of handing on the faith to children, in the sense of facilitating its expression and growth, helps the whole family in its evangelizing mission. It naturally begins to spread the faith to all around them, even outside of the family circle.

Family

● Families and homes go together. This makes us see how important it is to insist on the rights of the family and not only those of individuals. The family is a good which society cannot do without, and it ought to be protected.

● No one can think that the weakening of the family as that natural society founded on marriage will prove beneficial to society as a whole. The contrary is true: it poses a threat to the mature growth of individuals, the cultivation of community values and the moral progress of cities and countries.

● Many men are conscious of the importance of their role in the family and live their masculinity accordingly. The absence of a father gravely affects family life and the upbringing of children and their integration into society. This absence, which may be physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual, deprives children of a suitable father figure.

● Being patient does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us. We encounter problems whenever we think that relationships or people ought to be perfect, or when we put ourselves at the centre and expect things to turn out our way. Then everything makes us impatient, everything makes us react aggressively. Unless we cultivate patience, we will always find excuses for responding angrily. We will end up incapable of living together, antisocial, unable to control our impulses, and our families will become battlegrounds.

● In family life, the logic of domination and competition about who is the most intelligent or powerful destroys love.

● When we have been offended or let down, forgiveness is possible and desirable, but no one can say that it is easy. The truth is that “family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation. There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion.

● Being able to forgive others implies the liberating experience of understanding and forgiving ourselves. Often our mistakes, or criticism we have received from loved ones, can lead to a loss of self-esteem. We become distant from others, avoiding affection and fearful in our interpersonal relationships.

● Those who know that their spouse is always suspicious, judgmental and lacking unconditional love, will tend to keep secrets, conceal their failings and weaknesses, and pretend to be someone other than who they are. On the other hand, a family marked by loving trust, come what may, helps its members to be themselves and spontaneously to reject deceit, falsehood, and lies.

● You can’t have a family without dreams. Once a family loses the ability to dream, children do not grow, love does not grow, life shrivels up and dies”.

● The nuclear family needs to interact with the wider family made up of parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and even neighbours. This greater family may have members who require assistance, or at least companionship and affection, or consolation amid suffering.

● It helps to break the routine with a party, and to enjoy family celebrations of anniversaries and special events. We need these moments of cherishing God’s gifts and renewing our zest for life. As long as we can celebrate, we are able to rekindle our love, to free it from monotony and to colour our daily routine with hope.

● The life of every family is marked by all kinds of crises, yet these are also part of its dramatic beauty. Couples should be helped to realize that surmounting a crisis need not weaken their relationship; instead, it can improve, settle and mature the wine of their union.

● Life together should not diminish but increase their contentment; every new step along the way can help couples find new ways to happiness.

● To know how to forgive and to feel forgiven is a basic experience in family life.

● Every day the family has to come up with new ways of appreciating and acknowledging its members.

● No family drops down from heaven perfectly formed; families need constantly to grow and mature in the ability to love.

God, Church, and family

● A family’s living space could turn into a domestic church, a setting for the Eucharist, the presence of Christ seated at its table.

● The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.

● Nowadays we are grateful too for the witness of marriages that have not only proved lasting, but also fruitful and loving. All these factors can inspire a positive and welcoming pastoral approach capable of helping couples to grow in appreciation of the demands of the Gospel. Yet we have often been on the defensive, wasting pastoral energy on denouncing a decadent world without being proactive in proposing ways of finding true happiness. Many people feel that the Church’s message on marriage and the family does not clearly reflect the preaching and attitudes of Jesus, who set forth a demanding ideal yet never failed to show compassion and closeness to the frailty of individuals like the Samaritan woman or the woman caught in adultery.

● It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality.

● Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.

● If we accept that God’s love is unconditional, that the Father’s love cannot be bought or sold, then we will become capable of showing boundless love and forgiving others even if they have wronged us.

● Marriage is a precious sign, for “when a man and a woman celebrate the sacrament of marriage, God is, as it were, ‘mirrored’ in them; he impresses in them his own features and the indelible character of his love. Marriage is the icon of God’s love for us.”

● Large families are a joy for the Church. They are an expression of the fruitfulness of love.

● Pregnancy is a difficult but wonderful time. A mother joins with God to bring forth the miracle of a new life.

● The love of parents is the means by which God our Father shows his own love. He awaits the birth of each child, accepts that child unconditionally, and welcomes him or her freely.

● With great affection I urge all future mothers: keep happy and let nothing rob you of the interior joy of motherhood. Your child deserves your happiness. Don’t let fears, worries, other people’s comments or problems lessen your joy at being God’s means of bringing a new life to the world.

● A married couple who experience the power of love know that this love is called to bind the wounds of the outcast, to foster a culture of encounter and to fight for justice. God has given the family the job of “domesticating” the world.

● By their witness as well as their words, families speak to others of Jesus. They pass on the faith, they arouse a desire for God and they reflect the beauty of the Gospel and its way of life. Christian marriages thus enliven society by their witness of fraternity, their social concern, their outspokenness on behalf of the underprivileged, their luminous faith and their active hope. Their fruitfulness expands and in countless ways makes God’s love present in society.

● Very often it is grandparents who ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren, and many people can testify that they owe their initiation into the Christian life to their grandparents.

● Each marriage is a kind of “salvation history”, which from fragile beginnings – thanks to God’s gift and a creative and generous response on our part – grows over time into something precious and enduring.

● Handing on the faith presumes that parents themselves genuinely trust God, seek him and sense their need for him, for only in this way does “one generation laud your works to another, and declare your mighty acts”

● The Lord’s presence dwells in real and concrete families, with all their daily troubles and struggles, joys and hopes. Living in a family makes it hard for us to feign or lie; we cannot hide behind a mask. If that authenticity is inspired by love, then the Lord reigns there, with his joy and his peace. The spirituality of family love is made up of thousands of small but real gestures.

● If a family is centred on Christ, he will unify and illumine its entire life. Moments of pain and difficulty will be experienced in union with the Lord’s cross, and his closeness will make it possible to surmount them.

● There comes a point where a couple’s love attains the height of its freedom and becomes the basis of a healthy autonomy. This happens when each spouse realizes that the other is not his or her own, but has a much more important master, the one Lord.

● It is a profound spiritual experience to contemplate our loved ones with the eyes of God and to see Christ in them. This demands a freedom and openness which enable us to appreciate their dignity.

Family and Society

● The weakening of this maternal presence with its feminine qualities poses a grave risk to our world. I certainly value feminism, but one that does not demand uniformity or negate motherhood. For the grandeur of women includes all the rights derived from their inalienable human dignity but also from their feminine genius, which is essential to society.

● God sets the father in the family so that by the gifts of his masculinity he can be “close to his wife and share everything, joy and sorrow, hope and hardship. And to be close to his children as they grow – when they play and when they work, when they are carefree and when they are distressed, when they are talkative and when they are silent, when they are daring and when they are afraid, when they stray and when they get back on the right path. To be a father who is always present. When I say ‘present’, I do not mean ‘controlling’. Fathers who are too controlling overshadow their children, they don’t let them develop”.

● The individualism so prevalent today can lead to creating small nests of security, where others are perceived as bothersome or a threat. Such isolation, however, cannot offer greater peace or happiness; rather, it straitens the heart of a family and makes its life all the more narrow.

● The virtuous bond between generations is the guarantee of the future, and is the guarantee of a truly humane society. A society with children who do not honour parents is a society without honour.

● Our contemporary experience of being orphans as a result of cultural discontinuity, uprootedness and the collapse of the certainties that shape our lives, challenges us to make our families places where children can sink roots in the rich soil of a collective history.

In a small town close to Havana, one of the faithful suggested to the parish priest the possibility of showing a video entitled Inspired to Love about the message of Saint Josemaria. About thirty people attended the screening in the parish hall. At the end, the priest was so moved that he spoke a few words to everyone about what they had just seen.

An elderly woman said that “she already knew this Father.” Taking out an old wrinkled sheet of paper with a list of numbers from her purse, she recounted the following story:

“These are the numbers of the points in The Way that helped me the most, many years ago when someone lent me the book. I read the whole book but had to return it afterwards. So I wrote down the points that led me to become a Catholic. I asked our Lord not to let me die before once again being able to have this book in my hands.”

A few days later, she received a brand new copy of The Way as a gift.

Christian hope - 14. Rejoice in hope (cf. Rom 12, 9-13)

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

We know well that the great commandment the Lord Jesus left us is the one about love: to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Mt 22:37-39); namely, we are called to love, to exercise charity. And this is our loftiest vocation, our vocation par excellence; and it is also tied to the joy of Christian hope. One who loves has the joy of hope, of reaching the encounter with the great love that is the Lord.

The Apostle Paul, in the passage of the Letter to the Romans that we have just heard, puts us on guard: there is a risk that our charity may be hypocritical, that our love may be hypocritical. So we must ask: when does this hypocrisy happen? And how can we be certain that our love is sincere, that our charity is authentic? That we are not pretending to do charity or that our love is not for show: sincere, strong love....

Hypocrisy can insinuate itself anywhere, even in our world of love. This happens when our love is motivated by interest, by self-interest; and how much interested love there is ... when the service to charity, which we seem to carry out generously, is done in order to draw attention to ourselves or to feel good: ‘Oh, how good I am!’ No, this is hypocrisy! Or also when we aspire to things with “visibility” so as to put our intelligence or our abilities on display. Behind all this there is a false, misleading idea, thinking that since we love, we are good — as though charity were a man-made creation, a product of our heart. Charity, instead, is first and foremost a grace, a gift; being able to love is a gift of God, and we must ask for it. He gives it freely, if we ask for it. Charity is a grace: it does not consist in showing off, but in what the Lord gives us and which we freely receive; and it cannot be extended to others if it is not first generated by the encounter with the meek and merciful face of Jesus.

Paul invites us to recognize that we are sinners, and also that our way of loving is marked by sin. At the same time, however, one becomes the bearer of a new message, a message of hope: the Lord opens before us a new path of freedom, a path of salvation. It is the opportunity for us too to live the great commandment of love, to become instruments of God’s charity. And this happens when we let our heart be healed and renewed by the Risen Christ. The Risen Lord who lives among us, who lives with us is capable of healing our heart: He does so, if we ask it. It is He who allows us, even in our littleness and poverty, to experience the Father’s compassion and to celebrate the wonders of his love. And thus we understand that all we can live and do for our brothers and sisters is but the response to what God has done and continues to do for us. Rather, it is God himself who, abiding in our heart and our life, continues to be close and to serve all those whom we encounter each day on our journey, beginning with the least and the neediest, in whom He is first recognized.

Thus, with these words, rather than reproach us, the Apostle Paul wants to encourage us and rekindle hope in us. Indeed, everyone has the experience of not living the commandment of love fully or as we should. But this too is a grace, because it makes us understand that we are incapable of truly loving by ourselves: we need the Lord constantly to renew this gift in our heart, through the experience of his infinite mercy. Then, indeed, we will return to appreciate small things, simple, ordinary things; we will once more appreciate all these little, everyday things and we will be capable of loving others as God loves them, wanting their good, that is, that they be holy, friends of God; and we will be glad of the opportunity to make ourselves close to those who are poor and humble, as Jesus does with each one of us when we are distant from Him, to stoop to the feet of our brothers and sisters, as He, the Good Samaritan, does with each of us, with his compassion and his forgiveness.

Dear brothers and sisters, what the Apostle Paul reminded us of is the secret for — I shall use his words — it is the secret for “rejoicing in hope” (cf. Rom 12:12); rejoicing in hope. The joy of hope: because we know that in all circumstances, even the most adverse, and also through our own failures, God’s love never fails.

Therefore, with his grace and his fidelity dwelling and abiding in our heart, let us live in the joyful hope of reciprocating in our brothers and sisters, through the little we can, the abundance we receive from Him each day. Thank you.

What attracted you to Opus Dei?

As André Frossard said: “God exists: I have met him” ... thanks to Opus Dei! Everyone is called to meet Him. For me it is in the middle of the world, in the midst of my work, in Abidjan, that this marvelous adventure began. An invitation card on the notice board of the engineering school where I was teaching offered a course on the Christian faith. Like all the courses offered by Opus Dei, it was excellent. Carefully structured and rational, it didn’t play on your emotions but appealed to your intellect. It was scientific!

The emotions come in your prayer afterwards, in your personal dialogue with God.

What has changed in your life thanks to being in Opus Dei?

Nothing! I am still immersed 100% in the same activities as before: work, the military, my family, hobbies. But deep down everything has changed. Wounded in childhood by the divorce of my parents, I was able to overcome it and even give thanks to God for this ordeal that opened my eyes. And here we are 30 years later, with a big family, beautiful children, and even grandchildren! The discovery of marriage as God wills it has filled us with great joy. Educational courses shared with many other couples has also enriched us. This is also Opus Dei: to learn, pray and spread joy wherever you are.

How do you sanctify your work?

Every Swiss knows how to work well: to work carefully, efficiently and rapidly. But these qualities often seem wasted. As a Christian, we add respect, good humor, being positive and understanding... love! I think sanctifying work means putting the person in first place. But that’s not all! A friend to whom I spoke about the sanctity of stopping at red lights replied rapidly: and what about yellow lights? So putting the person in first place is all well and good, but much better is putting God in first place.

This upcoming April 29, the ceremony of priestly ordination for 31 faithful of the Prelature will be celebrated in Rome by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State.

"To be Christ's minister is a profound life-change, a grace that surpasses you, an undeserved gift."

During the past months, the deacons have carried out the tasks proper to their current ministry, and have deepened in their studies and preparation for priestly ordination. According to Francisco Chapa, one of the candidates: "naturally, we are counting down the days. To be Christ's minister is a profound life-change, a grace that surpasses you, an undeserved gift, but that one receives in order to be at the service of the others."

Luigi Vassallo explains: “We are preparing ourselves for this great gift and for all the work that awaits us, trusting that God will sustain us in our new role. We are living these days in an atmosphere of prayer, accompanied by the prayers of many other people. We want to bring joy and mercy to all places, as Pope Francis wants."

"Who can be considered prepared?"

“It's been months of preparation," says Javier Bordonaba, "although, who can be considered prepared for something like this? We've received guidance from priests with more experience on how to celebrate the sacraments, as well as on bringing Christ to all people, listening to and helping those who come to us in search of hope."

The 31 deacons were ordained to the diaconate at the hands of Bishop Javier Echevarría, former Prelate of Opus Dei who passed away this past December 12th. “Your specific duties," he told them on that day, "should be seen as a generous and happy dedication to all men and women."

Álvaro Mira says: "Don Javier Echevarría will attend our ordination with a lot of joy from heaven. He conferred the deaconate on us and I think that we are all praying to him, asking for help to be good priests. I remember the embrace I received from him at that ceremony. It gives me a lot of strength to think that he is asking God that we be good instruments of His."

"Don Javier Echevarría will attend our ordination with a lot of joy from heaven. We are all praying to him, asking for help to be good priests."

Numerous friends and family members will attend the upcoming ceremony, which will be celebrated at the basilica of Saint Eugene's (Rome) on April 29. “They already know it," Diogo Brito says, "but what helps the most in these weeks of preparation is everyone's prayer, especially that of our families and friends."

“May people pray," Alvaro Ruiz Antón insists, "that we be calm and at peace; that each of us be faithful and not forget 'to be a rug so the others can step softly' as Saint Josemaria liked to say; that we learn to be the priests that Pope Francis wants, pastors who do not put up barriers, but who are alongside the people of God."

The ceremony of ordination will be transmitted live via this website.

A new website has been created about the history of Opus Dei and its development around the world.

Since its founding in 1928, numerous articles in academic journals have been published about Opus Dei and its founder Saint Josemaria Escriva. But these resources have not always been easy to find.

Now the St. Josemaría Institute, based in Chicago, has established a new website, opusdeihistory.org, to make a selection of those articles more easily available to historians and other readers in the English-speaking world.

The website has been launched with its first three articles, exploring the history of Opus Dei in Australia, England and the United States. All articles can be downloaded in Word, PDF and ePub formats.

Today’s celebration can be said to be bittersweet. It is joyful and sorrowful at the same time. We celebrate the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem to the cries of his disciples who acclaim him as king. Yet we also solemnly proclaim the Gospel account of his Passion. In this poignant contrast, our hearts experience in some small measure what Jesus himself must have felt in his own heart that day, as he rejoiced with his friends and wept over Jerusalem.

For thirty-two years now, the joyful aspect of this Sunday has been enriched by the enthusiasm of young people, thanks to the celebration of World Youth Day. This year, it is being celebrated at the diocesan level, but here in Saint Peter’s Square it will be marked by the deeply moving and evocative moment when the WYD cross is passed from the young people of Kraków to those of Panama.

The Gospel we heard before the procession (cf. Mt 21:1-11) describes Jesus as he comes down from the Mount of Olives on the back of a colt that had never been ridden. It recounts the enthusiasm of the disciples who acclaim the Master with cries of joy, and we can picture in our minds the excitement of the children and young people of the city who joined in the excitement. Jesus himself sees in this joyful welcome an inexorable force willed by God. To the scandalized Pharisees he responds: “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Lk 19:40).

Yet Jesus who, in fulfilment of the Scriptures, enters the holy city in this way is no misguided purveyor of illusions, no new age prophet, no imposter. Rather, he is clearly a Messiah who comes in the guise of a servant, the servant of God and of man, and goes to his passion. He is the great “patient,” who suffers all the pain of humanity.

So as we joyfully acclaim our King, let us also think of the sufferings that he will have to endure in this week. Let us think of the slanders and insults, the snares and betrayals, the abandonment to an unjust judgment, the blows, the lashes and the crown of thorns… And lastly, the way of the cross leading to the crucifixion.

He had spoken clearly of this to his disciples: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24). Jesus never promised honour and success. The Gospels make this clear. He had always warned his friends that this was to be his path, and that the final victory would be achieved through the passion and the cross. All this holds true for us too. Let us ask for the grace to follow Jesus faithfully, not in words but in deeds. Let us also ask for the patience to carry our own cross, not to refuse it or set it aside, but rather, in looking to him, to take it up and to carry it daily.

This Jesus, who accepts the hosannas of the crowd, knows full well that they will soon be followed by the cry: “Crucify him!” He does not ask us to contemplate him only in pictures and photographs, or in the videos that circulate on the internet. No. He is present in our many brothers and sisters who today endure sufferings like his own: they suffer from slave labour, from family tragedies, from diseases… They suffer from wars and terrorism, from interests that are armed and ready to strike. Women and men who are cheated, violated in their dignity, discarded… Jesus is in them, in each of them, and, with marred features and broken voice, he asks to be looked in the eye, to be acknowledged, to be loved.

It is not some other Jesus, but the same Jesus who entered Jerusalem amid the waving of palm branches. It is the same Jesus who was nailed to the cross and died between two criminals. We have no other Lord but him: Jesus, the humble King of justice, mercy and peace.

Netherhall House is an intercollegiate hall of residence for students in London. The hall hosts85 young men from the different London Universities, and is open to students of all faiths and backgrounds.

Just before the end of last year, I was taken for a tour of Pentonville Prison to prepare for a group of Netherhall House students who were going to sing during the Sunday Mass at the prison. Entering into a prison for the first time, even as a visitor, is a unique experience. Somehow one feels as if everything there is exactly as one would expect it to be: gates, barbed wire, long corridors, banging of doors, keys, locks and more locks. I only knew about prisons from films and novels.

And still what makes it striking is the awareness that this time it is all for real, that some human beings are deprived of freedom and locked behind bars; a realisation that for most of us, who live in the “free world,” comes as a shock.

The idea of a prison visit first came from a meeting with John Coleby, director of Caritas Westminster, who suggested taking students from Netherhall to attend the Sunday Mass at Pentonville. Originally the idea was just to attend Mass with the inmates, but it soon developed into embellishing the liturgy of the Mass with the presence of the Netherhall House students’ choir.

I do not know whether you have ever had the chance to go to Mass in prison. For a Catholic, the Holy Mass is the commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross and the work of our Redemption. How powerful the Mass becomes then, when it is celebrated in a place for convicts.

But a Mass in prison has its own peculiarities. There are interruptions, and distractions and the moments of silence and reflection can quickly come to an abrupt end by the chatting of inmates. Miguel, a resident in Netherhall and member of the choir puts it this way: “For most of the Mass, the inmates were genuinely engaged, recollected and well behaved. A humorous exception was the moment when the priest invited everyone to give each other the sign of peace, which they used as an opportunity to say hello to their friends and to socialise!”

We were surprised by the great number of inmates taking part in the Sunday celebration and the simplicity and piety of most of them. As Jakub, a student at the Royal Academy of Music and conductor of the Netherhall choir explains: “The piety of the inmates towards Our Lady was evident. After the Mass had finished, a good number of them rushed to be the first ones to light a candle in front of the statue of Our Lady. As the choir members were placed next to this statue, in no time I found myself surrounded by inmates, with not even space to move my hands to conduct the hymn the choir was singing.”

Before and after the Mass, we have the chance to chat to some of the inmates, to get to know a bit about them and their personal stories and of sharing with them some words of hope, encouragement and support. One of the inmates told us about his remorse and regret for past actions, another expressed his deep belief that his being in prison was part of God’s plans and thus a time he wanted to make good use of. The authenticity of those personal accounts was evident and moving.

Three months after we started our visits, the benefits are starting to show. As Father Stephen, chaplain of Pentonville, emphasises, “having a group of students taking part in the Sunday Mass in a place like Pentonville prison brings along a sense of normality to the uncommon congregation.” And Miguel corroborates, “After Mass some of the prisoners came to thank us personally for the singing. One inmate even took away a copy of our hymn sheets, so he could learn them himself. I saw true faith, joy and gratitude in many of the inmates, which was very moving and inspiring, considering the difficult situation they live in.”

Some of the students initially came to sing at Mass out of curiosity and a desire to know more about the world of prisons. Many of them like Han, Manuel and John have found the visits enriching and challenging at the same time. “Talking to prisoners, one realises that in each cell a human history and drama has taken place,” says Manel, an Imperial College resident. Ciaran, a law student, wrote after his first visit: "Singing at a Sunday Mass in a prison was an incredible experience I never expected to have. As much as I hoped to offer something positive to the Pentonville prisoners, seeing a young inmate in sincere prayer after the Mass had finished taught me a lesson about the power that a strong faith can have for those in the most difficult of situations. I left having been presented with a striking example of religious belief and perseverance."

As we get to know the inmates and they get to know us, we hope we can bring hope to those in jail and learn from the good and bad experiences of each other. More and more residents have asked to join us for the Sunday Mass in Pentonville. So much so that we are now planning to go every fortnight.

"I was in prison and you came to visit me … I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Visiting prisoners has been for many of us not only an act of mercy, but a humanising experience of stepping into a world, like our own, in need of redemption.