List of points

If we live our lives in this way, we shall be bringing peace to the world. We shall be making God's service attractive to others, because 'God loves a cheerful giver'. Christians are ordinary people, but their hearts overflow with the joy that comes when we set out to fulfil, with the constant help of grace, the will of the Father. Christians don't see themselves as victims, underrated, or restricted in their behaviour. They walk head on high, because they are men and children of God.

Our faith brings out the full meaning of these human virtues, which no one should ever neglect. Christians should be second to none as human beings. Those who follow Christ are able (not by their own merit but by the grace of God) to communicate to those around them what they at times suspect but cannot quite grasp: that true happiness, a genuine spirit of serving our neighbour, can only come by passing through the Heart of our Redeemer, perfectus Deus, perfectus homo.

Let us turn to Mary, our Mother, and the most excellent creature ever fashioned by God's hands. Let us ask her to make us humanly good so that our human virtues, woven into the life of grace, may become our best way of helping those who, with us, are working in the world to bring peace and happiness to all men.

My purpose in reminding you of these hard realities is to stimulate you to examine carefully the motives that inspire your behaviour, so that you can put right what needs to be corrected and direct everything to the service of God and your fellow men. Don't forget that God has passed by our side, that he has cast his loving glance upon us, and 'has called us to a vocation of holiness, not because of anything we have done, but out of his own good pleasure and the grace he has lavished on us since the world began'.

Purify your intentions then. Do everything for the love of God and embrace your daily cross joyfully. This is something I have repeated thousands of times because I believe that these ideas should be engraved on every Christian heart. When we advance beyond the stage of simply tolerating difficulties or sufferings (whether physical or moral) and, instead, love them and offer them to God in reparation for our sins and the sins of all mankind, then, I assure you, they do not distress us.

It is no longer just any cross we are carrying. We discover that it is the Cross of Christ, and with it the consolation of knowing that our Redeemer has taken it upon himself to bear its weight. We cooperate as Simon of Cyrene did, who, when he was returning from work on his farm intending to take a well-earned rest, was forced to lend his shoulders to help Jesus. For a soul in love it is no misfortune to become voluntarily Christ's Simon of Cyrene and, in this way, to give such close company to his suffering Humanity, reduced to a state of rags and tatters. For if we do this we can be certain of our closeness to God, who blesses us by choosing us for this task.

Many people have spoken to me in amazement of the joy which, thanks be to God, my children in Opus Dei have and which they spread to others. Faced with this evident truth, I always give the same reply, because I know no other. Their happiness has its foundation in the fact that they fear neither life nor death; that they are not overwhelmed when they meet with misfortune; that they strive daily to live with a spirit of sacrifice, in spite of their own defects and weaknesses, and they are constantly ready to deny themselves in order to make the Christian path easier and more pleasant for others.

While I am speaking I know that you are trying, in the presence of God, to take a close look at your past behaviour. Isn't it true that most of the annoyances which have made your soul restless and have taken your peace away, are due to your failure to live up to the calls of divine grace? Or rather, that you were perhaps following the path of the hypocrites by thinking only of yourself? With the sorry idea of keeping up the mere appearance of a Christian attitude for the sake of those around you, you were inwardly refusing to renounce self, to mortify your unruly passions, and to give yourself unconditionally, in complete surrender, as Jesus did.

You see, in these periods of meditation in front of the tabernacle you can't confine yourselves simply to listening to the priest's words, as if he were giving voice to the intimate prayer of each individual present. I am making some suggestions, giving some indications, but it is for you to make the effort to take them in and reflect on them, so as to convert them into the theme of a very personal inner conversation between yourself and God, in such a way that you can apply them to your present situation and then, in the light that Our Lord offers you, distinguish what is going well from what is going badly and, with the help of his grace, correct your course.

Thank Our Lord for the great number of good works which you have disinterestedly carried out, for with the psalmist you too can sing: 'He drew me out of the deadly pit, where the mire had settled deep. He gave me a foothold on rock and gave strength to my steps.' Also ask him to forgive your omissions, or the false steps you took when you entered the wretched maze of hypocrisy, saying that you desired only the glory of God and the good of your neighbour, while in fact you were really honouring yourself… Be daring, be generous, and say No: you don't want to deceive Our Lord and mankind any more.