List of points

Please excuse me for insisting on the same subject. Through the letters which reach our Editor's desk, we know that some mothers of large families complain about their being limited to the role of having children, and feel dissatisfied about not being able to devote their life to other fields: professional work, cultural activities, social work… What advice would you give them?

Now just a moment! What is social work, if not giving oneself to others, with a sense of dedication and service and contributing effectively to the good of all? The job of a woman in her house is a social contribution in itself and can easily be the most effective of all.

Take the case of a large family. The mother's work is comparable to that of professional teachers and in many cases leaves them in the shade. A teacher manages to educate a number of boys and girls more or less successfully in the course of his life. A mother can give her children a solid set of values and shape their character, and can make them, in their turn, other teachers, thus setting up an uninterrupted chain of responsibility and virtue.

In these matters it is easy to be misled by mere numbers and to think that the work of a teacher, who sees hundreds of people pass through his classes, or that of a writer who reaches thousands of readers, is more valuable. That is all very well, but how many people are really formed by that teacher or writer? A mother has three, five, ten or more children in her care and she can make of them a true work of art, a marvel of education, of balance and understanding, a model of the Christian way of life. She can teach them to be happy and to make themselves really useful to those around them.

Besides, it is natural for the children to help with the household chores; and a mother who knows how to bring up her children well can manage this. This way she will have spare time which, if used well, will enable her to cultivate her personal interests and talents and to enrich her culture. Fortunately, these days there is plenty of technical equipment, household appliances and that sort of thing, which can be great time-savers if full advantage is taken of them and they are used correctly. As in every field, personal qualities are what count. Some women with the latest-model washing machine take longer to do the washing, (and do it worse) than when they did it by hand. Appliances are useful only when one knows how to use them.

I know of many married women with large families who manage their home very well and still find time to cooperate in other apostolic tasks, just like that early Christian married couple, Aquilla and Priscilla. They worked in their house and at their job, and besides this were splendid cooperators of St. Paul. With their word and example they brought Apollo to the Faith of Jesus Christ, a man who was later to become a great preacher of the early Church. As I have already said, someone who really wants to, can overcome quite a number of limitations, without neglecting any of his duties. In fact, there is time for a lot of things: for running a home with professional outlook, for giving oneself continually to others, for improving one's own culture and for enriching that of others, and for carrying out many other effective tasks.

In the homily you gave in Pamplona last October during the Mass you celebrated at the Assembly of the Friends of the University of Navarra, you spoke of human love in words which made a deep impression on us. Many readers have written commenting on the impact they felt on hearing you. What would you say are the most important values of Christian marriage?

The majority of the members of Opus Dei are married people, so in this field I can speak from the experience of many years of priestly activity in many countries. For the married members of Opus Dei human love and marriage duties are part of their divine vocation. Opus Dei has made of marriage a divine way, avocation, and this has many consequences for personal holiness and for apostolate. I have spent almost forty years preaching the vocational meaning of marriage. More than once I have had occasion to see faces light up as men and women, who had thought that in their lives a dedication to God was incompatible with a noble and pure human love, heard me say that marriage is a divine path on earth!

The purpose of marriage is to help married people sanctify themselves and others. For this reason they receive a special grace in the sacrament which Jesus Christ instituted. Those who are called to the married state will, with the grace of God, find within their state everything they need to be holy, to identify themselves each day more with Jesus Christ, and to lead those with whom they live to God.

That is why I always look upon Christian homes with hope and affection, upon all the families which are the fruit of the Sacrament of Matrimony. They are a shining witness of the great divine mystery of Christ's loving union with His Church which St. Paul calls sacramentum magnum, a great sacrament (Eph 5:32). We must strive so that these cells of Christianity may be born and may develop with a desire for holiness, conscious of the fact that the Sacrament of Initiation — Baptism — confers on all Christians a divine mission that each must fulfil in his own walk of life.

Christian couples should be aware that they are called to sanctity themselves and to sanctify others, that they are called to be apostles and that their first apostolate is in the home. They should understand that founding a family, educating their children, and exercising a Christian influence in society, are supernatural tasks. The effectiveness and the success of their life — their happiness — depends to a great extent on their awareness of their specific mission.

But they mustn't forget that the secret of married happiness lies in everyday things, not in daydreams. It lies in finding the hidden joy of coming home in the evening, in affectionate relations with their children, in the everyday work in which the whole family cooperates; in good humour in the face of difficulties that should be met with a sporting spirit; in making the best use of all the advantages that civilisation offers to help us rear children, to make the house pleasant and life more simple.

I constantly tell those who have been called by God to form a home to love one another always, to love each other with the love of their youth. Any one who thinks that love ends when the worries and difficulties that life brings with it begin, has a poor idea of marriage, which is a sacrament and an ideal and a vocation, It is precisely then that love grows strong. Torrents of worries and difficulties are incapable of drowning true love because people who sacrifice themselves generously together are brought closer by their sacrifice. As Scripture says, aquae multae, a host of difficulties, physical and moral, non potuerunt extinguere caritatem, cannot extinguish love (Cant 8:7).

We know that the idea of marriage, as a way of holiness, is not new in your preaching. As far back as 1934, when you wrote 'Consideraciones Espirituales' you insisted on the fact that marriage should be seen as a vocation. But in this book and later in 'The Way', you also wrote that 'Marriage is for the soldiers and not for the General Staff of Christ's army.' Could you explain how these two points can be reconciled?

In the spirit and life of Opus Dei there has never been any difficulty in reconciling them. To begin with, it is well to remember that the greater excellence of celibacy, chosen for spiritual motives, is not a theological opinion of mine, but part of the Church's faith.

When I wrote those words back in the thirties, there was a tendency among Catholics, particularly in the sphere of day-to-day pastoral activity, to encourage the search for Christian perfection among young people only by making them appreciate the supernatural value of virginity, while neglecting to mention the value of marriage as a way of holiness.

In general, schools did not teach young people to see the true dignity of marriage. Even now it is quite common, in the retreats given to pupils during their last year at secondary school, to stress subjects related to a possible religious vocation rather than to a possible vocation to marriage. There are still some people, though they are gradually disappearing, who undervalue married life, giving young people the impression that it is something the Church simply tolerates, as if marriage precluded any serious striving for sanctity.

In Opus Dei we have always acted differently. While making clear the purpose and the excellence of apostolic celibacy, we have pointed out that marriage is a divine way on earth.

I am not afraid of human love — that holy love of my parents which our Lord used to give me life. I bless this love with both hands. The partners are both the ministers and the matter of the Sacrament of Marriage, as the bread and wine are the matter of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. That's why I like all the songs about pure holy love, for in them I find, interwoven, both human and divine love. But, also, I always say that people who follow a vocation to apostolic celibacy are not old maids who do not understand or value love; on the contrary, their lives can only be explained in terms of this divine Love (I like to write it with a capital letter) which is the very essence of every Christian vocation.

There is nothing contradictory about being fully aware of the value of the vocation to marriage and understanding the greater excellence of the vocation to celibacy propter regnum caelorum 'for love of the kingdom of heaven' (Matt 19:12). I am convinced that any Christian who tries to know, accept and love the teaching of the Church, will understand perfectly how the two are compatible if he tries also to know, accept and love his own personal vocation. That is to say, if he has faith and lives by it.

When I wrote that marriage is for the 'soldiers', I only described what has happened always in the Church. As you know, the bishops — who form the Episcopal College, which has the Pope as its head, and who govern with him the entire Church — are elected from among those who live celibacy. The same is true in the Eastern Church, in which there are married priests. Furthermore, it can be easily understood and shown that those who are celibate are de facto freer of ties of affection and have greater freedom of movement to dedicate themselves permanently to conducting and supporting apostolic undertakings. This is also true in the lay apostolate. This is not to say that the rest of the laity cannot, or in fact do not, carry out a splendid apostolate and one of prime importance. It only means that there are different duties, different forms of dedication in Positions of diverse responsibility.

In an army — and this is all the comparison was meant to express — the soldiers are as necessary as the general staff and can be more heroic and merit more glory. In a word, there is a variety of tasks and all are necessary and worthy. What is really important is that each person should follow his own vocation. For each individual, the most perfect thing is, always and only, to do God's Will.

And so a Christian who seeks to sanctify himself in the married state and is conscious of the greatness of his own vocation, spontaneously feels a special veneration and deep affection towards those who are called to apostolic celibacy. When one of his children, by God's grace, sets out on this path, he truly rejoices and comes to love his own vocation to marriage even more because it has permitted him to offer the fruits of human love to Jesus Christ, who is the great Love of all men, married or celibate.

Perhaps as a reaction to compulsory religious education, reduced at times to a few routine and external practices, some young people today pay almost no attention to Christian piety because they consider it sentimental nonsense. What solution would you suggest for this problem?

The question carries its own answer. The meaning of true piety should be taught first by example and then by word. False piety is a sad pseudo-spiritual caricature which generally results from a lack of doctrine and from a certain psychological defect. The logical result is that it is repellent to anyone who loves authenticity and sincerity.

I am very glad to see how Christian piety takes root among young people today, as it did forty years ago:

— when they see it lived sincerely in the lives of others;

— when they understand that prayer is speaking with God, not anonymously, but personally, as a father with a friend, in a heart to heart conversation;

— when we try to make them hear deep in their souls the words with which Jesus Christ himself invites them to a confidential encounter: vos autem dixi amicos — 'I have called you friends' (John 15:15);

— when a strong appeal is made to their Faith, so that they see that our Lord is 'the same yesterday and today and forever' (Heb 13:8).

It is essential for them to realise that simple and heartfelt piety also calls for the exercise of human virtues and that it cannot be reduced to a few daily or weekly pious acts. It must penetrate our entire life and give meaning to our work, rest, friendships and entertainment, to everything that we do. We are children of God all day long, even though we do set aside special moments for considering it, so that we can fill ourselves with the awareness of our divine filiation which is the essence of true piety.

I was saying that young people understand this very well. I might add that anyone who tries to live it will always feel young. A Christian who lives in union with Jesus Christ can relish, even if he is eighty, the words we pray at the foot of the altar: 'I will go unto the altar of God, of God who gives joy to my youth' (Ps 42:4).

Do you consider it important, then, to teach children to practise their Faith from their earliest years? Do you think some acts of piety should be lived in the family?

I think it is precisely the best way to give children a truly Christian upbringing. Scripture tells us about those early Christian families which drew new strength and new life from the light of the Gospel. St Paul calls them 'the Church in the household' (1 Cor 16:19).

Experience shows in all Christian environments what good effects come from this natural and supernatural introduction to the life of piety given in the warmth of the home. Children learn to place God first and foremost in their affections. They learn to see God as their Father and Mary as their Mother and they learn to pray following their parents' example. In this way one can easily see what a wonderful apostolate parents have and how it is their duty to live a fully Christian life of prayer, so they can communicate their love of God to their children, which is something more than just teaching them.

How can they go about this? They have excellent means in the few, short, daily religious practices that have always been lived in Christian families and which I think are marvellous: grace at meals, morning and night prayers, the Holy Rosary (even though nowadays this devotion to our Lady has been criticised by some people). Customs vary from place to place, but I think that one should always encourage some acts of piety which the family can do together in a simple and natural fashion.

This is the way to ensure that God is not regarded as a stranger whom we go to see in the church once a week on Sunday. He will be seen and treated as He really is, not only in church but also at home, because our Lord has told us, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them' (Matt 18:20).

I still pray aloud the bedside prayers I learnt as a child from my mother's lips, and I say so with the pride and gratitude of a son. They bring me closer to God and make me feel the love with which I learned to take my first steps as a Christian. And as I offer to God the day that is beginning, or thank Him for the day that is drawing to a close, I ask him to increase, in heaven, the happiness of those whom I especially love and to unite us there forever.

May I ask another question about young people? Many of their problems reach us through our magazine. One of the most common arises when parents seek to impose their ideas on their children, deciding their future for them. This happens both when it is a question of deciding on a career or job, and in the choice of a boy— or girl-friend. It is even more frequent if they are thinking of following a call from God to work in the service of souls. Is there any justification for this attitude on the part of parents? Doesn't it violate the freedom which young people need if they are to become personally mature?

In the final analysis, it is clear that the decisions that determine the course of an entire life have to be taken by each individual personally, with freedom, without coercion or pressure of any kind. This is not to say that the intervention of others is not usually necessary. Precisely because they are decisive steps that affect an entire life and because a person's happiness depends to a great extent on the decisions made, it is clear that they should be taken calmly, without precipitation. They should be particularly responsible and prudent decisions. And part of prudence consists precisely in seeking advice. It would be presumption — for which we usually pay dearly — to think that we can decide alone, without the grace of God and without the love and guidance of other people, and especially of our parents.

Parents can, and should, be a great help to their children. They can open new horizons for them, share their experiences and make them reflect, so they do not allow themselves to be carried away by passing emotional experiences. They can offer them a realistic scale of value. Sometimes they can help with personal advice; on other occasions they should encourage their children to seek other suitable people such as a loyal and sincere friend, a learned and holy priest or an expert in career guidance.

Advice does not take away freedom. It gives elements on which to judge and thus enlarges the possibilities of choice and ensures that decisions are not taken on the basis of irrational factors. After hearing the opinions of others and taking everything into consideration, there comes a moment in which a choice has to be made and then no one has the right to force a young person's freedom. Parents have to be on guard against the temptation of wanting to project themselves unduly on their children or of moulding them according to their own preferences. They should respect their individual God-given inclinations and aptitudes. If their love is true, this is easy enough. Even in the extreme case, when a young person makes a decision that the parents have good reason to consider mistaken and when they think it will lead to future unhappiness, the answer lies not in force, but in understanding. Very often it consists in knowing how to stand by their child so as to help him overcome the difficulties and, if necessary, draw all the benefit possible from an unfortunate situation.

After giving their advice and suggestions, parents who sincerely love and seek the good of their children should step tactfully into the background so that nothing can stand in the way of the great gift of freedom that makes man capable of loving and serving God. They should remember that God himself has wanted to be loved and served with freedom and He always respects our personal decisions. Scripture tells us: 'When God created man, He made him subject to his own free choice' (Sir 15:14).

Just a few words more to refer in particular to the last case that you mentioned, the decision to give oneself to the service of the Church and of souls. I think Catholic parents who do not understand this type of vocation have failed in their mission of forming a Christian family. They probably are not aware of the dignity that Christianity gives to their vocation to marriage. But my experience in Opus Dei is very positive. I often tell the members of the Work that they owe ninety per cent of their vocation to their parents because they have known how to educate their children and have taught them to be generous. I can assure you that in the vast majority of cases, practically in all, the parents respect and love their children's decision. They immediately see the Work as an extension of their own family. It is one of my greatest joys and yet another proof that in order to be very divine you have to be very human as well.