List of points

Thank you for clarifying that point. I would like to ask you now what characteristics of the spiritual formation of the members make it impossible for anyone to derive any temporal advantage from belonging to Opus Dei?

Any advantage which is not exclusively spiritual is completely ruled out, because the Work demands a great deal — detachment, sacrifice, self-denial, unceasing work in the service of souls — and gives nothing.

Nothing, that is, in terms of material advantages, because in the spiritual sphere it gives very much. It offers the means to fight and win in the ascetical struggle. It leads one along ways of prayer. It teaches one to treat Jesus as a brother, to see God in all the circumstances of one's life, to see oneself as a son of God and therefore to feel committed to spreading His teaching.

Anyone who does not progress along the way of the interior life, to the extent of realising it is worthwhile to give oneself in everything, will find it impossible to persevere in Opus Dei, because holiness is not just a nice-sounding phrase to be bandied about. it is a very demanding affair.

And besides, Opus Dei has no activity with political, financial or ideological aims. It has no temporal action. Its only activities are the supernatural formation of its members and the works of apostolate — in other words, the constant spiritual attention it gives to the members and the corporate apostolic undertakings in the area of social welfare, education, etc.

The members of Opus Dei have come together only for the purpose of following a clearly defined way of holiness and of cooperating in specific works of apostolate. What binds them together is something exclusively spiritual and therefore rules out all temporal interests, because in the temporal area all the members of Opus Dei are free and so each goes his own way, with aims and interests which are different and sometimes opposite.

Because the Work's aims are exclusively supernatural, its spirit is one of freedom, of love for the personal freedom of all men. And since this is a sincere love for freedom and not a mere theoretical statement, we love the necessary consequence of freedom which is pluralism. In Opus Dei pluralism is not simply tolerated. It is desired and loved, and in no way hindered. When I see among the members of the Work so many different ideas, such a variety of points of view in political, economic, social or cultural matters, I am overjoyed at the sight, because it is a sign that everything is being done for God, as it should be.

Spiritual unity is compatible with variety in temporal matters when extremism and intolerance are shunned and above all when people live up to the Faith and realise that men are united not so much by links of sympathy or mutual interest but above all by the action of the one Spirit, who in making us brothers of Christ is leading us towards God the Father.

A true Christian never thinks that unity in the Faith, fidelity to the teaching authority and tradition of the Church, and concern for the spreading of the saving message of Christ, run counter to the existence of variety in the attitudes of people as regards the things which God has left, as the phrase goes, to the free discussion of men. In fact, he is fully aware that this variety forms part of God's plan. It is something desired by God, who distributes His gifts and His lights as He wishes. The Christian should love other people and therefore respect opinions contrary to his own, and live in harmony and full brotherhood with people who do not think as he does.

Precisely because this is the spirit which the members of the Work have learnt, none of them would dream of using the fact that he belongs to Opus Dei to obtain any personal advantage or to try to impose his political or cultural opinions on others: they just wouldn't put up with it and they would ask him to change his attitude or leave the Work. This is a point on which no one in Opus Dei would ever permit the least deviation, because it is their duty to defend not only their own freedom but also the supernatural character of the activity to which they have dedicated their lives. That's why I think that personal freedom and responsibility are the best guarantee of the supernatural purpose of the Work of God.

You have spoken a lot about work. What place would you say work occupies in the spirituality of Opus Dei?

The vocation to Opus Dei in no way changes or modifies a person's condition or state in life. And since man's condition, his lot, is to work, the supernatural vocation to holiness and apostolate according to the spirit of Opus Dei confirms this human vocation to work. The vast majority of the members of the Work are lay people, ordinary Christians. Their condition consists in having a profession or trade which is often absorbing and by means of which they earn their living, support their family, contribute to the common good, and develop their own personality.

The vocation to Opus Dei confirms all this: to such an extent that one of the essential signs of this vocation is precisely a determination to remain in the world and to do a job as perfectly as possible (taking into account, of course, one's personal imperfections), both from the human and from the supernatural point of view. This means it must be a job which contributes effectively towards both the building up of the earthly city — and therefore it must be done competently and in a spirit of service; and to the consecration of the world — and in this regard it must both sanctify and be sanctified.

Those who want to live their Faith perfectly and to do apostolate according to the spirit of Opus Dei, must sanctify themselves with their work, must sanctify their work and sanctify others through their work. It is while they work alongside their equals, their fellow working men from whom they are in no way different, they strive to identify themselves with Christ, imitating His thirty years in the workshop in Nazareth.

Ordinary work is not only the context in which they should become holy. It is the 'raw material' of their holiness. It is there in the ordinary happenings of their day's work that they discover the hand of God and find the stimulus for their life of prayer. This same professional job brings them into contact with other people — relatives, friends, colleagues — and with the great problems which affect their society and the world at large; and it affords them the opportunity to live that self-giving in the service of others which is essential for Christians. This is where they should strive to give a true and genuine witness to Christ so that all may get to know and love our Lord and discover that their normal life in the world, their everyday work, can be an encounter with God.

In other words, holiness and apostolate and the ordinary life of the members of the Work come to form one and the same thing, and that is why work is the hinge of their spiritual life. Their self-giving to God is grafted on to the work which they were doing before they came to Opus Dei and which they continue to do after they join.

In the early years of my pastoral work, when I began to preach these ideas, some people did not understand me, and others were scandalised: they were so accustomed to hearing the world spoken of in a pejorative way. Our Lord had made me understand, and I tried to make other people understand, that the world is good, for the works of God are always perfect, and that it is we men who make the world bad, through our sins.

I said then, as I do now, that we must love the world, because it is in the world that we meet God: God shows Himself, He reveals Himself to us in the happenings and events of the world.

Good and evil are mixed in human history, and therefore the Christian should be a man of judgement. But this judgement should never bring him to deny the goodness of God's works. On the contrary, it should bring him to recognise the hand of God working through all human actions, even those which betray our fallen nature. You could make a good motto for Christian life out of these words of St Paul: 'All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's' (1 Cor 3:22-23), and so carry out the plans of that God whose will it is to save the world.

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).

Authentic Christianity, which professes the resurrection of all flesh, has always quite logically opposed 'dis-incarnation', without fear of being judged materialistic. We can, therefore, rightfully speak of a 'Christian materialism', which is boldly opposed to that materialism which is blind to the spirit.

What are the Sacraments, which early Christians described as the foot-prints of the Incarnate Word, if not the clearest manifestation of this way which God has chosen in order to sanctify us and to lead us to heaven? Don't you see that each Sacrament is the Love of God, with all its creative and redemptive power, giving itself to us by way of material means? What is this Eucharist which we are about to celebrate, if not the adorable Body and Blood of our Redeemer, which is offered to us through the lowly matter of this world (wine and bread), through the 'elements of nature, cultivated by man,' as the recent Ecumenical Council has reminded us (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 38).

It is understandable that the Apostle should write: 'All things are yours, you are Christ's and Christ is God's' (1 Cor 3:22-23). We have here an ascending movement which the Holy Spirit, infused in our hearts, wants to call forth from this world, upwards from the earth to the glory of the Lord. And to make it clear that in that movement everything is included, even what seems most commonplace, St. Paul also wrote: 'in eating, in drinking, do everything as for God's glory' (cf 1 Cor 10:32).