Characteristics of corporate works

Let us now consider again some of the main characteristics of the educational centres that will be corporate works of Opus Dei; characteristics which we will try to ensure are also shared to a large extent by other centres that are set up and directed by people who cooperate in our apostolate.

All types and levels

I have already said that we will have relatively few corporate works that are educational centres – it will depend on geography, history and time – but that they will be of all levels and types: secondary schools, university faculties, technical and vocational schools, catering schools, academies, language schools, farm-schools, etc.

With few members of the Work

There will always also be only a few members of the Work who teach in these centres: we cannot make a show of numbers, and generally it is recommendable for each person to work individually at his or her own profession. It would be a mistake to have many of our Family in the same place, working professionally in the same activity. We feel the need to open out, to be present everywhere, to reach out to as many people as possible, to involve many people in our apostolates.

Help from people outside the Work

Few members of the Work, then, will work in these centres. It must be, above all, our collaborators and friends who do most of the teaching: men and women who are professionally well trained, reliable in their behaviour, people who understand the nature of this apostolate, and who are willing to work hard – always being not just fairly but generously paid – and who in this way will learn about the supernatural spirit of the Work, practise it, and teach others how to practise it.

Cooperation by non-Catholics

Both Catholics and non-Catholics will work there, because we feel a very special love for the apostolate ad fidem. Many honest, loyal people, as they get to know us through their and our professional work and are won over by my children’s genuine friendship and affection, will gradually lose any possible aversion or indifference to the Church, and joyfully help with our apostolate, at least because of its human value. Through everyone’s prayer and mortification, and with tactful and prudent instruction, they will be able to receive the grace of conversion and the joy of faith, built up on the foundation of their own integrity. Later it will be possible to apply to them the words of praise from the Acts of the Apostles: He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus (Acts 18:25).

In time it will become necessary to organise continuing professional development courses for these teachers, in which they can improve their teaching skills, share experiences from their work, and be enkindled with the desire to use their professional work to carry out an effective apostolate in their pupils’ souls.