Living as Apostles: The Necessity for a Plan of Life

The following meditation was recorded in front of a live audience.

In our meditation of the week: Fr. Peter Armenio underscores the relevance of St. Josemaria’s spirituality for our times, drawing a parallel between our world and the intensely pagan society of the early Christians.

Fr. Peter explains that as modern apostles, Our Lord says that we must be "leaven" to the world, transforming it through our imitation of Christ. Our goal should be for our love to reach such a threshold that those around us, starting with our family, lead people to say that we are followers of Christ.

Fr. Peter also emphasizes that if we cut corners in our interior life, we could diminish our light to the people around us. St. Paul’s words in Romans 5:5—“The love of God has been poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit”—serve as a reminder that Christ's love is the fuel that sustains our charity and apostolic mission. Without it, Fr. Peter notes, we cannot give people an authentic experience of Christ. This union with Christ through our plan of life is essential to radiating Our Lord's presence to the world.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. 

With your permission, Lord Jesus Christ truly present with us in the Blessed Sacrament, at least the topic of this conversation, even though the contents are always the same, interior life and apostolate. But the topic here is union with St Josemaria. We want to see why, in prayer, we want to be united to him. Now the Holy Father reinforces that with his now this Latin phrase is used pretty often, before it was more reserved for people doing theology, a motu proprio, but now it's more in common parlance, at least in Opus Dei circles. And he says that he wants us to embrace the spirit of St. Josemaria. 

He said, the Holy Spirit has inspired him, and he wants us to reinforce that commitment to living his charism, his spirit. And why did the Holy Spirit guide the Vicar of Christ to say that? We're supposed to do that anyway. Because Our Lord wants his gospel of freedom, of joy, of truth, of happiness, to reach every person. And given the rampant, the prevalent paganism that now is called the woke culture, there's a certain-there's always an urgency, but we're in the 21st century, there's an urgency for modern apostles. 

And Our Lord says that we must be leaven in the Mass. Interesting to note, he says- he identifies women as that leaven in the Mass. Well, you may say, women bake. Well, personally, I never- I get some people give me bread, and usually it's baked by men. So, there you have it. And so, we're called to bring Christ into the world. That my vocation is apostolate. As the Father says, we don't do apostolate. And we Americans especially need to hear that, because we're- I mean, being legalistic has it- has a lot of pros. I think, you know, you stop at a red light. I know people stop at red lights even at two in the morning when there's nobody around. Other cultures would have trouble understanding that. It's not, you know, there's this- you got to live the spirit of the law. And sometimes the spirit of the law, you know, rivals the letter of the law. But we're very much into the letter of the law, and that does have its value. Things are more organized. Things run smoothly, on and on and on. 

But at the same time our- and so okay I'm connected with Opus Dei. I'm in Opus Dei. I have to do apostolate. You know, all right, colleague, I've got to invite you to a circle or an evening of recollection, because I'm in Opus Dei. And I've got to do some inviting here, and somehow, I'm going to have to give an accounting of my stewardship in my own mind and maybe in the direction I receive. I've got to kind of give accounting of, you know, how much evangelization I've done. Where in reality, the Father says we don't do apostolate. We are apostles. I'm always trying to give an experience of that heart of Jesus. 

And the goal here is that my love reaches a threshold, that they notice that I am an apostle, or I'm a follower of Christ. That's what he says. And maybe that's tailored for Americans. “They should know that you are my disciples.” And he never qualifies it. He said- he doesn't say, “Well, unless it's you know, it's a violent and a hedonistic environment, barring that, they should know that you're my disciples.” He says it under no uncertain terms, “Your behavior, your love for people, your love for others, starting with your family, must lead people to say that you are one of my followers.” And I think that really strikes at the heart of the spirit of St. Josemaria. And it's probably why the Holy Spirit has prompted the Holy Father to insist and to encourage us to embrace that spirit of St. Josemaria.

And that spirit began in an illumination on October 2, 1928. After seeing, listen, if you're inordinately cheerful and you need to tone down your giggling, I would recommend this movie, All Quiet on the Western Front. The more modern one, and that will kind of tone down the giggling and the inordinate cheerfulness. And why do I bring that up? Because it's in the heels of that opening act of the culture of death that prompted the Blessed Virgin Mary to do, try to do something about it. 

You know, it's a pretty horrible period of time, and we have been in that culture, and John Paul coined that phrase, a culture of death. It's still there. But we are not pessimistic. We're very optimistic, but we keep our eye on Our Lord. And keeping our eye on Our Lord doesn't mean just, “All right Lord, you know, make something happen here.” Tomorrow's gospel, the blind man will be yelling at Our Lord, and Our Lord will restore his sight, and Our Lord won't say to him, “Hey, guess what? I worked a miracle. Aren't you impressed with my power?” Jesus gives him attribution, and he says, “Your faith has done this.”

And what is Jesus saying? I-sanctity, because I need you to bring me into the world through your sanctity. But what is sanctity? It's an individual bringing about a greater presence of Christ into the world. What is sanctity? What is growing in sanctity mean? It's an intensification of that life of Jesus within us. What is sanctity? It's what Paul says, St. Paul says, “It’s no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me.” What does St. Josemaria say? That we need to be divinized, and we need to be ipse Christus, we need to be Christ. And that's how we bring Christ into the world.

And that's why we are apostles, and we don't- we do apostolate, we don't take the whole thing literally, but we are apostles because they should detect it. The system does work. This really happened, a young lady, I don't want to make more of it than it is, she lives downtown with her husband, recently married, and the door man or the concierge, whatever you want to call him. She calls him the door man, the door man or the elevator man. He asked her, “Can we talk for 15 minutes? Can I, you know, when you have a window in your schedule, can we chat?” And she said, “Yeah, yeah, sure.” And he said, “You know, you're just very nice to me, and you're very kind, and I know you're close to God. Can you tell me how I could get close to God? Because you're kind and you're cheerful and you care about me, and you know you've gotten to know me, you take an interest in me, and very few people do that, and I appreciate that. I'm, you know, I'm the concierge here, you know. But you're different. Can you can talk to me?”

 And she said, “Well, this is what I do. You know, I am trying to see Jesus, and I read the gospel, and I spend some time in prayer.” And so anyway, they moved to another building three miles away, whatever it is, the husband told me. And the husband said, “I'm very proud, but, you know, a tad jealous.” And so, they moved to a new building, and he told me, he says, “You know, after a couple of months, the concierge in that new building repeated exactly what the other guy said.” 

They're both non-Catholic, and said to the lady, “You know, can we have a little-can we have a long- a longer conversation? Would you have time for me?” And she said yes. And he said, the same thing. “So, you know, you're kind of nice to me, and I could” and he said, “I could tell you're a Christian, a serious Christian. Can you give me a little bit of orientation how I could be a better Christian? Because I want to have your attitude.” I said, “You know, you're, I don't know, when you say hi to me and you ask how my family's doing, and you chat with me. You kind of make me, you lift my spirits. There's some people, there's somebody who cares about me here. And where should I go to church?” he said. “Well, what's your denomination? So, well, first, let's start with your own denomination, and then we can take it from there.” Because she's, you know, the wheels are spinning, all right. Step number two is to bring her to Catholic Mass. But she, she says, “Well, I got to, you know, I got to explain to him, you know what the Mass is.” So, she and her husband are going to take him to Mass. And the reason why I think the husband was jealous, he said, you know, no doorman ever asked him for an appointment. Or, you know what made him tick? And you know, he says, “I'm 0 for two, and she's two for two.” 

So, you know, so there you have it. I think that's an example of I don't do apostolate, I am an apostle. And isn't that what Our Lord says, that we need to tell people what the Lord means for me. And I got to be fascinated with Jesus Christ. I got to be, I need to be excited about it, because that's what my vocation is all about. And that's what St. Josemaria says, that we have to be in love with Jesus Christ. And you know, you look through The Way, especially the word “love” is capitalized. 

And I remember speaking to, and his canonization process is opened, it opened in Boston because he lived there, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei who started Opus Dei here, Fr. Joseph Muzquiz. He talked a little bit about his own vocation. He was in the means of formation before the Spanish Civil War, and when the war broke out, he was- he went to Germany and maybe to continue his studies. And when he- when the war ended, he came back, and he was wondering if St. Josemaria was alive because, you know, so many priests were executed in that area of Spain. 

And he met him, and he- they were talking about vocation, and he was trying to discern what God wanted of him. He was a young engineer at the time. And St. Josemaria proposed that he center his whole life on Jesus Christ in Opus Dei. And he said to Fr. Joseph, “There's no greater love than the love,” and that moved him. I mean, I don't know, if I said that I don’t know if it’d work. But he said it, and it really worked because he said it moved his heart so profoundly, because he said it with so much oomph and so much conviction that he embraced his own vocation. Uh, precisely, that tip- that tipped him over when he said, “There's no greater love than the love,” you know, referring to Jesus Christ. 

So, union with St. Josemaria, or union with his spirit, always begins with union with Our Lord. And I want to see union with St. Josemaria, the charism, as the Holy Father mentions in that motu proprio as a means, as a concrete means, of being united to Jesus Christ. It's- we turn, we want to see it almost as a subset of this parable of the vine and the branches. We, first of all, we notice that Our Lord does talk about union with him and giving our heart totally to him. He talks about being united to him. 

St. Josemaria uses sound bites: united to him through the Bread and the Word. And Jesus says the same thing, that we need to be united to him through the Bread of God, which is the Eucharist, and his words that he, a number of times throughout the gospel, he says his words are nourishment. So, it's the 
Mass, it's Communion, it's mental prayer, and mental prayer through the rosary. Those are my points of entry, and then the pruning of the branch, which is the cross itself. 

These three points, it's like a three-pronged plug going into the power source. And they both have to enter into those- into the socket: the Eucharist, the Cross, and the Word. But we see that when he speaks about this union with him, it doesn't stop with union with him, that our vocation is not insular. It's not getting good at doing the norms. “I just got to get good at it,” or, you know, “I've finally mastered,” I don't know if that'll ever happen in this life, but “we have finally mastered the plan of life, down to,” you know, “proper pronunciation of Psalm 2 in Latin. I've got it down to an art. It's an art with me. I'm good at the plan of life.” It has to- it always, the plan of life is in function of loving people. It's all about people, but it's not being an activist. An activist is all about people without the interior life. And the interior life without people is pietism, or it's being insular or being a “devotionary.” I don't know come up with- you could probably come up with a better word. 

It's both. It's always about- Our Lord always brings up fruitfulness. But it always begins with union with him. And I think St. Josemaria hits the nail on the head here in these celebrated words in Christ is Passing By, this is the homily on the Ascension. But let's read this, “Christ has taught us, in a definitive way, how to make this love for God real. Apostolate is love for God that overflows and communicates itself to others. The interior life implies a growth in union with Christ in the bread and in the Word. And apostolate is the precise and necessary outward manifestation of interior life. When one tastes the love of God, one feels burdened with the weight of souls. There's no way to separate interior life from apostolate, just as there's no way to separate Christ, the God man, from his role as Redeemer.”

 And if we look at The Way, for example, let's just use The Way in a cursory way. Let's just browse through it. I would say it's, I don't know, no different than any other spiritual book, good stuff, but there's, there's a lot more than what meets the eye, especially when it was first written. Because what is he talking about? And that's sort of, you know, a criticism our non-Catholic Christian brethren have; that we don't evangelize. He's- it's all about spreading the gospel to others. It's all about that. And that's what my vocation is. It's all about apostolate. 

Well, what if I'm hell- what if I'm home bad? Because I'm, you know, I'm sick, or I'm elderly or, you know, now I'm physically unable to get around. I'm still, I still have to eat and drink apostolate. I have, I should be, I should have a list of I should be praying for people. I should be offering up my loneliness or my disability or my pain for the apostolate. And I should be asking for names. 

I'm just plagiarizing this lady who's now in heaven. She would always complain that she wasn't dead yet. She wanted to go to heaven so badly, and she did. And she'd tell me when you're giving a retreat, because I'm going to offer up my pain and my suffering for your retreat and then you got to report to me how your retreat went. I said, “Well, you know, there's a miracle. I gave a retreat to a bunch of teenagers, and they were in the chapel the whole time.” And I said, and then I finally told them, you know, after, you know, I didn't want to say anything too soon, but once the retreat was just about over, I said, “You know, this was a good retreat. I could tell you were praying a lot. That's because there's a lady really sick and old who's offering up all her suffering for you. That's why you've gotten a lot on this retreat.” So I was able to report to her about the results of the retreat. 

But we're all- it's all about spreading the gospel to others. And we noticed that he, he's always saying that throughout The Way. And even early in The Way, “People who come to our encounter should say, this woman or this man reads the life of Jesus Christ.” The, there's always, there's a danger to be pessimistic. And we're not, you know, we're not people who have our head in the sand, we're not oblivious to what's going on in the culture. But we are, we count on the- that Christ is more powerful than the forces of evil. 

And what's really unique about this period of time that we find ourselves in, and I don't know, I would say someone connected with Opus Dei in the 40’s would have maybe a little bit of a different experience than we have here, because Ancient Rome has been revisited. We are back in a modern, ancient pagan world. And we're not here to criticize or become pessimistic or talk gloom and doom. And maybe you're saying to yourself, “Well, the only one talking gloom and doom is you.” But anyway, just in case you're thinking of it.

We are optimistic. But we're realistically optimistic that, uh-as if I'm united to Our Lord, and I'm trying to live that new commandment, starting with you know most of you, your spouse, your children, grandchildren, friends of your children. Our Lord is the victory that has overcome the world. We, most generations of Christians cannot say what we say, “I am in the same predicament. I am in the same situation as my first brothers and sisters.” And St. Josemaria was very prophetic, “Who are your role models?” They asked him, “Who you're trying to imitate?” And he said, “Well, those first Christians, those early Christians, because they were all lay people.” 

And we read through the whole of the New Testament, which is the first History of the Church book written by God himself. And we see this holy anxiety, this holy tension. And a matter of fact, it's a phrase our Father uses in one of his letters, he says that we need to have, we have to tap into the holy anxiety of Jesus Christ to get the message out. And this holy anxiety is expressed in my own union with him through my plan of life. 

You know, the Mass and mental prayer and the rosary, it's not about me. You know, I may do it in a slipshod way, I may cut corners, but it's not, it's my problem. No, it's not my problem. It's, you know, my light will dim if I cut corners. I will be less of a leaven if I cut corners. If I cut corners I'm not fueled in that fuel of charity that, Paul almost calls it fuel in Romans 5:5, he says, “The love of God is poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit.” And so, if I cut corners in my piety, I can't give people an experience of Christ. 

The apostles spoke and people from all over the empire understood the Apostles in their own language, which was miraculous. We have to do the same thing but what is the common language everybody's going to understand? That language of charity, that heart of Christ, that joy of Christ, that warmth of Christ, with my temperament, with my character flaws, but nevertheless, that charity of Christ is the gift of tongues. That universal Christian language that everyone understands. 

And we'd be crazy to say, “Okay, let's hop to it. Hop to it first. Let's hop to being more united to Christ in my plan of life,” realizing that this is a service to others. I mean, this is some- this is for others. This is so that I can be an apostle because they have to see the face of Christ super imposed on me. 

We continue, and we're going to finish up in a minute, “For a Christian, apostolate is something instinctive. It’s not something added on to his daily activities and his professional work from the outside. For a Christian, apostolate is like breathing. A child of God cannot live without this supernatural life-force.” And lastly, topic of our prayer, Lord, how do you want me to be united to you? Obviously, directly through the gospel, “I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me, and I in you. Without me, you can do nothing.” How do I abide in your Word: the writings of St Josemaria. Not exclusively, you know we're free. You know, whatever moves us to connect with him. And what the Father is insisting on- and what is he insisting on: the humanity of Christ, the Word of God, you know, the Word, the Eucharist, friendship, fraternity. It's almost too much to take in. Anyway, we go to the Blessed Mother. Mary, pray for us so that we see your Son in the charism and the spirit of St. Josemaria, as the Holy Father indicates.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations which you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.