“What Is It, O Jesus, You Want of Me?”

In this meditation for the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva, Fr. Donncha Ó hAodha reflects personal freedom as the capacity to love. Drawing upon a simple aspiration St. Josemaria learned as a child— “Yours am I, I was born for thee. What is it, O Jesus, you want of me?”—Fr. Donncha explains how St. Josemaria’s spirituality was shaped by a docility to the Holy Spirit which allowed him to see that ordinary Christians can become saints through their daily work, relationships, and responsibilities. 

Through prayer and reflection, we are encouraged to deepen our awareness of our identity as children of God and to discover new ways of loving and serving him in the ordinary circumstances of life. 

Listen and reflect on: 

• Our identity as beloved children of God 
• Holiness in ordinary life 
• The sanctification of work 
• Freedom fulfilled through love 
• Sharing the spirit of St. Josemaría with others 

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Transcript

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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 you for pardon of my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Mother Immaculate, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. We could ask also Saint Hosamuria to intercede for me, to intercede for us in the month of June, in which we celebrate his liturgical feast. And straight away when we pray to Saint Hosamuria or pray about him, one word that comes to mind immediately is Father, very much our Father. And he himself was conscious, even from a very young age, that his vocation was to be the father spiritually to many people. And we know that he's a loving father, that he is in heaven, that he helps us so much from there.

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Jose Muria at times encouraged people to make their prayer liturgical. In other words, that our spiritual life, our relationship with God, would take into account the sacred liturgy and kind of live with the liturgy and live within the liturgy. And maybe we can follow his advice here in this period of prayer just by looking at one of the prefaces of the Mass, a liturgical prayer, a part of the Eucharistic prayer, and that is the preface for holy pastors, which is the preface that the church uses in celebrating the Mass of St. Hose Maria, because he is indeed a holy pastor. And there the church addresses God the Father in these words. For as on the festival of Saint Hose Maria, you bid your church rejoice, so too you strengthen her by the example of his holy life, teach her by his words of preaching, and keep her safe in answer to his prayers. First of all, I guess we shouldn't lose sight of it. You bid your church rejoice on the festival of St. Josemuria. So on the feast of St. Jose Muria, in this month of St. Jose Muria, we rejoice, we rejoice. And when we pray about this particular saint, we naturally enough we rejoice because, well, he was a man of tremendous good humor, and so many photographs and footage that we have of him show him smiling, laughing, transmitting joy, transmitting cheerfulness. That's a very salient part of his spirit. And then we could pray briefly about those three aspects of the liturgical prayer. You strengthen her, the church, by the example of his holy life. You teach her by his words of preaching, and keep her safe in answer to his prayers. So, first of all, Lord, in our prayer, we reflect on the fact that you strengthen the church, the people of God, by the holy life of this pastor of Saint Hosa Maria. We are strengthened by his holy life. Indeed, we are. In the first place, perhaps because he, as Saint John Paul II put it at his canonization, he is the saint of ordinary life. Saint Hosa Maria is the great reminder that we're all called to holiness, that we're all called to be saints. And that's a great blessing to be reminded of that. Everyone is called to be holy. You and I, in our baptism, we're clothed with that white robe, the baptismal garment, which symbolizes the holiness of God, in which we partake through sacramental grace at baptism, and we're called to keep that pristine, white, holy grace pure, and even to intensify it throughout our lives, all by the grace of God, of course. Maria undoubtedly was inspired by God to remind women and men, children, young people, old people, healthy people, sick people, all kinds of people, from every place, from every period of history, that you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Those words of you, Lord Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount. It's like the summary of the Beatitudes. It's like the summing up of the whole moral teaching of the New Testament. All are called to holiness as the as the Father Himself is holy. You strengthen us, Lord, by the example of his holy life. Well, the holiness of Saint Rosemaria was very much deter a determined holiness. He was determined to be a saint. He was a man who asked the Lord very often for grace, for help, for light, for support, also for forgiveness. He taught us by his example that holiness is not the same as perfectionism. Holiness rather is perfection in love. It's not all down to us. It's fundamentally a work of the Holy Spirit in us. Then Josimaria, like all the saints, with the exception of Our Lady, had to struggle against his own weaknesses. He even said on one occasion that he would like to write a book called The Defects of the Saints. He didn't get around to writing it, but he made the point clearly, didn't he? That the saints are not perfect beings who cruise through life, who float through life with no difficulties, with no temptations, with no weaknesses, with no sins. No, holiness is not having a perfect report card where everything just adds up, just so 100% in faith, 100% in hope, 100% in love, and in temperance, and in justice, and in fortitude, and in prudence, and in all the virtues. It's not a matter of perfectionism. It's a matter of being entirely open to the Holy Spirit. Let the sanctifier, the love of God in person, the paraclete, make us saints. To have that radical openness to the love of God. And in practice, we know that for each one of us that often means beginning and beginning again. With a holy stubbornness. Again, to quote Saint Rosa Maria, it's a great phrase, isn't it? Holy stubbornness. All the saints had that great holy stubbornness. Otherwise, they'd never become saints. Lord, I trust in your love for me. I trust in the power of your Holy Spirit. I trust in your understanding of me. Lord, you know me and you love me much more than I know and love myself. I do indeed want to be a saint. And I understand that that is trying to put one foot in front of the other each day, relying on your almighty love, on your compassion, on your enthusiasm for each one of us, your children. Not giving up. Saint Teresa of Avala in The Way of Perfection, she talks about this determination for holiness. She says, it matters a great deal. It is essential that one have very great, very determined resolution not to halt until one attains it. Come what may, however much one suffers, however much people may gossip, whether I get there or not, even if I die on the way, or am not able to face all the effort involved, even if the world collapses around me. She's so graphic, isn't she? She's so direct in her approach. I mean, Saint José Maria is very reminiscent of Teresa Vavala. They have the same affectionate way of addressing their readers, of making demands, and at the same time of understanding human weakness that they also experience. So, on the one hand, a great determination to be a saint. This is one of the ways that St. Josemaria undoubtedly inspires us. As the preface says, you strengthen her, the church, by the example of his holy life, Lord. And one way we're strengthened is just seeing his own determination to be a saint. Saint Jose Maria's own vigor, you might say, his love, his determination, in spite of his obvious human weaknesses, such as we all have. We could think here of that famous phrase by Léon Blois, the French writer. The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint. It's true, isn't it? Everything else is secondary. The one thing that matters is holiness. Only one thing is needful, our Lord says to us in the Gospel. And Saint Jose Maria also said that to us. But we might say that the sanctity, the holiness Saint Jose Maria presents us with, is profoundly human. It doesn't water down the demands of Christian holiness. Not at all. It is heroic sanctity. But heroic sanctity isn't some kind of elaborate superhuman gymnastics of the spirit. Heroic sanctity is ordinary, everyday things, trying to do them with love. And when we don't do them with love, or when we don't do them well, or when we don't even do them sometimes, beginning again with confidence in our Lord's immeasurable fatherly love. So too you strengthen her by the example of his holy life. Teach her by his words of preaching. Aha. Here we could pray for a long time. How the Lord teaches us through the words of Saint Jose Maria's preaching. And it's a wonderful thing that more and more of his letters, different forms of his preaching, you might say, are being published in different languages made available. I mean, there are real gems there. And perhaps if some of us are very familiar with the spirit of Saint José Maria, we can kind of take them for granted. Not through any bad will, but just because we get used to them. We get used to these treasures. And Lord, I don't want to get used to these treasures. I want to treasure these treasures.

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Jose Maria's emphasis, for example, on our fundamental identity as beloved daughters and sons of God. I mean, what a wonderful thing for us to go to time and again in our prayer, in our thoughts, in our ongoing dialogue with the Lord, wherever we are in the traffic, in the workplace, on the squash court, with our families, with our friends, wherever we are, once and again to consider our divine filiation, that we are beloved children of God. This is something that we can unpack more and more as we go along. Our St. Rosen Maria's teaching on precisely the universal call to holiness, with an emphasis, we might say, on secularity, holiness in the ordinary. Not only is everybody called to holiness, that is indeed the case, but one can be holy anywhere. Anywhere that's honest and good, obviously, which is most places, nearly every human situation. Here's a succinct description of the Christian vocation as seen by St. Jose Murilla. This comes from his personal spiritual notes from June of 1930. So at this stage he's 28 years of age, he's very young. Opus Day, the work has only been founded two years. And here he writes ordinary Christians, though in fermentation. What is ordinary is ours with naturalness. The means, professional work. Everybody, saints. It's like a telegraphic description of the vocation to holiness in secular ordinary realities. Ordinary Christians, dough in fermentation. We're like dough, you know, that makes the bread to rise, fermenting there quietly, unobtrusively, discreetly, not seeking attention. What is ordinary is ours. Well, Lord, I thank you for St. Hosemaria, because that is important for me personally, and for so many people to realize that what is ordinary is extraordinary by your grace. After all, what did our lady and Saint Joseph and the Lord Himself do in Nazareth? They did what was ordinary. And in and through the grace of God, in and through God's love through the Holy Spirit, all that is ordinary can be extraordinarily fruitful, extraordinarily beautiful. The means, he says, professional work. Aha. Here we're at a fundamental point in the spirit of Opus Dei and in the spirit of St. Jose Maria. And I'm sure it's an area that we can delve in more and more and deepen in more and more work. What does it mean to sanctify one's work? What does it mean to say that work is truly a language of love? What is it to say that work? Each one of us here can fill in our own work. What is it? Is it uh a computer screen? Is it uh fixing cars? Is it peeling potatoes? Is it educating children? Is it writing a book? Is it the work of suffering an illness? Is it the work of caring those who suffer an illness? Is it the work of um whatever, carpentry, technology, artistry, you name it? That that work is prayer, that that work is praise and thanksgiving and adoration and reparation and petition, that that work is evangelization, that that work is outreach, love of others, that that work builds up the edifice of the church. How what a beautiful teaching of Saint Jose Maria and and it's one that we can always explore more. Yes, indeed, Lord, you teach the church by his words of preaching, and especially in in these areas. So many aspects of his teaching. Freedom, personal freedom, freedom and self-giving as an expression of a loving freedom, of a love-filled freedom. Freedom not simply as the capacity to choose, which it is partially that, but freedom above all as the capacity to love. It is love that fulfills our freedom. Lord, help me to give myself to you freely. Help me to love you freely. That is something we learn also from Saint Jose Maria. He he had learned a prayer as a child from his um, I think from his grandmother, uh beautiful prayer. Very simple, but you know, it's a prayer of real holiness, you might say. It opens us up to holiness. The prayer is, yours am I. I was born for thee. What is it, O Jesus, you want of me? Yours am I, I was born for thee. What is it, O Jesus, you want of me? Well, if I can say that prayer now, you know, in this period of conversation with with the Lord, in this period of meditation, if I can put my hand on my heart and say, Yours am I, I was born for thee. What is it, O Jesus, you want of me? That's a powerful prayer. I I will discover my vocation, or maybe I will rediscover it, or I will see what my vocation is calling me to do today. And above all, I will find where I can engage my free love for the Lord, where I can freely pledge myself to Him and to His people, perhaps especially those who are most needy. And that's surely the supreme exercise of human freedom. What's human freedom for if not to love is not to give, if it's not about making of my life a self-gift? So many aspects of the teaching of St. Jose Maria that we could meditate on. For example, friendship as evangelization, not using friendship as an instrument of evangelizing, but just simply loving people. And to love people, fraternal love, spousal love, filial love, love of friendship in all its forms, to will the good of the other. That is, without further ado, that is evangelization, that is a proclamation of Christ, a very powerful proclamation of Christ. So Lord, I thank you for the ways in which you strengthen your church by the holy life of Saint Jose Maria, and by you, and I thank you for teaching her by his words of preaching. And perhaps it's good on a practical note to think, well, how could I spread, you know, the teaching, um, the charism, the spirit which the Lord has given us through Saint Jose Maria? How could I spread that a bit more? Uh, maybe it's sharing copies of the way uh with people. We know that in recent years there's been a huge increase in interest in that book, The Way, among many, many young people and many people of all ages. And maybe we need to buy a few copies of the way and share them, get them out there, because that book is dynamite in the best sense of the word. It's it's it's full of lights, it's full of insights. The third and final aspect of the preface of holy pastors that we can meditate on is where we say to the Lord, to God our Father, you keep her, the church, safe in answer to his prayers. Undoubtedly, this is the case. The saints, all of them, beginning with our Blessed Lady, keep the church safe with their prayers because they are members of the church. They don't leave the church and go into heaven, they are the church at home. And the church at home is always caring for the church that's still on the way home. Those of us who are on the journey, the church, a pilgrim church, the church militant. And of course, we remember too, the church suffering, the church going through purgatory. All of us are one in Christ. According to the motto of our Holy Father Pope Leo, we are in him we are all one. In in Christ we are all one. And it's in that great communion of saints that Saint Josemaria now exercises his paternal love. And that's why so many people, countless people, pray to him every day in many different languages, in many different places. Maybe we should spread around the prayer card among our friends and our family more, put it online more to people, whatever it might be. He did always say to us, Saint José Maria used to say, Look, from heaven I'm gonna help you more. From heaven, I'm gonna help you more. Many of the saints said that. We think of Saint Teresa of Lesieux. She also said that she would shower down flowers or graces from heaven to us. Um, well, Josemaria, our father, our holy founder, uh we pray to you, we trust in you, and in you we see the gentleness, the compassion, the enthusiasm of our Father God. I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations you have communicated to me in this time of prayer. I ask you for help to put them into effect. My Mother Immaculate, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.