Moment With Betty

The apostolic calling for the church today is that we are being sent by God into the world to accomplish His purposes. God has privileged His people to do His work.

 Jesus said when He rose from the dead to the Apostles, that as the Father has sent me so, l am sending you, to go into the world and preach the good news. St Jose Maria, pointed out that “if your interior life is strong, it is going to overflow into the life around you, that our apostolate is the overflow of our interior life”

Going through the Holy bible particularly the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5 contains a scene that has never lost any of its impact. It says that after being imprisoned, the Apostles were miraculously set free by an angel. But instead of fleeing from the authorities as you and I would probably have done, they returned to the same Temple to preach. Once again they were arrested and taken before the chief priests. Surprised to see them again, the chief priests admonished them. “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name.” Undaunted, the Apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:28-29). Again and again we find the same need being candidly expressed.  The Apostles repeatedly said that they could not but speak of what they had seen and heard (Acts 4:19). The first faithfuls were willing to risk being punished and even being put to death, without losing their cheerfulness and without being friendly or charitable. For us, who have come to the Church many centuries later, a pressing question arises. Are all these just something that belongs to the past, should we too be living like that?

Carrying out our apostolic mission is not a question of training, nor of possessing exceptional qualities, it is simply a matter of welcoming Christ’s call, being open to his gifts, and responding with one’s own life. Perhaps that is why Pope Francis reminded us with Saint Paul’s words, that “the Lord has chosen each one of us “to be holy and blameless before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4-5).” Therefore, let us see the world as our inheritance.

The Prelate of Opus Dei frequently encourages us to see the whole world and all it contains as something very much our own as St. Paul taught, the world or life or death, or the present or the future all belong to Christ, and Christ to God (1 Corinthians, 3:22-23). The purpose of pastoral and apostolic gifts in the church is that God’s people grow up into maturity of the full stature of Christ. The apostles were those who saw the resurrected Lord, worked miracles, wrote scripture, and founded the early church conveying the Word of Christ to the church. We should also expect that God will still work through prayer today. So, the apostolic calling for the church and us today is that we are being sent by God into the world to accomplish His purpose because God has privileged us, His people to do His work and if we live in faith, we share the apostolic succession in a general sense.

 In the face of this reality we rejoice in the joys of others, enjoy all the good things that surround us and we get involved in the challenges of our time. At the same time, we feel the world’s situation deeply, particularly the sad reality of war and other situations of great need and suffering on the part of very many people, especially the weak.God has given us the world as an inheritance (Psalm 2:8), so it is in our hands to transform it. We did not choose the time or place in which we live but the circumstances that befall us are what God uses to help bring what He gives us to fruition.  As Christians, we want to be like Christ and have His heart that feels others’ needs as our own which leads us to act accordingly. We cannot achieve this by ourselves but by the power of God because it is a gift from God. Just as we say at the beginning of our prayer “Come Holy Spirit, Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love,” we ask the Holy Spirit, for ourselves and for the whole Church. At the same time, deeds are love, not sweet words, and so Christians committed to God’s love are necessarily Christians who actively seek to transform the society. Christians strive to transform it more closely to God’s logic and love for humanity.

Hence our life too should be the response to a call, and a task in the world and for the world. Our spiritual life and how we view the apostolate will change when we consider them from this perspective. Our Lord has sought us out and sent us into the world to share with everyone the Salvation we have received. “Go, preach the gospel, I will be with you.” Jesus said this, and He has said it to you, me and to each man and each woman. In God’s presence, we can each consider this reality, “I am a Christian because God has called me and has sent me forth…” And moved by the strength of his Spirit, from the depths of our heart we will answer with words of the psalm, I desire to do your will, my God (Psalm 40:8).

In the 1950s, Saint Jose Maria during one of his apostolate missions, made trips to various countries in Europe to see the first faithful of the Work who had gone there to begin the apostolic activities. The afternoon meditations he gave for those with him, often had as their theme the Lord’s words to the apostles, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit… ut eatis’ (John 15:16).”  It was like a refrain to make Jesus’ words echo in the hearts of those around him. He wanted them to have a firm grip of the truth that gave meaning to their lives, and to have a strong sense of the mission which their lives needed. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last (John 15:16).

 And so it was with the joy filled t in their hearts: that the Apostles declare to the first Christians what they have seen and heard so that they, through the Popes, Bishops and Priests, and the Religious, may also have fellowships. Shouldn’t we Christians do likewise today?