Aunt Carmen

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

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 grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We're told in the Book of Proverbs, “The truly capable woman—who can find her? She is far beyond the price of pearls. Her husband's heart has confidence in her, from her he will derive no little profit. Advantage and not hurt, she brings him all the days of her life” (Prov. 31:10-12).

On this, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we also remember Aunt Carmen, the sister of our Father, to whom we owe so much. She was a truly capable woman. God gave her a role to play in the whole history of Opus Dei.

In this quarterly recollection where we try and go a little deeper in certain aspects of our spirit, it's very appropriate on a day like today that we turn to Aunt Carmen. Don Álvaro liked to say that devotion to Aunt Carmen and the Grandmother is an intrinsic part of the spirit of Opus Dei, partly because we owe them so much and partly because they did so much.

In the January 1980 letter, well worth reading some time—it's in the books of family letters—that particular letter is a letter Don Álvaro wrote on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Women of the Prelature.

He says, “This spirit gives a special character, a family air to our personal lives and a unique flavor to all our work.”

One very clear idea that our Father had in the very beginning is that the Work is a family. It's not just a society. It's not just a group of people. It's first and foremost a family. So many aspects of our spirit and of our centers reflect that family air.

It's something we have to look after, to preserve, to live. We belong to a family, and a family is part of the family of Nazareth, no matter where we are or what we're doing.

Each one of us has been given this legacy of taking care of this family. God wanted to shape the family life and the family spirit and air of this supernatural family on the family life and spirit of the family of the Escrivás de Balaguer.

So, we call the mother of our Father the Grandmother, and the father of our Father the Grandfather, and Uncle James, his brother, and Aunt Carmen, his sister. God used it in a very special way to bring about that family air that we have.

“It was clearly implanted by God in our Father's heart,” said Don Álvaro, “from the moment He chose him as His instrument to implement the Work.”

And so, everything related to family life and family spirit is important in our family: our get-togethers, the times when we have acts of family life.

The numeraries live this in a very special way. The associates live it through their get-togethers or family gatherings once a week. Occasionally, the supernumeraries also live it, particularly in the seminar and their retreat. These are particular moments.

I remember a supernumerary in another country about to go to a seminar. He said he was really looking forward to the seminar for supernumeraries because, he said, “I love to be in the company of my brothers.”

It was a very beautiful comment, very spontaneous. But it reflected also that family air that our Father wanted each one of us to have.

He said that the homes of his supernumerary children or of his associates have also somehow to breathe that family air because we bring that spirit with us.

“I have no doubt,” continued Don Álvaro, “no doubt whatever, that this spirit, which is both a supernatural and wonderfully human reality, was already alive in the soul of our Founder, brought to life there by his own sacrifice and that of his own family, the grandparents and Carmen and Uncle Santiago.”

It's a supernatural reality, but it's also a very human reality. Our Father was enormously human. He had great love and respect for his mother and his sister. He was always very grateful to them for the sacrifices that they made.

But our Father was also immensely human. On our seminar for when we were going to be ordained, we had a talk given by an elderly priest in his 60s or 70s who told us that when he was in the Center of Studies back in the maybe, late 1930s, early 1940s, Aunt Carmen was looking after the administration, the Catering, with the Grandmother.

He said Aunt Carmen had a cat. You see, most Spaniards don't have a great love for animals in general, and in particular, they don't have any great love for cats.

He said, “I and a few others, we got together and we decided that Aunt Carmen's cat should go the way that all good cats go in Spain, which is down the river.

“One night we performed the terrible deed. Then there was no pussy. For two or three days, Aunt Carmen was looking around for her cat, which was no longer. And then she put two and two together and she realized what had happened.

“She went to our Father and she read the riot act. She said, ‘Things like this are totally unfair. Here I am doing so many things in the Catering, looking after this house. People can't treat me like this. They have to bear respect, more kindness,’ more this, more that.”

We have stories of how when our Father was annoyed, he could really shout—it seems that Aunt Carmen was rather similar in character. When she read the riot act, she really knew how to read the riot act.

Our Father listened to her very, very patiently. Then he did a bit of detective work and he found out who the culprits were. One of them was this elderly priest who was telling the story.

“And so,” he said, “three or four of us were hauled before our Father, and our Father, in turn, read us the riot act. So this was a total lack of charity, lack of justice, lack of fortitude, lack of prudence.”

He went through all the virtues of how he had contravened all of these things. There was a great lack of care and appreciation of all the work that Aunt Carmen was doing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And our Father went on for quite a long time.

At the very end, he said, “But actually, I'm very glad that you did what you did.” You see from this story that poor Aunt Carmen had to suffer even more.

It was a very homey detail of those early days in the Center of Studies. It reflected all the great things that Aunt Carmen was doing, but also it reflected some of the things that she had to put up with.

She was a fiery lady. She had her own personality, her own likes and dislikes, but she was a pillar in the life of our Father and helped to bring the Work forward in very concrete ways.

Our Father used to live on the upstairs floors with the students, and Aunt Carmen and the Grandmother were down on the ground floors looking after the Catering aspects of the whole operation.

Sometimes, Aunt Carmen would come to look for our Father. He couldn't afford himself the luxury of going to visit his mother and his sister frequently, because many of the young people of the Work in the Center of Studies or in the residence came from different parts of Spain, and they didn't get to see their families very frequently.

Our Father felt that he couldn't indulge in that luxury either, of going to see his family frequently.

Sometimes Aunt Carmen and the Grandmother would understand, but sometimes they wouldn't. Aunt Carmen, being the fiery lady that she was, sometimes she would come to look for our Father.

But he would hear her coming and he would lock the door and not let her in. Then after a few weeks, he would think, ‘I haven't seen my mother and my sister for some months, so maybe I better go downstairs and say hi to them.’

He would go down the stairs to see them. But then Aunt Carmen would hear him coming and she would lock the door and she wouldn't let him in. And so, life was rich.

“This is how both sacrifices,” said Don Álvaro, “had been foreseen in God's plan to shape his Work. Listen now, my children, to these confidential words by our beloved Father.”

Then he quotes our Father: “I don't find it easy to talk about my parents, and the same probably happens to you, my children. I feel rather sensitive about this.”

Our Father was very human. He had a very human heart, a very rich humanity.

He says, “I see it as God's Providence that my mother and my sister Carmen should have helped us so much to have this family atmosphere in the Work, and all of us have a responsibility to keep that family spirit alive.

“That involves the material details of the center. It involves the way we look after each other and watch out for each other and treat each other, help each other, pray for each other, give fraternal correction. The affection of our Father, of our family, has always to be there.”

Often that affection and that care is shown in small little details of concern, of watching out, of helping other people, of appreciating the little difficulties they may be going through. Our Father had a horror that anyone in Opus Dei might ever feel alone.

One time I was in charge of helping out in the doorway of 73 Bruno Buozzi in Villa Tevere, where the Father lives. One of my jobs was when the Father, who at the time was Don Álvaro, was going in and out.

One of my jobs was to open the garage door so that the car could go out, or when it was coming in, to open and close the garage door. One time Don Álvaro, Don Javier, Don Joaquin, the custodes, came down to the garage.

They were obviously going out and usually they got into the car very quickly and they went out. But this time they didn't get into the car. They stood outside chit-chatting. They were obviously waiting for somebody.

I was at the garage door waiting for them to get into the car because that was the moment then to open the door. No time was wasted.

But in those few moments while they were waiting for somebody and they were chit-chatting, Don Álvaro noticed that I was standing over at the garage door on my own.

Don Álvaro left Don Javier and Don Joaquin and came over to talk to me. He asked me, did I have any news from Dublin, did I have any news, how are things, little details of light conversation. We chatted for a moment.

Then when the other person for whom they were waiting came, he went back to the car, and they went out as usual. It was a very small detail, but it was a very eloquent one.

Don Álvaro spotted somebody who might have felt a little bit alone. I didn't feel alone. It was just a few moments. There was nothing like that, but there was just this small possibility that I might have felt that way.

So, he left the custodes and came over to talk to me. I presumed they weren't talking about the results of the Euros.

Our family spirit is very rich: attention to detail, human concern, and real affection for other people. “God wanted it that way,” said our Father.

To give an example, there are 300 people living in the central house, and yet each part of this house is a family home with bonds stronger than those of any natural family.

“We are united in our hearts and wills and desires. The promised hundredfold can be seen so clearly. I can assure you, my children, that it is you, my sons and daughters, who reign uppermost in my heart.”

Don Álvaro used to say that one of the gifts that our Father had won for the Work was the tremendous unity that there is in our family.

Unity in the Prelature. We are united to the Father, but we're also united to all of our brothers and sisters around the world. We're interested to hear news of the development of the Work in the world.

The people in different continents—they're not a million miles away from us, they're in our heart, they're in our mind. If one part of the Work is suffering in some way, we all suffer a little bit with it.

That unity is expressed when we hear news of the Father, that he's in Pamplona or that he's going these days to Switzerland or Austria or Croatia or Serbia or Slovenia. We try to follow him on those journeys and offer things for him and his intentions.

We carry with us the expansion of the Work because we're part of this united family. Every little detail, also the material details of the house, of the center, that things function properly, that the conference centers are in good shape, or when we go to a retreat somewhere in western Kenya—we try to bring about that family atmosphere also.

We try to make sure that all the material details of our activities, the order, the schedule, all the material things, are as our Father would like them to be, so that they reflect our spirit.

We have to try and have the eyes and the heart of Aunt Carmen. When we see something that maybe isn't right, we do all we can to make it right.

Aunt Carmen did not have a vocation to the Work, but yet she gave herself completely to this enterprise that her brother was starting.

She and the Grandmother put all their meager resources that they had, their family resources, at the service of the Work. And that's why we can always have a great spirit of gratitude to them.

Our Father continues, “I love all the members of my natural family, because I'm bound to in charity and justice. But there are so many things that take precedence over them. On the one hand, there's my natural family, to whom I have duties out of justice and charity.

“But there are also things that exist on a higher level, my supernatural family, to which I also belong: the things of God, things of the apostolate, the mission that God has given to me to fulfill while I'm on this earth.”

Each one of us have to feel that same responsibility.

One of the things our Father wanted and saw very clearly, that it was the duty of the supernumeraries, was to take on their shoulders the economic burden of the centers, of the Work, and of the development and expansion of the Work.

Each one of us sees, what can I do to bring things forward, to help the expansion? Some can do more than others.

I remember hearing a story in Ireland from a supernumerary who was in charge of the fundraising to build a new conference center. He was saying how some people are very generous and can give large amounts of money. But some people don't have that capacity.

He told a beautiful story about a supernumerary couple, who, neither of them had jobs at the time, but they took on their shoulders, in whatever way they could, the burden of the conference center, which is always a fruit of holiness and sacrifice.

They asked themselves, what can we do to help the conference center? They were in a very difficult economic position, but they saw that they were getting a newspaper every day of the week.

So maybe instead of getting a newspaper every day of the week, ‘maybe we just get a newspaper every second day, and we save the 50 bob from each one of the newspapers that we didn't get.’ And that was their contribution.

That supernumerary, who was handling millions, was also very impressed by that story of the spirit of the Work, that supernumerary couple who did what they could. Each one of us now are asked to do what we could.

Carmen, in a very special way, she did what she could. She made a very special contribution.

“There are so many things,” said our Father, “that take precedence over them. They come, my blood family, come far behind my children and on a different level. I'm not ashamed to tell you that you sustain me humanly. I only have to think of you, each one of you, by name, to feel strong and secure, no matter how many things might be going wrong.”

Our Father liked to say that each one of us supports the other. There's a phrase of St. Paul in Latin, Frater qui adiuvatur a fratre quasi civitas firma. “A brother who's helped by a brother is like a strong-walled city” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 460).

In spite of the things that are going wrong, our brothers are there for us and we are there for them, because we're united by bonds that are stronger than blood.

“If, on the supernatural plane,” said our Father, “it is the grace of God that keeps me going each day, on the human plane, it is you whom I rely on. I strive to send you pure arterial blood. I cannot allow the body of the Work to become anemic and weak. So you see now why I call you my crown and my joy, my staff, and my delight.”

On a day like today, we can always think of what our Father used to call ‘the apostolate of apostolates,’ which is the domestic administration of our centers, the Catering. He said it's a specific apostolate of the women of the Prelature and is of prime importance.

Aunt Carmen was the one who set the tone of our centers with the Grandmother, little details of tasteful decoration of how to do things, which has become the whole catechesis for the universal Church.

“Referring to that work,” said Don Álvaro, “which some of his daughters carry out, our Founder used to declare that this task is the apostolate of apostolates, or it is indispensable for the proper running of our centers.”

The work of the Catering, ordering things, tidying things, giving our homes a touch of that feminine genius—they help everything else to go forward.

“Perhaps you do not realize this,” said our Father. “It might seem to be an insignificant thread in that marvelous tapestry, which is being done by the whole of the Work. But in fact, it is the warp which makes it possible to add on the most delicate embroidery, or the groundwork. Without it, a great part of the Work would be impossible. And we would be missing that family atmosphere, which helps us so much in the service of God.”

We have to try and preserve those details, to help the atmosphere of the center to be what our Father wanted it to be, and what Aunt Carmen wanted it to be, and what she tried to bring about; taking care of the separation that God and our Father want us to live; taking care of all the details of help and respect that we try to give the Catering to help them to do their job well.

Don Álvaro continues: “Our Father was so convinced of the irreplaceable importance of those tasks. The short time before he went to heaven, he stated that as a consequence of the apostolic work of Opus Dei, the spirit of service would increase so much in society at large that the most refined souls would want to be admitted in the Work as assistant numeraries, dedicating themselves to serving their sisters and brothers through their professional domestic work.”

“In this way, he underlined the prime importance and spiritual grandeur of the employment in which so many daughters of mine are engaged.”

“The work of the administration,” he continues, “I'm repeating it on purpose, so that we may never forget it, is essential for all the Work. Thanks to this apostolate, many daughters and sons of mine can look after other tasks in God's service. Thanks to the Catering, our houses, our family homes, a foretaste of heaven where we can recover our strength to go back day after day to that war of love and peace to which Our Lord calls us.”

It's a strong word, the apostolate of apostolates, the basis of everything. Our Father wanted us to go out of our way to help that apostolate, to help the Catering in any way we can, and also to help the women of the Prelature to be present in any city where we may have to be.

“Let us be grateful,” said Don Álvaro, “for this precious gift which Our Lord designed for the organization of His Work, and which is a fundamental element in order for our serviced souls to be fruitful.”

It's a total package. We live separation in many ways, with the Catering, with the women of the Prelature, but at the same time, we form a unity, a unity of the Prelature, with the Prelate as our head.

“Let us also be grateful,” he says, “to our Founder, for his totally generous response to the divine plan. Let us also remember the Grandmother and Aunt Carmen with all our hearts, for they decided to dedicate themselves to this job with heroic generosity.

“They forgot about themselves entirely, so that a countless multitude of grandchildren, nephews, and nieces, would be able to serve God in the midst of their ordinary existence, without ever missing the warmth of a home, which is a part and a very important part of that hundredfold Jesus Christ promised to all who would leave father or mother, brothers and sisters, home and possessions, for love of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:29).

We have the warmth of a home, the warmth of our centers. We draw warmth from there to bring to our own homes where we may live, so that warmth may be seen and experienced by our spouses, by our children, by our relatives.

Hopefully, they notice there's something different about us. There's a certain sensitivity for family things. We take things to do with the family very, very seriously.

We try and improve the quality, also the material quality, of our homes from time to time, bringing up the level, trying to practice the different virtues, but also learning from the centers how to cultivate, perhaps, a little more taste or a little more elegance here and there, or over time to improve the quality of the material things, so that we're working to bring up standards and reflect that true family spirit that we have learned as part of our divine vocation.

We could ask Aunt Carmen and the Grandmother to help us to continue their work in keeping the standards of our family very high and bringing those standards to our own homes.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel will help us to grow along that pathway of realizing and being grateful for that family spirit.

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

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

OLV