St. Severinus (Unity)

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.

“I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5).

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Severinus. Our Father wanted us to have a meditation on unity because the bones of that particular saint are in one of the altars there in Villa Tevere.

Our Father wanted us to use that occasion on his feast day to think of this very important virtue of unity.

Omnis civitas vel domus divisa contra se non stabit. “Every kingdom divided against itself will not stand (Matt. 12:25).

Our Lord prayed for unity at the Last Supper: “Ut omnes unum sint” (John 17:21). The one thing that He prayed for was unity, which was a bit like His last will.

There's a problem with unity because there is a principle of disunity in each one of us as a consequence of original sin. As John Paul II in his last Encyclical said, “Against the seeds of discord which daily experience shows to be so deeply ingrained in human nature as a result of sin, there stands the creative power of the unity of Christ’s body” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Point 24).

In spite of this defect in our nature and the attempts of the devil to create disunity, we have all the graces we need to maintain unity, “the creative power of the unity of Christ's body.”

Unity in the Church, unity to the Holy Father. We go forward as an army, as a family. Unity in the Prelature. You can see that this virtue is important in this phenomenon at every level. It's something we have to try and foster.

Our Father has also given us the idea that we have to try and be instruments of unity, which is another interesting idea—not just to foster unity around us and be aware of it, but to be an instrument in creating that unity: greater dynamism, greater responsibility, greater vision, because we see its importance.

If the devil can bring about disunity, he can win major battles. If he can drive the thin edge of the wedge between us and other people, or us and the person in charge, or us and the Advisory or any other organ of government, then he's won a great battle.

Many bad, serious things come with disunity. All disunity is the fruit of the work of the devil. All unity comes from God. And so, St. Josemaría had a great concern to conserve the spiritual, moral, and juridical unity of the Work.

It's a daily task. We practice it, we foster it in all sorts of ways: with our charity, with our concern, with our work well done, with thinking out of the box, with being united to the Father, in the performance of our norms and customs—all the time, we're fostering unity.

St. Josemaría wanted us to live as the first Christians lived: “Consummati in unum.” So he wrote that phrase in so many places (Friends of God, Point 154; Christ Is Passing By, Points 87, 157). He wanted this phenomenon to become a dominant passion for us.

It's interesting how our Father used those words: “dominant passion.” We have a certain number of passions with people, passionate people: passionate for souls, passionate for the Church, for the Holy Father, a dominant passion to give doctrine, but also a dominant passion for unity, because he saw the dangers and because he saw its importance (Josemaría Escrivá, In Love With the Church, Point 3).

He said to Don Álvaro in a letter, published in 1976 after the death of St. Josemaría: “If you were not to be united among yourselves, if you were not to be united to me, if you were not to be united to Our Father in heaven, you would not be united to God.”

We have a big responsibility to maintain that unity.

One particular area of unity that's very much within our grasp is unity to the local director, unity to the local council wherever we may be, in whatever center we may be, wherever we may be working: a very important aspect of our spirit.

That means we also have to try and foster that unity all the time, positively, energetically, rejecting anything that could dilute that unity.

Ultimately, through all of these aspects of unity, we are united to the vine. The Lord gives us that very graphic example: “I am the vine; you are the branches.”

Branches have to be united to the vine in order to be strong, fruitful: “He that abides in me and I in him, the same bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

We need Our Lord for all the fruit that we have to bring. We might think we have the greatest idea in the world, or it's a wonderful thought, or we think we could change everything.

But if it's not supported by other people, then it's not the great idea that we thought it was. Or maybe it is a great idea, but this is not the right moment or the right time.

God wants to do much more with our unity than we could do with our own personal talents, or ingenuity, or abilities, or acumen, or skills that we have built up, perhaps over decades.

We could come to be the most expert person in this particular area—even the best person in the whole country, the whole region—but if we were not united, we’d be like a branch that has fallen off the tree, ready to wither away and die.

“If anyone does not abide in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire and be burned. If you abide in me, my words abide in you. You shall ask whatever you will and it shall be done to you” (John 15:6-7).

The words that we say in the means of formation, giving a circle, or a talk, or a chat with a friend of ours—they will see that these words come from a special place: “My words abide in you.”

“In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit and become my disciples. Abide in my love” (John 15:8-9). Our Lord says very beautiful words about unity.

That means we have to be sensitive. There will be very few occasions in our life when we have to insist because everyone else is wrong. Usually, if we ever get the thought that everyone else is wrong, probably we're the one that’s wrong.

We have to have the humility to recognize that; to pass over on this particular idea or initiative. Maybe it's for another time or another place.

Our Father talked about three types of unity in the Work.

A spiritual unity: our norms. We try and fulfill our norms and customs as our Founder wanted, as he left them outlined. None of them are unimportant.

First and foremost, we live our unity in that way—fidelity in fulfilling them—so that the whole of Opus Dei will live these norms and customs. That's like a great prayer rising up every day to God that He's waiting for, or every week, or every month.

None of that is missing through our negligence or our disorder. It's all within our reach, fostering a great spiritual unity down to the last detail, a moral unity through fraternity and filiation. Love for one another, love for the Father. “By this may all men know that you are my disciples” (John 13:35).

And also, a juridical unity. Knowing our particular law in the Church. Keeping it. It's contained in the statutes and the Catechism of the Work.

It's one of the reasons why on annual courses or other moments, we study the Catechism of the Work, or we get talks on it, so that over time we come to have a great knowledge of our particular law. How things should be. How our Father wanted us to do this particular thing or that particular thing.

It’s possible that over time we might get certain things wrong, or we might not have realized the importance of one particular way of doing things or one particular idea. Hence God has wanted that we would hear a lot of these things over and over.

St. Josemaría talked a lot about the psychology of repetition. We need to hear things again and again, and each time we hear them, there's a new grace to understand it a little better, a little deeper, to see its importance in the whole jigsaw puzzle of Opus Dei.

Our Father said, “Make a resolution to love the blessed unity of the Work.” Because we love it, we're sensitive about it; careful about anything that might go against it or dilute it.

Unity in any organization is important, even a sports club.

It's a gift of the Holy Spirit, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. He's the bond of unity (cf. Eph. 4:3).

St. Cyprian says, “Our unity to Christ unites affections and wills.” Ultimately, it's all a way of being united to Our Lord.

There was a Chinese father once who had many children. Often the children were squabbling, so he wanted to teach them a lesson. He gave each one of them a chopstick, a simple little chopstick, and asked them to break it. They could all break the chopstick.

Then he gave them a bunch of chopsticks and asked them to break it. None of them could break the bunch of chopsticks. The idea was that there is strength in unity.

God wants us to be strong: strong in the Prelature as an instrument of the Church in the 21st century.

He wants the whole Church to be very united, to be a great instrument of the world, spreading the light and truth of the Gospel. We have a lot to do in that area.

Don Álvaro said one of the greatest, or often thought one of the greatest, miracles of our Father is the unity of our family all over the world: so many people in so many places, with different cultures, backgrounds, ages, but yet all united in one. United to the Father, to his intentions, and also the unity of the parts of the Prelature.

“It's a filial cry,” said our Father, “that came to my heart and my lips constantly in very concrete moments of the history of the Work. Someday when I am no longer around, you will know it all.

“They wanted to break this blessed unity of the two sections. It was the same as splitting my soul. Not having anyone to turn to here on earth, I turned to Our Mother in heaven, so that the two sections of the Work should remain always like two little donkeys pulling the same divine cart ahead, following a sure path that opens with the gradual soft violence of the works of God.

“Do not forget, my children, the safety of this path depends also on you and the effort that you put into being faithful and being saints.

We try to take care of the indications and separation to foster the unity of the Prelature. Small things but very important things, always with the mind and heart of our Father.

We try to foster unity with the people around us. Often it is easy to be united with people far away. It is unity to those that God has placed around us that’s the key.

Our Lord doesn't say, ‘Love your friends.’ He says, “Love your neighbor” (Matt. 22:39).

God chooses our neighbor, so the people that God has placed around us are the specific people that He wants us to love at this particular moment in time.

We do that through charity, prayer, through patience, through kindness and trust, and realizing that everyone needs affection. Everyone needs a helping hand, a kind word. Everyone needs to have certain things that be let pass from time to time, not to be taken up in every word. Everyone needs understanding.

We need to be able to communicate with everybody. We don't have to talk to them for three hours, but we do have to say, “Good morning. How are you? How did you sleep last night?”—all the simple little ways of communicating with people as in any family.

If we can't communicate with somebody, it’s a sign there’s a grudge, there’s something wrong. We have to try and get rid of that grudge.

Instead, we are told in St. Luke, “Love your enemies and do good to them, and lend without any hope of return. You will have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35).

By fostering that unity and that charity, we become “children of the Most High”—children of God.

“Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:36-37).

All the words, all the little actions that people may ask of us—perhaps they don't realize what they’re saying or what they’re doing. They might have said something that has cut us to the quick, but it doesn't matter; we let it pass. It might be an insult or something.

I was surrounded by ten Standard 1 kids in the garden of Strathmore School last week, all asking questions at the same time.

“Are you Father Francis? Where do you come from? Are you Kenyan-born? Why is your hair white? How old are you?” I'm 68. “Oh, my grandmother is 51.” Thank you very much.

People can say all sorts of things that they don't really realize what they’re saying, and so we have to be ready to let an awful lot of things pass, to be understanding.

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use will be the standard used for you” (Luke 6:37-38).

In this area of fostering unity, Our Lord wants us to go overboard in all the various ways that we can because that's what God wants. He wants to be able to look down at this Prelature and see a great united family: united also as in a militia, ready for the battles of the future, ready for all the great things that are there in front of us. Each of us is ready to learn how to be more united.

When workers are placing a wall on top of each other, one stone upon another, they put cement in between. Sometimes they knock a little piece off a brick here and there, so that each one of those bricks is fixed into its place a little better.

When each one of us is in our place, cemented with our vocation, we're chipped here and there through spiritual direction. And like this, we form a wall, a great support for the universal Church.

In one of his statements, Dr. Ernesto Cofiño in Guatemala says, “I enjoy being one of those bricks in the wall. When I'm told things in spiritual direction, I enjoy having to chip off the rough edges.”

We all have certain rough edges. We have to work on those rough edges from time to time so that things become smoother. There may be times when we, in our work, in fulfillment of our duties, or in stating certain things, we have to be very firm, but always very smooth: smooth in the way we do things, smooth in the way we say things.

We have to leave a lot of peace behind us, peace and unity, so that people are happy.

Lord, do I create happiness around me? Am I easy to work with? Am I a team player? Do people find me easy to work with because they find me easy to say things to, or to ask things of me?

Unity does not mean uniformity. We've been told very clearly we're not the same, we're different. We have our personalities, our characteristics.

Often in this business of unity, the points of difficulty are usually very small. Small things, although subjectively they may be very big. We notice something in somebody's personality or character that grates a little bit. Then we may find that nobody else has noticed that. We thought it was so obvious, but maybe other people don't see it.

We foster our unity through our prayer for others. The importance of our day on guard. There may be times in our life when every day can be a day on guard.

Or going through some difficulty or some problem moments—we channel that arterial blood to be a stronger instrument of unity.

United, because each one of us has our part to play. Each one of us has different parts to play. Some people have very important parts to play, some people have less important parts to play. It all contributes to important things.

A conductor one time was conducting a famous piece with an orchestra. Because he missed a certain sound—there was a little instrument, the smallest instrument, I think, called a piccolo, that was supposed to make a little sound at a certain moment in the whole orchestra—and the person supposed to make it got a bit distracted. So, the sound wasn't made, and the conductor didn't hear it, so he stopped the whole piece, because that was missing.

Our prayer may be small, but God is counting on us. Our contribution may seem small at times, but it contributes to the great thing. It becomes very important because God wants it, and He's placed us there at this particular moment in time to make that particular contribution.

That norm that we're supposed to fulfill, or that custom God wants us to live, and to live it with love. He's waiting for it, waiting for that act of love, that bit of incense raised to Him in glory.

Unity is not the absence of argument. Probably we don't have arguments, but we might have disagreements. We might have debates, discussions. It can be very healthy.

In get-togethers, we see different points of view. We might see a different point of view that might never have crossed our minds. Or we see that other people think very differently from the way we do, but we're able to sit down and talk about it. A very important aspect of unity.

One time, the President of Singapore was going to talk with the representative of the British Government in Hong Kong. It was before the takeover. He was not in favor, I think, of Hong Kong going back to China for various reasons.

He made a special journey to Hong Kong to talk with a major British representative there, and then they had a sort of a press conference and they talked to journalists.

As they were walking out the door, this president—really one of the major statesmen in the whole of Asia, a very important person—said to one of the journalists: “We had some strong disagreements, but we were able to talk to each other about it.”

He was sort of making a point that we can think very differently about certain policies or decisions, but we have to be able to talk to other people about it civilly.

That's a great thing: a sign of formation, of education, a certain aspect of civilization.

Because we disagree with other people, we don't grab the nearest machete or something, which some people may do. We talk civilly to people in all situations, with peace, with serenity.

Suaviter in modo, gentle in the way of doing things, fortiter in re. Firm in certain ideas, but smooth in the way we bring them about. Smooth in the way we talk to people. Very rarely would we have to shout at people or bark.

There were occasions when our Father shouted. When he shouted, he really shouted. Everyone could hear him. Because the sheep were going carelessly astray, the good shepherd shouted to bring people back onto the line, to wake them up, or to show that something was important.

But those occasions were rare, and always he sort of made it up with a few words of peace.

It was said that if ever our Father had to say something very strong to people, before the day was out, he had some little gesture of affection to those people, so they didn't go to bed feeling bad, or feeling hurt, or something. Interesting little detail. Recovering people if ever we have to say something strong.

“Physically far away,” said our Father in The Forge, “and yet feeling very close to them all, ‘very close to them all…’ you cheerfully repeated. You were happy thanks to that communion of charity which I spoke to you about, and which you must not get tired of keeping alive” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 956).

Somebody described once how the first letter arrived from the people who went to Japan, first letter from Japan. Our Father tore it open with great vigor, so eager for news—how these children of his were surviving in Japan.

He read it with great enthusiasm, came to a get-together, and read it to everybody. He told people that he wrote on the envelope, “First letter from Japan” into the archives.

There was another time when there was somebody very sick in Pamplona, and the letter arrived and again our Father tore the envelope open to find out news about that person, vibrating with the desire to be united.

The farther away, our Father used to say, the greater the unity. If we live far from Rome, if we live far from the center of the region—someday maybe all of us will—then the greater the importance of unity.

“United to the vine,” taking greater care of that thing. What is the Father saying? What does his letter contain? What ideas are there? What's going through his mind at this particular moment?

Every time we hear that the Father has written some little indication or some little letter, it's an opportunity to make an act of unity, an act to the virtue of unity.

Every time that we write to the Father, that's also an act of unity. That may take a little bit of effort, a little bit of concentration to actually sit down and write a letter. Probably we write very few letters nowadays, but it's a great act of unity that makes us more united to the vine and therefore more effective.

“If you know how to love other people,” we're told in The Forge, “and you spread that affection—Christ’s gentle, kindly charity—all around you, you will be able to support one another, and if someone is about to stumble he will feel that he is being supported, and also encouraged, to be faithful to God through this fraternal strength” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 148).

Unity is fostered through clear communication.

Everything in the 21st century as regards communication is important. We live in the century of communication. That means whatever we're communicating by word, in writing, a WhatsApp message, we have to double-check, because we can all write funny things or not realize that we've misspelled something.

Our Father indicated that any note going to the region should be read by at least two people. Very often, you find some little thing that could be better, could be clearer. Interesting lessons there for our own personal communication.

Everything that helps us to be better communicators in our lives is very useful because we have great things to communicate: the doctrine of the Catholic Church, clear ideas.

Our Father said we have to communicate that doctrine all the time, but very often in different ways—getting the message across so that it seems new, or with new lights, or with a new twist, or a different optical angle. Developing our vocabulary, our grammar, or other little things can make a difference.

Our Father was always writing down little phrases or expressions or words that he noticed, in articles or places, that could be useful as a vehicle to transmit doctrine.

Therefore, it's very good to be attentive to learn from good communicators. It's an art that can be acquired. The best wine has to come at the end (cf. John 2:10).

Sometimes the greatest things we have to communicate may be there at the end of our life: all the good things we have learned and brought about in the course of our life.

We're told that Our Lady was united with the other apostles in prayer (Acts 1:14). We can turn to Our Lady and ask her that we might have that great sensitivity about this virtue that our Father wanted, that we might be able to foster it in every way possible.

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.

JM