The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross

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.

“Like living stones, let yourself be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5), as we are told in the letter of Saint Peter. Today is the anniversary of the founding of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.

St. Josemaría was a diocesan priest. He had great love for all diocesan priests and all priests, but he particularly wanted to do something, and saw that God wanted him to do something, to help diocesan priests, particularly in their spiritual life.

On the one hand, he saw that he was called to found Opus Dei, but he was all the time searching for a way whereby that spirit of Opus Dei and the formation that was there could be extended to diocesan priests. Little by little, God let him see that that was possible.

On the 14th of February 1943, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was born. The Priestly Society is an association of priests inseparably united to Opus Dei.

All the formation that lay people receive in Opus Dei—to sanctify their work, to be holy in the middle of the world—priests also can receive. It provides ongoing formation for priests to help them in their spiritual life and professional life through all the various means that Opus Dei uses: regular confessions, spiritual direction, circles, retreats, seminars.

It tries to foster a great priestly fraternity among the clergy, all the time in very close union with the bishop. There was a juridical problem because diocesan priests could not become members of Opus Dei because their superior is their bishop. The association of priests was formed whereby the Prelate of Opus Dei is concurrently the president of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.

That way the juridical bond of the diocesan priest with their bishop to whom they are answerable, and his care for them, is maintained. They benefit from the spirit of Opus Dei while maintaining themselves juridically incardinated in their diocese.

St. Josemaría liked to say that today is a day of prayer for priests. He indicated a number of special days in the year for that.

The anniversary of the first three priests of Opus Dei is on June 25th and the Feast of the Curé of Ars, the patron saint of all parish priests, is on August 4th. It's a day of prayer for priests, priests of the universal Church, and also very particularly, priests of the Prelature.

St. Josemaría brought something like a thousand priests to the altar. Blessed Álvaro brought about 700. He's taught us to have a great love for the institution of the priesthood, to have great love and respect for priests.

While priests are ordained to the ministerial priesthood, he liked to remind all lay people that they also have participation in what is called the common priesthood of the faithful, or the universal priesthood of the faithful, that we receive with our Baptism.

Even though we might not be ordained to the ministerial priesthood, we are all called to live out our priesthood in union with Christ on the cross. And ultimately that's what priestly soul means: having the same sentiments as Christ on the cross.

Lay people are not ordained to administer the sacraments, which is the main function of the ordained ministry, priestly ministry. The lay people are called to order the temporal realities.

While they have a priestly soul, they're called to have a fully lay mentality. The priestly society gives this ongoing formation to priests to help them to sanctify their priestly work, to be holy in and through their ministry, to be priests 100 percent, good shepherds to the others, and to benefit in this way from all of the things which the spirit of Opus Dei gives us in terms of formation.

The first three priests of Opus Dei—their process of beatification is ongoing. This thing of holiness in and through the ministry is not just a nebulous idea, but something very concrete.

We're told also in St. Peter, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

Any way that we can help our parish priests or other diocesan priests to grow in their vocation; it is something we should try and foster.

If you have the means to help your local priest get to an annual retreat or to a seminar or some other means of formation, it's a very good thing to try and achieve.

St. Josemaría liked to say that every priest can bring a thousand souls to heaven. So, one way of fostering evangelization is that prayer and care for priests, helping them to care for their vocation, being close to them in the parish, helping them to understand also the spirit of Opus Dei through your example, through your words, through your apostolates, in all the things that we do.

What is a priest? A priest is somebody who offers sacrifices. In the priesthood of the Old Testament, the priest offered the sacrifices of animals, the blood of goats and cows and heifers.

In the New Testament, the priest also offers sacrifices. He offers the blood of Christ. The main duty of the priest is to celebrate the Mass. And when we're called to have the priestly soul, a priestly soul is something we receive at Baptism when that character is imprinted on our soul—the seal of Baptism that gives us a participation in the priesthood of Christ.

Christ was most a priest when He offered Himself in sacrifice to His heavenly Father. He practiced all the priestly virtues of humility, of sacrifice, of service, of obedience, of generosity. In our daily life, we have ample opportunities on a regular basis to practice these virtues.

We're told in St. John, “In truth, I tell you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest” (John 12:24).

St. Paul says, “I urge you then, brethren, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God. That is the kind of worship for you as sensible people” (Rom. 12:1).

We're invited to make of our lives a holocaust, to live out our priesthood in the ordinary events of every day. It's not just those who are ordained to the ministerial priesthood that live their priesthood. But the Second Vatican Council talked about the ‘universal priesthood of the faithful.’ In that sense, we're all priests.

We're called to live out our common or universal priesthood in our work, in our apostolate, in the fulfillment of our family duties, in our marriage, in saying no to ourselves, in uniting ourselves to the cross of Christ and being there with Jesus.

The exercise of our priesthood means above all to serve. We are all called to serve. That's the purpose of our formation and of all education.

There was a professor once who asked some students in secondary school, why were they in this school with the Catholic ethos? They said, We're here to do well in our final exam so that we can get a good result, so we can get into a good university, so we can get a good degree, so we can get a good job, so we can get a good salary. He said that wasn't a very good answer.

He went to some university students in a university with a Catholic ethos and asked them the same question. They said, We're here in this university to study and to get a good degree so we can get a good job, so we can get a good salary.

This professor said, This represents the failure of Catholic education, because the purpose of all Catholic education is to serve, “because Christ came not to be served, but to serve” (cf. Mark 10:45).

We're called to exercise our priestly soul through service. A priest who is ordained to the ministerial priesthood is ordained to serve. That's the purpose of his ministry. All priesthood leads to that.

Mother Teresa tells a story of how one time a journalist came to her and asked her, What was her opinion of women priests? She said, I often think that the person who was most cut out to be a priest was Our Lady, because she was the most dignified person that was ever created. She was conceived without original sin. She was full of grace. She had some very special privileges because of her divine maternity. There was nobody who was created so suitable for the priesthood as Our Lady. But yet her vocation was to be “the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38).

The following day in the newspaper, Mother Teresa said there was a headline that said, Mother Teresa says that women make better priests than men. She had to get someone to call the newspaper and say, That wasn't exactly what I said.

Somebody else said once that a woman who wants to be a priest is as misguided as a man who wants to be pregnant. We need to get very clear ideas. If we hear women talking about the fact of how they would like to be priests, it means they have not understood the concept of the common or universal priesthood of the faithful.

It was very clearly expounded in the Second Vatican Council that we are already priests. We have a priestly soul. We're called to serve.

We're told in the Letter to the Hebrews, “Every high priest is taken from among human beings and is appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb. 5:1).

One time in Rome in the early 1950s, there was a consistory about to take place where they appointed cardinals. One young fellow said to St. Josemaría in a get-together: Father, maybe you will be made a cardinal.

St. Josemaría changed the topic very quickly, but afterwards called him to his room. This young person was a medical doctor. St. Josemaría pulled up his cassock and pulled up his shirt and pulled up his undershirt and showed him a big red rash that he had across his chest.

The doctor immediately recognized the rash as the rash of shingles, herpes zoster, a very painful infection of the nerve roots, where people usually have a fever. They're often in the hospital. Yet St. Josemaria was walking around and talking that get-together and working as if nothing was the matter.

He pointed to the red of the rash and said, “My son, this is the only red that God has in mind for me, not the red of a cardinal's hat.”

Many decades later, that medical student, Don Julián Herranz, was made a cardinal. I'm sure he remembered those words of St. Josemaría’s.

With our priestly soul, we take the blows, we offer up the sacrifices. We're willing to be with Christ on the cross. We find so many solutions to our problems there.

One time there was a get-together on Easter Sunday night. John Paul II invited the UNIV students to an inner patio there in the Vatican called the San Damaso.

At the end of the sort of get together they had, a musical get together, he said, I am very happy to see all of you here from different countries. Youthful, so happy and so united among yourselves from different places, different cultures, and different backgrounds, but yet there's a great unity among you.

The master of ceremonies who had the microphone, a young student, was very quick, and added to that: United to you, Holy Father.

And as quick as a wink, the Holy Father, without missing a beat, immediately said, uniti in Cristo, united to Christ. It was a beautiful, spontaneous expression of the priestly soul, everything in our life united to Christ.

Fulton Sheen tells a story about how he went to see Pope Paul VI in 1968, just after the issuing of the encyclical of Humanae Vitae, which is all about the regulation of birth and conjugal love. Beautiful document. A major document of the 20th century. It was also known as the document that banned contraception.

The Holy Father was getting an awful lot of flack in the international press. Fulton Sheen said to him, Holy Father, you're well named Paul, because Paul they stoned, and now they're stoning you.

The Holy Father said, Yes, it's 10 in the evening before I get to open my personal mail, and with each letter, there comes a thorn. When I lie down on my bed at night, I lie down on a crown of thorns.

But he said, I can't tell you the joy, the happiness, the peace I get out of knowing that I'm making up in my body of what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

With that, he was quoting St. Paul to the Colossians, who says, “It makes me happy to be suffering for you now. And in my own body, to make up all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church” (Col. 1:24).

There is nothing lacking in the sufferings of Christ. But what is lacking is our participation in those sufferings.

Really, what the Holy Father was expressing was that sentiment of priestly soul that's there within him, finding joy and peace and happiness.

There may be some time in our life when we come across somebody with a broken heart. This week, around the 14th of February, the whole world is looking at hearts and selling hearts and buying hearts. They're all beautiful hearts. The hearts that are drawn on Valentine's Day cards, one line links up with the other. Very complete hearts.

But Pope St. John Paul said that our hearts are not like that. He said, God has taken a piece of our heart and He's kept it for Himself in heaven. We only get it back when we go there.

“Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 1:1-2).

Pope St. John Paul said we all suffer from a hole in the heart, and that hole can only be filled by God.

Even though these days we see so many beautiful, complete hearts, we also know from the human experience that hearts can be broken. Our Lady's heart was pierced by a sword, a spiritual sword.

Christ's heart was pierced by a lance and there flowed out blood and water, the fountain of the sacramental life of the Church. We know that all these things can happen.

Our hearts may be broken some time, or we might meet people with broken hearts. Fulton Sheen said that if ever God allows hearts to be broken, it's because He wants to enter into them a little more.

Our Lady and Our Lord whose hearts are pierced, they're a bit like the patron saints of broken hearts. They can mend all broken hearts.

If ever you meet someone with a broken heart, lead them to Jesus, to Mary. They find their peace and their serenity there. They learn how to begin again.

The heart is very important in our faith. God reads the heart. “Rend your heart and not your garments. Come back to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12-13).

Our priestly soul also leads us to have a great desire to spread truth, to give doctrine, to spread doctrine in every way we can, which are good ideas, the ideas of Christ and the ideas with which He wants us to shape the world.

That priestly soul leads us to spend ourselves for souls, to give ourselves to the apostolate with our whole heart and mind, seeing it's the greatest occupation and ideal we could have that fills our day and every hour with meaning and with purpose.

Christ came to save souls. The Church is all about souls. That apostolic zeal adds a great dynamism to our life.

Therefore, that leads us to never say ‘enough’ or ‘up to here and no further.’ Those words don't exist.

We've come to give ourselves. Christ emptied Himself. He didn't just shed one drop of His blood, but He let His blood flow copiously on the cross.

We're called to offer everything. We hold nothing back.

If we look at Christ on the cross, we can get a great encouragement, an example there, a beckoning to fall in love with Him, to follow Him, and to never leave Him.

Our priestly soul finds perfect expression in the Mass and in the prayers of the Mass and the liturgy that can be so meaningful. In the Preface of the First Sunday in Ordinary Time, it says:

Father, all-powerful and every living God. We do well always and everywhere to give you thanks, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through his cross and resurrection, he freed us from sin and death and has called us to the glory that he has made us, the glory that has made us a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart.

Everywhere we proclaim your mighty works, for you have called us out of darkness into your own wonderful light.

We're told in the Furrow: “You say that you're now beginning to understand what a ‘priestly soul’ means. Don't be annoyed with me if I tell you that the facts show that you only realize it in theory. —Every day the same thing happens to you: at night time, during the examination, it's all desire and resolutions; during the morning and afternoon at work, it's all objections and excuses. Are you in this way living a ‘holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. 2:5)?” (Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, Point 499).

We have a priestly soul, but lay people, lay people, lay people, lay people, lay people also called to live out their priestly soul with a very lay mentality. That's the way that God wants us to live out our priestly soul in all situations.

To be a layperson is a real vocation. It has certain characteristics. Lay people are not called to imitate priests in the way they talk, the way they walk, and what they talk about. Lay people are called to be fully lay people.

If everybody is talking about football, then we talk about football, or whatever is the thing that people in the middle of the world talk about. We're not meant to be ‘churchy,’ but rather, fully lay and fully up to date with the ordinary things that lay people do.

That priestly soul has a lot of applications. It can mean our total availability for whatever is necessary for the apostolate. It can be very useful in moments when we come to see our miseries, our limitations, and the ups and downs of each day—to carry on there where God has placed us, in this marriage, in this family, in this job—in persevering in spite of my failures, beginning again.

We can thank God for the priestly occasions when we don't have what we need or what we'd like to have. It's a moment to offer our minds and heart and soul to God and say, “Here I am because you've called me” (1 Sam. 3:5-10).

With our priestly soul, we overcome the obstacles with the spirit of the beginnings, because we know that God is with us and united to our lay mentality. It doesn't allow us to remain passive in the face of difficulties.

If on some occasion we have a little bit of extra work—in cleaning or in the kitchen or in cooking at Christmas time, or we find everybody wants a barbecue, or somebody is sick in the house—these are opportunities to offer these things to God with our priestly soul.

Or someday we're not feeling well, or we have to overcome our whims and our caprices, or we feel a bit rebellious—these are times to offer things to God, persevering in the apostolate entrusted to us, and the jobs that are given to us.

The more we think this and live it, the more truly lay mentality we'll also have. We can ask Our Lord for the grace to live out this priestly soul a little better.

All the time we find Our Lady standing beside the cross. Mary lived her priestly soul at that moment more than any other.

Stabat Mater dolorosa, iuxta Crucem lacrimósa, dum pendébat Fílius. The Stabat Mater that we read on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the sequence of that Mass, is very eloquent.

Our Lady is the Lady of Fair Weeping. Her tears are beautiful. She has the sorrows of the one who is all beauty, fully free from the deformity of sin.

One writer says the sinless Spirit-filled heart of Mary is beautifully centered on the will of the Father.

Our Lady lived out her priestly soul by fully accepting the will of God in that moment of the cross. She gives, she offers, she doesn't merely let go. She doesn't just tolerate. She doesn't assist passively or patiently at the sacrifice of her Son. She's totally involved. That's why the Church calls her a co-redeemer.

St. Albert said, “Our Lady joined herself to the Father of Mercies in His greatest work of mercy when she shared in the Passion of her Son and ‘thus became the helper of our redemption and the Mother of our spiritual generation.’”

With that poem, the Stabat Mater from the sequence of Pentecost Sunday, we could say: Fac, ut árdeat cor meum in amándo Christum Deum. Make my heart to burn in loving Christ Our Lord.

When Cardinal Ratzinger visited Cavabianca in 1987, he said the Prelature of the Holy Cross in Opus Dei invites its members to stand by Mary there, that Our Lord may see us and each of us become a beloved disciple, hearing the words, “Behold your mother” (John 19:27).

Our Lady beside the cross was silent. We can learn silence from Our Lady. Our silence can be a measure of our holocaust, of our unity to the cross of Christ.

We can end our prayer by speaking to Our Lady, the Mother of all Priests, thanking her for the priesthood of our Father, a priesthood that she helped so much and so continuously all throughout his life.

Help us, Mother, to value the great institution of the priesthood, to love priests like our Father did, to pray for them, to support them, to see what we can do for the diocesan priesthood as God wants us to do, moving heaven and earth to support that priesthood in every way we can, because we know the great evangelizing influence it can have in every country and in the whole world.

Mary, Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces, Mother of priests, pray for us now and always.

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.

EW