Card. Francis Arinze’s homily

1- Perhaps over the past months, since you heard the news that Blessed Josemaría Escrivá was to be canonised, you have often raised your heart in thanksgiving to God. This is the natural reaction of children of God whose Father never ceases to pour down grace upon grace from heaven. But at the same time we have no doubt felt that our thanksgiving falls short, that it is inadequate. God is so good that he even helps us to overcome this difficulty. He gives us the wherewithal to offer him a perfect act of thanksgiving: the holy sacrifice of the Mass. And so it is fitting that after the joyous events of last Sunday at the altar in St. Peter’s Square, we should gather together again around another altar, here in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, to thank God for the canonization of Saint Josemaría Escrivá. It is fitting too that we would give thanks to God for this great grace in the first church dedicated to Our Blessed Lady in Rome, and perhaps in the entire West. For Saint Josemaría Escrivá holiness was eminently Marian. His life was marked by a most childlike reliance on Our Blessed Lady; he often implored graces for himself, for Opus Dei and for the whole Church. We take special delight in directing our thanks to her in this Basilica, which is so closely associated with her maternal care for Rome and for the whole Church.

We find ourselves in awe before the goodness and power of God. As St Josemaría Escrivá first successor at the helm of Opus Dei, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, pointed out after the beatification ceremony ten years ago, there is no event in the whole universe comparable with that of raising a mere creature to share the life of the Blessed Trinity (Homily of Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, Thanksgiving Mass, 21 May 1992). When a man or woman is canonised, we marvel at the handiwork of God in a creature who has been victorious in the struggle to be docile to the work of transformation through grace. In the canonised saint we are presented with an example for us to follow. We are spurred to let ourselves too be transformed by the Holy Spirit, until we are enabled, in the words of St. Paul, to cry out, “Abba, Father!” and are made to be truly children of God “And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom 8: 14-17).

Perhaps you haven’t yet had a chance to marvel at the masterpieces of the great artistry of Michelangelo and Raphael; but over these days we have been admiring a much greater, a divine artistry: that of God the Holy Spirit who fashions the image of the only begotten Son in a human creature. When we praise the work of art – in this case the newly canonised saint – we are glorifying the artist, the whole Trinity. Where the human artist used thousands of brush-strokes, God the Father used “countless graces”. But divine artwork, unlike its human counterpart, involves a mysterious interaction between divine grace and human freedom. Each grace is an invitation, and holiness is our affirmative response to that invitation. The more we read of the life of Saint Josemaría Escrivá, the more we marvel at those fine brushstrokes; we see him respond with an unwavering “yes” to the graces of God, even when those graces came, as they often did, in the form of a cross.

2- On the 9th of October 1931, Saint Josemaría Escrivá wrote in his personal diary: “Today, in my prayer, I renewed my resolution to become a saint. I know I will accomplish this – not because I am sure of myself, Jesus, but because I am sure of you”. (Andres Vàzquez de Prada, The Founder of Opus Dei, Vol.I, Scepter, p.262) Seventy-one years later these striking words have been proven true. They show us how right he was to put such confidence in Jesus. They also serve to confirm his teaching that holiness is not a pipe-dream. It is, rather, the will of God for each one of us. We must imitate this conviction of the founder of Opus Dei, that we can attain the heights of holiness, not because we are sure of ourselves, but because we trust in Christ who sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts to bring us to the Father. Perhaps these days in Rome can become for us an occasion for renewing our own resolution to become saints, or as Saint Josemaría Escrivá would put it: “canonisable saints”.

Saint Josemaría gave his life to spreading the message that all men and women are called to this same holiness, that God wants and needs canonisable home-makers, canonisable doctors, canonisable tradesmen, canonisable soldiers, canonisable businessmen, canonisable politicians, canonisable students – men and women who attain holiness through, not in spite of, their everyday lives and ordinary work. God chose to have Saint Josemaría sanctity formally confirmed by the Church on the basis of the miraculous cure of the cancerous hands of a Spanish surgeon. It stuck many people as particularly fitting that the cure which confirmed Saint Josemaría intercession should be so closely connected with this doctor’s work. He had contracted the disease in carrying out his ordinary work, and eventually had to give up his work due to it. Through the intercession of Saint Josemaría this doctor was able to return to his job, as if once again heaven was reminding us that work is the way to holiness. As Josemaría put it: “It is time for us Christians to shout from the rooftops that work is a gift from God and that it makes no sense to classify men differently, according to their occupation, as if some jobs were more noble than others. Work, all work, bears witness to the dignity of man, to his dominion over creation … For a Christian these horizons extend and grow wider. For work is a participation in the creative work of God. When he created man and blessed him, he said: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, and all living animals on the earth”. (Gen.1:28) And, moreover, since Christ took it into his hands, work has become for us a redeemed and redemptive reality. Not only is it the background of man’s life, it is a means and a path of holiness”. (Homily of 19 March 1963, In Joseph’s Workshop)

3- Each man or woman who is raised to the altars seems to call out to us “Join me! I am not a distant model to be admired only, but a real person to be imitated”. Yes, we should find ourselves posing the question when we come across with a new saint in the canon of saints: “If he or she managed, why not I?” But this is even more true for the canonisation of Saint Josemaría Escrivá. Every saint could be said to have a particular message for the world, and in the case of Saint Josemaría Escrivá this message is precisely that we are all called to holiness too. The only sadness is not to be a saint! We cannot say: “Lord, I cannot seek holiness in my life because … I’m too weak, too poor, too rich, too insignificant, too unimportant”. No, as the founder of Opus Dei showed, this call to holiness is really for everyone. And now the Holy Father is asking us “to rediscover the full practical significance of chapter five of Lumen Gentium, which is dedicated to the ‘universal call to holiness’”. (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 30) This is how the problems of the world will be put right because, as Josemaría put it, “these world crises are crises of saints”. (The Way, no. 301) At a time when many feel tempted to despair of bringing peace to the world, of ending strife between communities, states, and even whole races, the luminous teachings of the new saint have a particular echo in our hearts: “In order to bring peace, genuine peace, to souls; in order to transform the world… personal sanctity is indispensable. In my conversations with people from so many countries and from all kinds of social backgrounds, I am often asked: What do you say to us married folk? To those of us who work on the land? To widows? To young people? I always reply that I have only “one cooking pot”… [Christ] calls each and every one to holiness; he asks each and every one to love him: young and old, single and married, healthy and sick”. (Homily of 26 November 1967, Towards Holiness)

This canonisation is for each and everyone of us here, and for all Christians, a new call to holiness. It re-assures us that, despite our own undeniable weaknesses, Christ’s grace is superabundant. But we have to make use of the channels of God’s grace. Those who heard Saint Josemaría Escrivá preach, or who heard him speak in crowded halls during his catechetical journeys throughout Europe and South America, saw how he tirelessly promoted regular personal prayer and frequent recourse to the sacraments, particularly the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. Through prayer and the sacraments the Christian enters into the family of God.

4- When Saint Josemaría set up his first centre for university students in 1933 he called it D.Y.A. At one level the title referred to the subjects taught there: Law (Derecho) and Architecture. But they also referred to his motto: Dios y Audacia; God and Daring! He saw a clear connection between belonging to God and being daring in our spiritual lives and in our apostolic undertakings. The world belongs to the children of God, who hear him say: “You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” (Ps 2: 7-8). This canonisation of the founder of Opus Dei is a clarion call to be salt and light of Christ in the world. As Pope John Paul reminded you last year: “Now is the time to dispel every fear and to undertake daring apostolic goals. Duc in altum! Christ’s invitation spurs us to cast out into the deep, to nurture ambitious dreams of personal holiness and apostolic fruitfulness”. (John Paul II, Address at an audience for participants at a seminar on Novo Millennio Ineunte organised by the Opus Dei Prelature, 17 March 2001) Remember that you can count on the powerful intercession of your spiritual father, Saint Josemaría, and with the maternal assistance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to obtain from God for all of us the important spiritual gifts we need on our pilgrimage towards holiness and apostolate.