By M. de L, sent to InfoVaticana as a reply to the articles published this week.
I have read with attention the recent articles that have been published on this page about the future of Opus Dei and, sincerely, I believe that many have understood nothing. Neither in Rome, nor outside. Neither those who speak with disdain, nor those who write. Because the essential is not in the statutes, nor in the decrees, nor in the structures. The essential is in the soul of those of us who have received a concrete vocation within the Church. And that is not revoked with a motu proprio nor modified with a canonical rubric.
For those of us who live the spirit of Opus Dei from within, we don't care about the legal form. We know who has called us and for what. We know that we did not become members of a prelature, but of a spiritual family. And as Saint Josemaría, our Father, used to say, “forms can change, but the spirit is the same, that of the first Christians”. That conviction does not depend on the will of a Pope nor on the opinion of a dicastery. It is an interior grace, a way of living holiness in the middle of the world, that no decree can suppress.
We are not a piece of paper
There are those who seem to believe that Opus Dei is defined by a legal document. That it is enough to rewrite a few paragraphs of the Code of Canon Law to dissolve a reality that has transformed lives, families, and souls on all continents. But Opus Dei is not a piece of paper, it is a life. And a life that has become flesh in thousands of men and women who try to sanctify their work, their home, their surroundings, with discretion and joy.
Rome may modify the structures, reorder competencies, reduce titles. All that is legitimate. But what it cannot do is rewrite the vocation of those of us who continue to hear in our souls the words that Saint Josemaría heard on that October 2: “Opus Dei”. That call was not canonical, it was supernatural. And the supernatural cannot be revoked with a signature.
The spirit of family
When the prelate reminds us that “nothing changes in the spirit”, some interpret it as resistance, others as resignation. It is neither one nor the other. It is simply fidelity. It is remembering that the spirit of family is neither decreed nor destroyed. We live it in the Eucharist, in spiritual direction, in loyal friendship among brothers and sisters of the Work, in fraternal conversation. That is not regulated from Rome. It is interior life, and interior life has no statutes.
In the end, those who speak of the “dissolution of Opus Dei” project onto us their own way of understanding the Church: as a structure, as an apparatus. We are not that. We are a spirit that permeates the forms, and that is why, even if the names, jurisdictions, or titles change, we will continue to be what we are. No one can take away from us the sense of divine filiation, the joy of work offered, nor the family unity that arises from a charism and not from a regulation.
Saint Josemaría used to repeat that “there have been many Popes and cardinals; founder of Opus Dei, only one”. He did not say it with arrogance, but with lucidity: popes pass, decrees change, reforms succeed one another. But the gift of God that was given to the Church through that concrete instrument remains. And we, his children, do not live pending ecclesiastical politics, but that fidelity to a spirit that depends on no office.
Therefore, to those who think that the reform of the statutes will change something essential, we say with peace: you have understood nothing. Rome can write whatever it wants. We will continue doing what we have always done: work, pray, smile, serve. Offer and commend. Be, in the middle of the world, children of God. That has no decree number nor expiration date.
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