Opus Dei question

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Edward,
Have you found at all that, for some, Opus Dei centres can be a little overwhelming at first?
I imagine different centres may have different “feels” to them? I had some experience with the local Opus Dei centre. It’s a mansion in one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in the city. The residents are well dressed professionals…suits and uniform haircuts. Nothing wrong with any of that… but I just can’t see them reaching blue collar Catholics very easily. That might be locale by locale?
 
I understand the comment. Yes, the care put into the Centers - which are homes for the priests and numerary members, remember - is enormous.

The land/houses are almost always donated by someone wanting to do good. So Opus Dei ends up with nice properties to take care of and to offer formation out of.

I will say that the only thing that seems “extravagant” is the attention given to the oratory/chapel/altar, etc. Otherwise, the Centers are nicely done, with nice furniture, but that furniture was chosen to last for 30 or 40 years. And it’s well cared for. And I never would be one to say that our gift to God can be too extravagant!! We owe Him our all and we should never drawback with the care we give to His place in an oratory. We should give Him our very very best!

The Centers are a beehive of activity. Most of the numerary members of Opus Dei have “a real job” (engineer, medical doctors, scientists, lawyers, business people during the day), which they pour themselves out for, and then they come home and typically offer formation in the evenings until 9 or 10 at night, or prep for upcoming weekend classes.

The work ethic of most numeraries and priests is “way off the charts”, but you’d never know it. They’re mostly smiling and seemingly totally available to offer advice, spiritual direction, Confession, etc.

There is a much higher % of professionals associated in some way with Opus Dei. But one could also say that doctors and layers and so forth also need help in pursuing holiness. They’re likely the ones who touch more people and lives with their decisions and so they should be well formed and have wills rectified with God’s will.

This doesn’t mean that members don’t do service/poverty other projects.

See this (very positive and long running results in Chicago)

 
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The more I hear about Opus Dei the more I feel drawn to it,I will be reading the links given with great interest .Thank you for your very informative posts Edward .
 
Here are some example meditations from an older, great priest in Australia. Fr John Flader.

He’s an American who after graduating moved to Rome with Opus Dei, later became a priest, moved to Australia and has been based there since the early 1960s.

He meditates for 30 minutes on various topics, letting us in essence listen in on his own prayer about these topics. Very very helpful.


This is the style of an OD preached meditation by priests. You’d hear similar style/spirited meditations were you ever to get to an evening of recollection, or to a OD retreat. There are two such meditations in an EOR and normally 10-11 per retreat.

I think he is in Sydney now.
 
I recommend Scott Hahn’s book Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: A Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei To quote one passage from the book:
My favorite definition of Opus Dei is the one I found on a prayer card back in the mid-1980s. Opus Dei is “a way of sanctification in daily work and in the fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary duties.” It’s not just a method of prayer, or an institution in the Church, or a theological school. It’s a “way,” and that way is wide enough to accomodate everyone whose days are flled with honest work–at home with the kids. in a factory or an office, in the mines, on a farm, or on the battlefield.The way is also wide enough to accommodate free and varied expressions of prayer and theological style and method. God calls some people to commit their lives to this way as the faithful of Opus Dei, but many others take spiritual guidance from Opus Dei and from the books of its founder.
 
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I forgot to mention it when I recommended Scott Hahn’s book, but Scott Hahn is a member of Opus Dei, so you are getting a “first hand” source of one person’s experience with Opus Dei.
 
Edward_H said:
And we also pray with our body…the prayer of the senses…mortification. Married members need not as much mortification as unmarried members, but we still mortify ourselves.

The preference is to squeeze all the mortification you need out of the ordinary moments: smiling more often, especially when we may not feel like it, working with a bit more intensity, perhaps working more slowly (more diligently and carefully) than we want to, passing by snacks more frequently, living a bit of a quiet but vigilant temperance, perhaps taking a cold shower now and again for a holy intention, tightening up the posture a bit, doing the dishes cheerfully, Hidden acts of love and conversation with God. And lots of hidden acts of charity for our wives, family members, co-workers to make their life more pleasant.
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This is where Opus Dei kind of loses me. I don’t mind doing some mortification on a daily basis, but I don’t like the idea of it being a sort of requirement instead of a choice. My impression is that you can’t really be a good member of Opus Dei unless you are practicing daily self-mortification, and something about that just bothers me. It seems to go beyond the idea of offering your work to God and even beyond doing penance for sins or atonement or reparation, and into the area of making yourself miserable while putting on a fake happy face.
 
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If one understands mortification as prayer then it’s not odd.

Jesus said we have to pick up our cross “daily”.

The senses and appetites can convince us of just about anything. They need a leash.

When they are well behaved we are actually the happiest, far less prone to moodiness.

Moods point to our dominant defect.
 
I think what is confusing is that if one’s senses are well behaved, I am not sure about a need for additional mortification to keep oneself in line. It seems monastic or perhaps even military. I can see a self-mortification to help others (spouse, person in need, the Poor Souls) or to offer reparation to the Lord, but It’s a struggle for me to balance mortification with doing my work well, so sometimes I have to either do a mortification that looks pretty small (like no coffee) or else pick one or the other thing for the day. Some of the things Opus Dei recommends like the cold showers and the waking up immediately actually raise health concerns for me. I have been wondering if these things work differently for males and actually help with self-control.
 
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Depends.

If one doesn’t or rarely suffers from interior complaint, moodiness, sadness, sluggishness…then maybe no need.
 
Sort of like training for a marathon, with daily mortifications one begins small - no meat on Friday all year round is how I started small. When I attended my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary on a Friday, I ate the meat and smiled about it!

For others it might be getting up 10 minutes earlier one day a week.

Start with 5 reps, then 10, then 20 and before you know it you can do 100 reps with 25 lb weights 🙂
 
TheLittleLady said:
Sort of like training for a marathon, with daily mortifications one begins small - no meat on Friday all year round is how I started small.
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Right, i do this stuff now - for example I fast 2 or 3 days a week and I have other little things I might do throughout the day as the opportunities come up. It’s by choice, which means I can modify something if I don’t find it helpful/or do find it hurtful. The mortification is not a requirement to be part of a particular group.

There are certain mortifications that other people do or find helpful and think of as minor things, that frankly would make me become unwell or put my health at risk if I did them regularly.

My understanding of Opus Dei is that if you want to be in it, there are certain rules you are required to do, some of which involve mortifications that are more or less mandatory. This to me took some focus off the idea of just living your life and trying to give your work to God/ do things for God the best you can. It seemed like one was going to get perhaps a bit graded or judged on how well they were living up to the requirements. Can an Opus Dei member explain to me whether or not this is the case?

It’s a bit difficult to talk about this issue because people tend to assume you are just a lazy sod who doesn’t want to do any mortifications, which is not the case. I think certain ones are not physically or mentally healthy or helpful for me personally.
 
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Bad experience with Lay Opus Dei members. The most judgmental person I ever met was Opus Dei. PUSHED me away from the Church. Questioned my prayers and heart’s intention because I did not fit her mold and standards. Made me feel like shit basically.

I’m not the only person who encountered Opus Dei this way. I know an entire family who had a bad experience with them that it was a factor in their conversion to Evangelical/Protestantism. Very good friends with this person and I had to apologize one time and say, “I’m sorry you felt this way at the Church - - I wish you could have seen the other facet of it…”
 
BarreandBark said:
Bad experience with Lay Opus Dei members. The most judgmental person I ever met was Opus Dei. PUSHED me away from the Church. Questioned my prayers and heart’s intention because I did not fit her mold and standards.
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This is my concern with the self-mortificaion in a nutshell.

Edited to add I’d still read Escriva’s book…just don’t really want to take a risk of officially joining a group that is going to break me down rather than build me up. It seems this is also the case with some other Catholic groups.
 
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BarreandBark said:
Bad experience with Lay Opus Dei members. The most judgmental person I ever met was Opus Dei. PUSHED me away from the Church. Questioned my prayers and heart’s intention because I did not fit her mold and standards. Made me feel like shit basically.
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This is my concern with the self-mortification, in a nutshell.
 
Fasting can be mortification (if it’s not done with God, out of love, then it’s just self-focused denial).
Holding back a sharp comment can be mortification
Forcing oneself to work a bit longer to finish a task well can be mortification.

Going against the grain of our appetites is necessary; otherwise, they tend to make messes.
 
Isolate incidents don’t make the case, as John Allen’s book showed.
 
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