Alison Girone
CV NEWS FEED // Opus Dei founder St. Josemaría Escrivá is often called “the patron saint of the ordinary” for his practical, down-to-earth advice helping lay people embrace sanctity.
St. Josemaría founded Opus Dei in 1928 in Spain. The organization is a lay apostolate dedicated to drawing the faithful closer to God through their duties at work and in family life.
His most famous book, The Way, contains much of his most famous advice on the spiritual life. The book is broken up by “verses” or brief statements, and many of these could serve as resolutions for those looking to grow closer to God in their day-to-day lives. CatholicVote’s Grace Porto has selected eight to highlight as ideas going into the new year.
1. Don’t hit the snooze button.
St. Josemaría is known for popularizing the “heroic minute,” or getting up as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning.
He writes in The Way, 191: “Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a fixed time, without yielding a single minute to laziness. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish!”
2. Don’t shirk from your commitments.
St. Josemaría also encouraged his followers to be firm in their commitments and duties. He writes in The Way, 17: “Mark this well: unless you react in time — not tomorrow: now! — that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans ‘so full of emptiness’) will make of your life a dead and useless puppet.”
He reiterates on 21: “Excuses. You will always find plenty if you want to avoid your obligations. What a profusion of well-thought-out nonsense! Don’t stop to consider it. Dismiss it and do your duty.”
3. Wait to speak until your anger passes.
The saint writes in The Way, 9: “Say what you have just said, but in a different tone, without anger, and your argument will gain in strength and, above all, you won’t offend God.”
He continues on 10, “Never correct anyone while you are still indignant about a fault committed. Wait until the next day, or even longer. And then, calmly, and with a purer intention, make your reprimand. You will gain more by one friendly word than by a three-hour quarrel. Control your temper.”
4. Maintain simplicity and constancy in your devotions
St. Josemaría again encouraged firmness in resolutions in the devotional life, adding that simplicity is also necessary.
He writes in 552-553, “Have only a few private devotions, but be constant in them. Don’t forget your childhood prayers, learned perhaps from your mother’s lips. Say them each day with simplicity, as you did then.”
5. Stop gossiping; talk to God instead.
He writes in 444, “Never speak badly of your brother, not even when you have plenty of reasons. Go first to the Tabernacle, and then go to the priest your father, and tell him also what is worrying you.
“And no one else.”
6. Focus on the little things.
Like St. Therese, St. Josemaría urged the faithful to fulfill little tasks with love. He writes in 814-815: “A little act, done for Love, is worth so much! Do you really want to be a saint? Carry out the little duty of each moment: do what you ought and concentrate on what you are doing.”
7. Remain humble, even when you are praised.
The saint writes in 252, “Make this firm and determined resolution: to recall, when you receive honours and praise, all that brings a blush of shame to your cheek. The shame is yours; the praise and glory, God’s.”
8. Be childlike before God
St. Josemaría emphasized the importance of spiritual childhood through total trust of God. However, he said, this “childish” abandonment requires firmness and maturity.
“Spiritual childhood demands submission of the mind, more difficult than submission of the will. In order to subject our mind we need not only God’s grace, but also the continual exercise of our will, which says ‘no’ again and again, just as it says ‘no’ to the flesh,” he writes in 856. “And so we get the paradox that whoever wants to follow this ‘little’ way in order to become a child, needs to add strength and virility to his will.”
