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Response Letter to Opus Dei Article in Public i |
Current rating: 0 |
by wayward
(No verified email address) |
30 Sep 2004
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John Gueguen, a member of Opus Dei in Urbana, wrote two letters in response to the Public i article about Opus Dei. We are planning to print a condensed version of them in the upcoming edition of the Public i. This is the text in its entirety. (Wendy's words are in dark green, and Dr. Gueguen's are in black.) |
Hi, Wendy,
What a comprehensive piece of research went into your long preparation of the article about Opus Dei and Lincoln Green in the Sept. issue!
In reading it, several things occurred to me, which I hope you don't mind my sharing with you:
One is the tendency by most writers to treat Opus Dei as an external "thing," a movement or organization (some strange new hybrid hard to classify) rather than as an internal reality in the
lives of people God has called to live it in their daily lives.
We usually refer to this as "the spirit" of Opus Dei, but that would sound too "ghostly" to most people and make it even more
"suspicious." One reason it is so difficult to "pin down" what
Opus Dei is in trying to write an objective article (as you did) is
that in reality what Opus Dei "is" continues to evolve and develop in
the lives of each member from day to day, in the struggle to put into
practice the impulses of grace (what we call "the grace of the
vocation," which comes from the Holy Spirit, as it does to all
Christians to enable them to fulfill their calling). We don't
consider our vocation to be much different from that of any ordinary
Christian. Everyone is called (by Baptism) to a life of Christian
perfection and to get others to do likewise--"the bringing them with
you to heaven," idea that you picked up from my piece. God made
our founder realize that the Church needed a new "family-army" to
motivate lay people to take that calling seriously and do something to
put it into practice in their daily lives--and not suppose that the
call to holiness is limited to priests and religious (as virtually all
Catholics still think). Later (35 years later, to be precise) at
Vatican II, the Church made that a part of her doctrine and thereafter
began to promote "the apostolate of the laity." The present Pope,
like his predecessors, sees in Opus Dei an example of that and has
encouraged it in many ways (including the canonization of the founder);
he sees us as a key player in the Church's effort to evangelize all of
society (that is, to preach the Gospel through the example of their
daily practice of the Christian virtues).
This leads into my second observation: The people
you cite throughout the article give the kind of skewed understanding
of Opus Dei that can be expected would occur in reporting on any topic
by confining the research to such an infinitesimal number of "experts"
on the subject. All the members of Opus Dei and the small
number of former members are likewise "experts" on it. To get
closer to the truth, then, it would be necessary to have conversations
such as you did with Mike and me when you visited Lincoln Green with
hundreds of "ordinary" members of every age and description all over
the world. Several attempts to do that have been put on
film--brief clips of interviews with school teachers, bus drivers,
homemakers, politicians, coal miners, farm workers, nurses...on and
on. (You've probably found their titles someplace on the web
page; they are also listed, I think, under scepterpublishers.org, which
disseminates the writings of the founder and related titles.) You
can imagine what a variety of answers you would get to a question like
"how do you live Opus Dei day by day?" Or "how did you live it,
and what made you quit," in the case of the dropouts. After a few
hundred such conversations, you might be able to sift down a few common
features of their experiences with the daily effort to pray, get closer
and closer to Christ at home and at work, and "spread the message" to
others through personal contacts in a natural way. Then you would
need to go back to them a dozen years later and see how those
experiences have been modified in practice; some would have become
disenchanted and given up the struggle (as members of other "families"
and "armies" do), but the vast majority would be struggling along,
still trying to overcome the impediments in their character or in their
environment that seem to separate them from the goal of sanctity.
And so the number of people trying to be and live Opus Dei has grown
from 10 in 1934 to 90,000 or so in 2004 (only 70 years time).
Everyday around the world 100 new persons enlist in the "family-army"
(and none as the result of coercion, but of a free recognition that God
is calling them) while 10 old members quit for any number of reasons
and another 10 complete their assigned time on earth and stand before
God--who for them won't be a harsh judge, but a kind Father welcoming
them home--as St. Josemaria used to say about those who are faithful to
the end.
In my case, for example, I've started more than 15,000 new
days since I asked for admission to Opus Dei in April, 1959, and as I
look back on them I find that no two of them were ever the same.
I can tell you that the renewal each morning of my dedication to
practice the spirit of Opus Dei has led to marvelous insights into
myself, into others, into the nature of my teaching and writing
responsibilites. We all grow like that, but the difference
between someone called to be and become Opus Dei right where he is in
the world, and anyone else would be so hard to put into words. It
really comes down to the mysterious workings of divine grace combined
with our faulty human efforts to cooperate with them. As in the
life of anyone who is trying to put into practice every day the spirit
to which he/she is dedicated, there are bound to be ups and downs,
"triumphs" and "disasters." But most days, it's nothing dramatic,
and there's really nothing to report about them.
I suppose most people aren't that much aware of what
"spirit" they are dedicated to. In the best instances, it is a
spirit of professional service, or of serving one's family, one's
children and spouse, or for students, a spirit of achievement.
For so many Americans, it is a spirit of maximizing one's own pleasure,
or profit, or influence--the infamous materialistic, hedonistic,
individualistic, consumeristic "spirit." When I used to teach,
one of my aims was to help my students realize and then come to terms
with the "spirit" that was driving or inspiring their lives. The
"great books" we read were meant to help them do that. Many
realized that their "spirit" was not very admirable, and they set about
reforming their lives, lifting their sites, etc. That's why I
love to teach those great books; they are such powerful stimulations to
get young people in their 20s to examine themselves and their society,
and to act accordingly before it becomes "too late to change their
ways."
Sorry I've gone on so long, Wendy. But you are a very literary
person of elevated consciousness and poetic spirit, so I thought you
might appreciate these observations. Your effort to depict the
truth about Opus Dei is admirable, but really "doomed to failure" from
the start because the people in and out of Opus Dei your article is
based on represent only .0000001 percent of those who are living Opus
Dei (rather, trying to live Opus Dei) day after day and could give you
a more balanced--and probably much more edifying--sense of what Opus
Dei is in theory and in practice. In the end, I think you would
find it to be not really so complicated and self-contradictory and
enigmatic, but rather so simple, so very simple and plain to anyone who
reads the Gospel.
If you have any observations on my observations, I'd love to hear them.
Best wishes in your studies and writing! You're in our prayers.
John
> If you would like to write a
response in the paper, I will strongly encourage the working group to
print it.
Hi, Wendy; it's me again. I thought I just wrote it. I give
you permission to edit it (include anything pertinent from this second
message, too) and sign my name to it.
> I believe that each member's
experience of Opus Dei is different.
There you have it exactly right: Opus Dei in a nutshell! I think
I explained why that is, and you have understood me. Let me
amplify (for your readers?). St. Josemaria loved freedom as the
only way to truth. In the way people put what God had shown him
into practice (and which the Church later verified and found
authentic), he wanted everybody to be "VERY FREE." Free, even to leave;
as he said, the exit door is always wide open. (That surely
wouldn't be the case if, as some of your sources suggested, Opus Dei
were some kind of cult or if it engaged in "recruiting.") He told
us that he was laying out before us a very wide path to sanctity that
cuts right through the middle of the world; he abhorred organizations
that make their followers walk a very narrow line, as if in
lock-step. Rather, he wanted us to go down that path any way we
please--on one side or the other, and even zigzag; on foot, on a moped,
a bike, a unicycle, a rickshaw, a taxicab, the latest model Lincoln
Continental, or even as a hitchhiker. And he always reiterated
that the path itself was not of his own--or any human
being's--devising. He didn't want to "found" anything; he hated
the thought. He was a very reluctant messenger of a message God
gave him for mankind (a kind of modern-day Moses), an all-important
message because it concerns life and death matters, in a spiritual
sense. The path is The WAY (name of his first book) to take if
YOU want to take to yourself and be faithful to that message all your
days on this earth.
A similar analogy he liked to use: Opus Dei is a sea without
shores; that is, limitless in every sense (kinds of people called to
it; places people live; careers people follow; styles of life; ways of
thinking about opinionable matters--everything to do with politics,
sports, the arts, musical and literary preferences, food and drink,
etc., all the things people talk about). But it IS a sea, THIS
particular sea--the sea of divinely revealed truth about the origin and
end of man, to which we can even arrive on our own in large part if we
use our heads according to what the old writers called "right
reasoning." So if you want to navigate THAT sea (rather than the
seas of contemporary relativism, nihilism, etc. etc.), you are freely
welcome to do so. All you do is say YES to God, and then set
out on HIS path any way YOU want, at any speed, etc.
And finally, a third analogy, the simplest: Opus Dei is like a
fraction (the old math) in which there is a numerator and a
denominator. (You must remember that from 4th grade.) What
interests me about YOU, the Founder always said, is the
numerator. The old religious orders and organizations like them
want everybody to be and act and talk the same. That will never
happen in Opus Dei because the numerator is very diverse; each person
is different, and his life in Opus Dei is never regulated to fit into
some sort of mold or cast. God has created each different man and
woman as a unique, irreplaceable creature of his, and loves the beauty
of that diversity. Each
"sculpture" is YOUR own making, and it is beautiful in God's sight--IF
(and now we turn to the "common denominator), IF you are guided in your
sculpting by the "design" worked out in advance by the divine
creator of human nature. You can carry this on in poetic fashion,
if you like. But the point he was making is clear, along with the
other 2 analogies. Freedom, freedom, freedom, he often
cried. Away with tyrants! (like that unfortunate woman you
cited whom he called a bitch, and then was so shameless as to publicize
her story). A few people I have known in the Work eventually left
because they didn't like that freedom and were always frustrated trying
to "control" people, get everybody to do as they wanted--their
particular "numerator". Great freedom is a heady atmosphere, and
one must have great maturity to live in it. (I got my capacity
for it from my Celtic parents, who are descended from a people known
for their "wildness.") We often comment, by the way, that when we
are trying to find young people God is calling to Opus Dei, we need to
look for the "wild ones," in that sense (guys and gals who sowed quite
a few "wild oats" on their way to growing up). I think this is
part of what the founder meant when he said that we owe 90% of our
vocation to our parents.
Once again, I've gone on too long, but there is still your last
paragraph, which is a masterpiece I'm copying to put up among the great
sayings of mankind, for it perfectly fits the contemporary mind-set of
America's 20-somethings:
> As I've gotten older, many
things have seemed less black and white, and I have a certain distrust
of any organization that offers to make things too simple. At
this point, I'm just too old to jump on anyone's bandwagon. So I
guess my goal is tomuddle through and do the best I can. Not too
inspiring, but I'm sort of a realist.
That's not "realism" in my book, but I lived on a different planet from
the one you and your contemporaries live on. I call it the
"post-revolutionary" planet (referring back to the disaster of 1968-70,
which cut loose from all the moorings of reality as it truly is, and is
wandering all over the universe, outside any orbit).
Nevertheless, it is a fitting epitaph for the age that is currently
unraveling and sending our civilization to its graveyard. It
could be the banner of a website: www.20somethings2004.org.
It is precisely that worldview which you have PERFECTLY expressed which
motivates virtually your entire generation and is responsible for that
generation's inability to make a permanent commitment of any kind, and
why virtually all "marriages" that take place today are invalid and
break up after a short time (since by definition, marriage is the union
of a man and a woman until death do us part for the purpose of bearing
progeny and educating them to be mature men and women). It is why
monasteries and convents have emptied. It is why vocations to the
priesthood keep declining, and why so many have left and keep
leaving. It is why you can go around campus and find almost NO
genuine friendships, because friendship too requires a permanent
commitment, a letting-go of oneself. The dorms are jammed with
people struggling desperately not to compromise their individuality,
their precious ego. A terrible loneliness and isolation results,
and with it the unhappiness which if not successfully drowned in weekly
binges can lead to suicide (note the increasing rate among young people
in the prime of life).
This isn't meant to be a criticism and it has not the least touch of
irony about it. You are interested in reporting "facts" and there
you have one of the most appalling facts of recent American cultural
history. It is best enshrined in the kind of music young people
like to listen to and imitate today--very like the brainwashing cults
engage in.
At the risk of making this impossibly long, and for the sake of
contrast, I've just completed a 100-page research piece documenting the
first decade of Opus Dei's apostolate at Harvard and MIT,
1952-61. Dozens of highly educated, very bright and talented
young men and women, mainly undergrads, asked for admission to Opus Dei
there and then; now they are leading the way in countries all over the
world in their professions, though now reaching retirement age.
Most of them needed only a short time, as short as a week or two, to
recognize in Opus Dei what God was calling them to for the rest of
their lives. Nowadays, it takes them several years on average
because of the long process to help them recover their freedom and
learn how to practice it. I call it detoxifying the brainwashing
of the contemporary culture. (By the way, when I found Opus Dei
at Notre Dame in 1959, it took me 2 weeks to enter. I'm not
bragging, just showing the contrast.)
Anyway, I must quit and let you go. I'm glad we're on good
terms. And as I said at the outset, if you think any of this
could interest the readers of "The Public I" please feel to use it.
But please, do give some consideration to finding a worthy "bandwagon"
so that you don't have to "muddle through" your whole life.
Don't be offended; I love to tease students, as I did so happily--and
so fruitfully--in the ISU classrooms for 24 years.
John |
This work is in the public domain |
Comments
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Re: Response Letter to Opus Dei Article in Public i |
by me
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
30 Sep 2004
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could you provide a link to the original article? can't understand the response without it |
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Re: Response Letter to Opus Dei Article in Public i |
by wayward
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
30 Sep 2004
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Yes, it's online at http://shrug.csl.uiuc.edu/~wedwards/opus_final.htm |
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Re: Response Letter to Opus Dei Article in Public i |
by me.
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
30 Sep 2004
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thanks, very interesting article that shows a lot of research |
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Opus Dei: Myth and Reaction |
by Take your drug elsewhere
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Oct 2004
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Everyone take a deep breath, now, and read Sigmund Freud on the "Future of an Illusion."
Want a political analysis of religion? Read Karl Marx on the reasons for the illusion: a narcotic to dull the senses and obfuscate reality. A veneer to cover a rapacious ruling elite's true character.
Sure Karol Wotijia loves Opus Dei. Its an available army to push his reactionary agenda against women and gays.
Opus Dei? Opus Diablo. |
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