In the creation narrative in chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, God looks upon his creatures as “good and beautiful.” Seven times the Creator contemplates his works with satisfaction, almost with a paternal gaze, and pronounces them “good” (in Hebrew, tôb[1]). That divine satisfaction in the work of creation reaches its height with the creation of man and woman in his image and likeness, a work God Himself calls “very good” (Gen 1:31). Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the Creator delights in the beauty of the world and the sheer variety of beings that inhabit it (cf. Prov 8:30–31; Sir 43:21–25; Ps 104).
This goodness tells us that creation is valuable in itself. Its existence is a good. So too are the creatures that compose it, along with their particular natures, expressed through the dynamisms, laws, and relationships that govern them. The deepest reason for the world’s goodness and dignity comes into focus only in light of the Incarnate Word: the whole universe is mysteriously ordered from the outset to receive the humanity of the Son of God, through whom and for whom all things were made (cf. Col 1:16–17). The order and properties of all the creatures, the internal orientation of processes toward an end, and the historical development of the comos all tend toward his humanity.
A way of looking at the world
If God the Creator looks on the world with a father’s gaze, ours in turn is the gaze of a child: grateful, attentive, full of recognition. We acknowledge life as a gift and marvel at the harmony and beauty of the universe that holds us. Each creature has a meaning within God’s design, and each possesses an autonomy that deserves respect. Above all, it is human freedom that commands our regard, as “an exceptional sign of the divine image” (Gaudium et spes, no. 17). Through their freedom, human beings can act responsibly as children of God, cooperating through their work in guiding creation toward its fulfilment. Being God’s children, respecting freedom, and honouring the autonomy of created things all belong together.
And yet, throughout the modern era, belief in God as Creator and ultimate meaning of all things has often been set against human freedom and the world’s autonomy. “Many of our contemporaries,” wrote the bishops at the Second Vatican Council, “seem to fear that a closer bond between human activity and religion will work against the independence of men, of societies, or of the sciences” (Gaudium et spes, no. 36). At times this tension has taken a triumphalist form, enthroning a superman or homo deus; at other times an anguished one, in the various strains of nihilism and existential atheism. God and the human being come to be seen as rivals, as though affirming one required diminishing the other. On this view, freedom means the absence of any binding norm, even before a nature whose laws we claim the right to override at will. A telling example is the demand for freedom of enquiry as an unlimited licence to do whatever is technically or scientifically possible, alongside a distorted notion of freedom of choice on serious moral questions, not least the sacredness of human life.
Christian theology has always taught that this supposed choice between man and God rests on shaky ground (cf. Gaudium et spes, nos. 34–36). Believing that the world is bound to God — whom the Christian holds to be Creator and Lord — does not stop him affirming, in the same breath, his own freedom and his life in the world and in history, together with the rightful autonomy of created things. Enlightened by the truth of the Incarnation, believers set out to build the city of man even as they build the city of God. These two aims come together once the accent falls on our being children of God — a truth capable of shaping every act of the Christian: filial freedom, filial obedience, filial work, filial prayer...
Across the centuries, various writers have managed to hold together a renewed appreciation of the human subject and his freedom with a religious sense of dependence on God. Think of the weight Saint Augustine gave to the person and his lived experience, or the primacy Saint John Henry Newman gave to conscience. Think, too, of the personal and existential dimension of faith drawn out by Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, or Jean Mouroux. Others, such as Blessed Antonio Rosmini, reflected on the freedom and responsibility of the Christian at work in social, political, and scientific life. Since the late nineteenth century, the Church’s social teaching has likewise stressed the importance of building the city of man as part of the road toward the city of God.
The teaching of the founder of Opus Dei belongs squarely within this tradition. Rooted in a pastoral and spiritual concern, it carries real theological weight. Saint Josemaría’s preaching returned again and again to the Christian’s identity as a child of God at work in the world. Central to his writing is the freedom of every Christian in professional, political, and social decisions, bound by nothing but the faith and morals of Jesus Christ and the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium. His vision of work as something to be sanctified — and done competently — led him to insist that everyday activities have their own logic, their own value, and their own rules, governed by the professional skill and knowledge of the people who carry them out.
Read against the backdrop of contemporary society and working life, Saint Josemaría’s preaching offers real help in overcoming a false dilemma that some strands of modern thought have posed, and in part still pose, between a legitimate appreciation of the human subject and an equally legitimate acknowledgement of God’s lordship. To understand work and human activity in light of God’s design for creation is not to force a meaning onto them, weigh them down, or empty them of value: it is to esteem and respect their rightful independence. As earlier articles in this series have shown, this reading grows out of Saint Josemaría’s deep grasp of the lex incarnationis: because the Incarnate Word took on a true human nature, the Christian outlook draws out, elevates, and redeems everything human — sin alone excepted — without ever cancelling it.
“When he does his work, a Christian is obliged not to side-step or play down the values that earthly things have in themselves. If the expression ‘bless all human activities’ meant abusing or neglecting their intrinsic qualities I would never use such a phrase. Personally I have never been convinced that the ordinary activities of men should carry a placard or confessional label. Although I respect the opposite opinion, I feel that using such a label involves a risk of using the holy name of our faith in vain. And there is evidence of the label ‘Catholic’ being used to justify activities and behaviour which sometimes are not even decently human” (Christ is Passing By, no. 184).
Saint Josemaría’s preaching, and the institution he founded, are directed above all at the lay faithful, whose secular state calls them to sanctify the ordinary business of life from the inside. For them he wanted to provide spiritual, ascetical, and theological tools to sustain their commitment as citizens of both cities, steering clear of clericalism on one side and secularism on the other. With that in mind, it is worth revisiting some of his teaching on these questions more closely.
Secularity, love of freedom, and responsibility in civil and professional life
The secular condition of the Christian living and working in the world is a recurring theme in Saint Josemaría’s writing and preaching. It is part of the core of the spirit of Opus Dei, since it is precisely on that basis that his spiritual children are called to seek holiness through their work and daily lives:
“It is understandable that the Apostle should write: All things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1 Cor 3:22–23). […] This doctrine of holy Scripture, as you know, is to be found in the very nucleus of the spirit of Opus Dei. It leads you to do your work perfectly, to love God and mankind […]. Light is shed upon many aspects of the world in which you live, when we start from these truths. Think, for example, of your activity as citizens. A man who knows that the world, and not just the Church, is the place where he finds Christ, loves that world. He endeavours to become properly formed, intellectually and professionally. He makes up his own mind with complete freedom about the problems of the environment in which he moves, and then he makes his own decisions. Being the decisions of a Christian, they result from personal reflection, in which he endeavours, in all humility, to grasp the Will of God in both the unimportant and the important events of his life” (Conversations, nos. 115–116).
“Secularity” is quite different from “secularism,” which denotes a worldview stripped of religion. It also differs from “secularisation,” which is a historical process aimed at pushing God and the religious sense out of society altogether. Some readings of “secularisation” instead use the word positively, to mean de-clericalising or desacralising, in defence of society’s proper autonomy. Saint Josemaría preferred the words “secular” and “secularity,” setting them against “clericalism,” which he criticises. In doing so he defended the same values as those who use “secularisation” to reclaim the independence of civil life from an intrusive or theocratic religious presence.
“As Christians, you enjoy the fullest freedom, with the consequent personal responsibility, to take part as you see fit in political, social or cultural affairs, with no restrictions other than those set by the Church’s Magisterium. [...] This holy respect for your opinions, so long as they do not lead you away from the law of God, is not understood by those who are unaware of the real meaning of the freedom which Christ won for us on the Cross, qua libertate Christus nos liberavit (Gal 4:31), by the sectarians at either extreme: those who seek to impose their temporal opinions as dogmas; or those who degrade man, by denying the value of the faith and putting it at the mercy of the grossest errors” (Friends of God, no. 11).
He urged believers to act with freedom and responsibility, never dragging the Church into worldly disputes or using the word “Catholic” to lend weight to matters that belong solely to personal responsibility and professional competence. His tone on this point is often forceful or blunt (cf. Christ is Passing By, 99; Conversations, 34, 47). This line sums up his thinking: “Christians must serve the Church, but not use the Church for their own personal ends” (cf. Furrow, no. 355; Conversations, no. 90). This is a necessary reminder given the damage done to evangelisation whenever believers present the Church, in the eyes of non-believers, as a lobby group or network for cultivating influence and connections for ends that have little to do with sharing the Gospel.
The sanctification of work follows naturally from Saint Josemaría’s call to a secularity built on responsible freedom. Whatever a Christian achieves through his or her work, and whatever improvements he or her seeks in social conditions, should rest on virtue and professional competence, not on favouritism or connections made through Church circles. Clericalism, in fact, is not only a fault of clergy who fail to respect the independence of civil and professional life; it also affects lay people who trade on their status as believers to find shortcuts to what they should be earning through work well done.
The task of pastors, then, is to form the lay faithful without directing them or standing in their place, so that each baptised Christian can exercise sound judgement in matters of work, family, and social life. Lay people need a solid grasp of the Church’s social teaching, especially as it bears on their own profession, and the ability to apply it with personal responsibility. The same holds, in due proportion, for their family and social responsibilities. Naturally, all of this becomes matter for prayer and spiritual guidance for those seeking light on how to sanctify their daily lives in the middle of the world. Still, the rightful independence of earthly affairs does not mean turning one’s work into a private reserve, closed off from those charged with guiding consciences. Christians’ desire to be identified with Jesus Christ should touch every part of their life and work.
“You think you are quite important: your studies, your research work, your publications, your social standing, your name, your political activities, the positions you hold, your wealth… your age: you’re no longer a child!… Just because of all that, you, more than others, need a Director for your soul” (The Way, no. 63).
Confidentiality and professional discretion — which Saint Josemaría always upheld firmly — sit comfortably alongside genuine spiritual guidance capable of accompanying Christians in their work and witness.
One of the more striking theological implications of this teaching is the light it sheds on the relationship between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood of the faithful, a theme the Second Vatican Council would later develop at length (cf. Lumen gentium, nos. 2, 10-11). Decades earlier, Saint Josemaría was already teaching priests and laity alike that the ministerial priesthood exists to serve the common priesthood: the laity work in the order of ends — ordering the world towards God — while priests work in the order of means, through the sacraments and spiritual direction. As he put it in a 1968 interview with L'Osservatore Romano, a fuller understanding of the lay vocation helps pastors, in turn, live their own vocation more fully:
“Lay people have their own way of contributing to the holiness and apostolate of the Church. They do so by their free and responsible action within the temporal sphere, to which they bring the leaven of Christianity. Giving Christian witness in their everyday lives, spreading the word which enlightens in the name of God, acting responsibly in the service of others and thus contributing to the solution of common problems: these are some ways in which ordinary Christians fulfil their divine mission. […] I should like to add that alongside the laity’s new awareness of their role there is a similar development among the clergy. They too are coming to realise that lay people have a role of their own which should be fostered and stimulated by pastoral action aimed at discovering the presence in the midst of the People of God of the charism of holiness and apostolate, in the infinitely varied forms in which God bestows it” (Conversations, no. 59).
Saint Josemaría’s regard for secularity and freedom kept him at a distance from those — often well-intentioned — who wanted to pin an “official Catholic” position onto questions that in fact allow for a legitimate range of opinion. Historians have documented the misunderstanding and even discontent this caused, not only within Church circles but among lay Catholics themselves. As he wrote in one letter:
“Your faith must guide you in judging the contingent facts and situations of this world. You will act with full freedom, because Catholic doctrine does not impose concrete, technical solutions to temporal problems; but it does ask you to be sensitive to those human problems, and to have a sense of responsibility in facing them and in bringing them to a Christian resolution. Your love for all people must lead you to confront temporal problems with courage, according to your conscience. […] I say it to you once more: you have full freedom of judgement, you act with personal freedom, and therefore the responsibility is yours. Let your judgement always be a Christian judgement, and let charity inspire your manner of acting: in this way you will do apostolic work, provided you also know how to respect the legitimate opinion of others, living together in peace and understanding” (Letter 14, nos. 28–29).
One of the clearest and most memorable statements of this secular, responsible vision of Christian life comes from Passionately Loving the World, the homily Saint Josemaría gave in 1967 at the University of Navarre in Pamplona. Speaking of the Christian who lives with integrity before God and others, he says:
“It would never occur to such a Christian to think or to say that he was stepping down from the temple into the world to represent the Church, or that his solutions are ‘the Catholic solutions’ to problems. That would be completely inadmissible! That would be clericalism, ‘official Catholicism,’ or whatever you want to call it. In any case, it means doing violence to the very nature of things. You must foster everywhere a genuine ‘lay outlook,’ which will lead to three conclusions: be sufficiently honest, so as to shoulder one’s own personal responsibility; be sufficiently Christian, so as to respect those brothers in the Faith who, in matters of free discussion, propose solutions which differ from those which each one of us maintains; and be sufficiently Catholic so as not to use our Mother the Church, involving her in human factions” (Conversations, no. 117).
Building the city of man, a path towards the city of God
The work by which men and women transform the world and build the earthly city does not block the path — travelled by individuals and by whole societies — towards the city of God. In fact, for work to be genuinely ordered toward God, it must first be genuine “citizenship” in the city of man. From the Church’s earliest centuries, living faithfully in the world, respecting just laws and legitimate authority, has been seen as essential to the Christian apostolate. The First Letter of Peter offers a fine witness to this (cf. 1 Pet 2:13–21): Christians are urged to take up their responsibilities, because the city of man belongs to them just as much as the city of God does.
In Letter 29, Saint Josemaría offers his own reading of Jesus’ teaching on rendering to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s (cf. Mt 22:21). In line with the best of the Christian tradition, he makes clear that this distinction is no licence to withdraw from worldly commitments:
“That distinction which the Lord drew between the things of God and the things of Caesar is sometimes misunderstood. Christ distinguished the spheres of jurisdiction of two authorities — the Church and the State — and in so doing, forestalled the harmful effects of Caesarism and of clericalism. […] But the distinction established by Christ does not mean in any way that religion should be relegated to the temple, to the sacristy, nor that the ordering of human affairs should be carried out apart from all divine and Christian law. For this would be the denial of the faith of Christ, which demands the adherence of the whole man, soul and body; individual and member of society.
“The message of Christ illuminates the whole of human life, its beginning and its end, not only the narrow field of certain subjective practices of piety. And laicism is the denial of faith through deeds; of the faith that knows that the autonomy of the world is relative, and that everything in this world has as its ultimate meaning the glory of God and the salvation of souls” (Letter 29, no. 31).
He returns to the same theme in the chapter entitled “Citizenship” in Furrow. The world, he insists, belongs to us, because it is here that most of the baptised must live out the virtues that will conform them to Christ:
“The world… ‘That is our field!’ you said, after directing your eyes and thoughts to heaven, with all the assurance of the farmer who walks through his own ripe corn. Regnare Christum volumus! — we want Him to reign over this earth of his!” (Furrow, no. 292).
“It is not true that there is opposition between being a good Catholic and serving civil society faithfully. In the same way there is no reason why the Church and the State should clash when they proceed with the lawful exercise of their respective authorities, in fulfilment of the mission God has entrusted to them. Those who affirm the contrary are liars, yes, liars! They are the same people who honour a false liberty, and ask us Catholics ‘to do them the favour’ of going back to the catacombs” (Furrow, no. 301).
As noted at the outset, the teaching that Christian holiness is fully attainable within a secular life lies at the very heart of the spirit and mission of Opus Dei: growing in holiness through work, with the freedom of a child of God, in saeculum — in the midst of earthly, temporal realities. This calls for a genuine knowledge of the laws governing the world, of the nature of created things, and of what belongs to the city of man, respecting their inner dynamism and independence. Lived out, it leads to the Christianisation of society, transformed from within by the charity of Christ.
“God did not create us to build a lasting city here on earth (cf. Heb 13:14). […] Nevertheless, we children of God ought not to remain aloof from earthly endeavours, for God has placed us here to sanctify them and make them fruitful with our blessed faith, which alone is capable of bringing true peace and joy to all men wherever they may be. Since 1928 I have constantly preached that we urgently need to christianise society. We must imbue all levels of mankind with a supernatural outlook, and each of us must strive to raise his daily duties, his job or profession, to the order of supernatural grace. In this way all human occupations will be lit up by a new hope that transcends time and the inherent transience of earthly realities” (Friends of God, no. 210).
Saint Josemaría’s preaching converges remarkably with the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution Gaudium et spes, on the meaning and value of earthly activity when seen in the light of Christ’s paschal mystery (cf. nos. 33–39). There, the Council defends the rightful independence of earthly realities (no. 36), affirms the place of building the city of man within the building of the City of God (no. 34), and recognises that this work is served not only by great achievements but by the ordinary circumstances of daily life (no. 38). The Council also implicitly recognises the filial character of freedom — made explicit in Saint Josemaría’s teaching — when it speaks of the “Christological form” that human action must take on in order to transform the world through charity. This cooperation of human work in the building of the City of God is not automatic: it is grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that perfect human activity, enabling it to lead creation towards its fulfilment.
This series is coordinated by Professor Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. It includes other contributors, some of whom are professors at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome).
[1] It is no accident that Sacred Scripture uses the same term only one other time in the entire Old Testament, when the mother of Moses saw that her newborn son was “beautiful” (cf. Ex 2:2).