Letter from the Prelate (13 November 2025)

The Prelate of Opus Dei reminds us of the need for charity in responding to so many forms of poverty and suffering in the world through our prayer and specific deeds of service, and stresses the close tie between love for God and love for our neighbor.

Message from the Prelate (November 13, 2025)

13/11/2025

My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!

Every day, in various ways, we all receive news about the suffering of countless people caused by the current wars, injustices, poverty and famines in so many parts of the world. I suggest that we reflect once again on and echo these words of St. Josemaría: “A person or a society that does not react to suffering and injustice and makes no effort to alleviate them is still distant from the love of Christ’s Heart. While Christians enjoy the fullest freedom in finding and applying various solutions to these problems, they should be united in having one and the same desire to serve mankind. Otherwise their Christianity will not be the Word and Life of Jesus; it will be a fraud, a deception of God and man” (Christ is Passing By, no. 167).

Faced with the magnitude of the world’s problems, it is only natural to feel powerless to solve them. However, any news, even the most distant or unrelated, should challenge us because, with Christ and in Christ, we feel the whole world as our inheritance (cf. Ps 2:8). Faith assures us that we can help greatly by our prayer, which knows no borders. Personally, we may not be able to reach an immense number of people in any other way, but all of us – each in our own place – can do more than we think.

Many people in the world lack material goods, and also (sometimes even more harshly) suffer from loneliness, misunderstanding, the absence of genuine affection. As Leo XIV said: “There are many forms of poverty: the poverty of those who lack material means of subsistence, the poverty of those who are socially marginalized and lack the means to give voice to their dignity and abilities, moral and spiritual poverty, cultural poverty, the poverty of those who find themselves in a condition of personal or social weakness or fragility, the poverty of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom” (Dilexi te, no. 9).

Let us recall what our Father also wrote to us so many years ago: “Our mission aims at reducing the number of ignorant and destitute people, and we will try to contribute to this everywhere” (Letter 15, no. 193). Thanks be to God, so many people – including many in Opus Dei – carry out social assistance and educational activities in particularly needy areas all over the world. Moreover, we all try to contribute personally to this immense task through our prayer, through our work done with a spirit of service, and with whatever material help we can provide.

This attitude in the face of the needs of others is a requirement of something essential for Christian life: charity, love for people, inseparable from love for God. “Realize,” St. Augustine said, “that you, who do not yet see God, will deserve to contemplate Him if you love your neighbor, for by loving your neighbor you purify your vision so that your eyes may behold God” (Treatise on the Gospel of St. John, 17, 7-9). And we know very well that our “neighbor” is every human being.

Your Father blesses you with all his affection.