My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
On the 2nd of this month, we celebrated the anniversary of the founding of the Work, and on the 6th, the canonization of Saint Josemaría. Both dates help us to consider, with gratitude to God, the reality of our vocation to Opus Dei, with the consequent joyful personal responsibility to strive to be and do the Work in service of the Church.
Many of you will recall these words of our Father: “Just as a person’s identity stays the same throughout the different stages of growth – childhood, adolescence, maturity – so too in our development there is evolution. Otherwise we would be something dead. The kernel, the essence, the spirit, remains unchangeable, but expressions and ways of doing things evolve, ever old and new, ever holy” (Letter 27, no. 56).
It is above all in our personal apostolate, along with our effort to give a Christian orientation to every profession and human structure, that we must put personal creativity and initiative into our ways of speaking and acting. At the same time, we strive to be faithful to the norms and customs – of spiritual and apostolic life – that Saint Josemaría handed down to us.
Moreover, what our Father wrote about “expressions and ways of doing things evolve” has been, and continues to be, a reality throughout the century of the life of the Work. There are countless examples of this. Yet nothing changes in the spirit, nor in the content of the norms of piety and family customs. Naturally, not everything has the same importance, since our spirit contains both essential elements that flow from Christian life (first and foremost, the Eucharist) along with details that we might think our Father, as founder, could have dispensed with or replaced without altering the spirit. However, it is worth bearing in mind that these realities can be lived with great love and thus take on great value. And, furthermore, small customs also contribute to create and sustain a family tradition which, taken as a whole, is an important element of unity: unity today and living unity with the origin. In this context, and with obvious differences, I recall some words of Benedict XVI regarding the universal Church: “Tradition is the living river that links us to the origins, the living river in which the origins are ever present” (Benedict XVI, Audience, 26–IV–2006).
Sometimes we may feel tempted to fall into routine when living our practices of piety, customs, and means of formation. If we strive to do them with love, there will be no routine or inertia: love renews all things (cf. Rev 21:5). As Pope Leo XIV recently reminded us, “love is above all a way of looking at life and a way of living it” (Dilexi te, no. 120). Each day will then have a new radiance, and we will be able to rediscover the beauty of our spirit. Therefore, it is important to remember that we want to be faithful not only to something – a plan of life – but above all to someone: to Jesus Christ and, with Him and in Him, to our brothers and sisters and the whole world. From this perspective, we can understand our Father’s exhortation: “Be faithful, my dear children, be faithful! You are the continuity” (In Dialogue with the Lord, no. 79). The Work is in our hands, like an inheritance received, a treasure that we must collaborate in making fruitful and passing on, with God’s grace and with joy, despite our personal limitations and mistakes. And without becoming discouraged in the face of the external difficulties that come with the times and places in which we live.
Let us not fail to unite ourselves to the person and intentions of the Roman Pontiff, in these crucial moments for world peace.
Your Father blesses you with all his affection.
Rome, October 16, 2025