Opus Dei

Throughout his life, Christ made clear what his Church would be like. The Church is the community of all those who have received the regenerating grace of the Spirit by which they become children of God. All the baptised share in the common priesthood; they are called to bring men and women into a relationship with God. The ecumenical movement is an ecclesial goal that seeks visible unity among Christians in the one Church founded by Christ.

The Holy Spirit acts in the Church through the sacraments. We often say that the Holy Spirit is like the soul of the Church because He performs in it some of the functions that the soul performs in the body. He vivifies it, impels it to carry out its mission, unifies it in love. He is the interior teacher who speaks in our heart, who reveals to us the mysteries of God, who helps us discern what is pleasing to God.

A recollection is a “mini-retreat,” a few hours of quiet prayer when we look at our lives in God's presence. This guide can help us spend an hour or two in loving conversation with God, right where we are.

The good news of salvation requires that the Church be present in the world. The Gospel is a proclamation of the transformation of the world according to God’s plan. The Church’s social doctrine is part of social moral theology, which derives from a Christian conception of the human being and political life. The Church’s social morality teaches the primacy of spiritual and moral goods over material goods.

Jesus freely accepted the physical and moral sufferings imposed by the injustice of sinners. The Cross of Christ is, above all, the manifestation of the generous love of the Trinity for mankind, a love that saves us. The mystery of the Cross, present in the sacraments, leads us to a new life. Through the resurrection of Jesus, God inaugurated a new life, the life of the world to come, and made it available to mankind.

Jesus is the only Son of God who became man for our salvation. He is perfect God and perfect man. He took on our material and bodily condition, subject to many needs, in order to save us from our sins. Mary is truly the Mother of God because the One she conceived as man, through the work of the Holy Spirit, is the eternal Son of the Father.

Every human being is a person from the very fact of being human. The equality of persons must be expressed in respect for each individual and for groups. Discrimination, racism or xenophobia are unjust. Marriage is “conjugality,” it is a bond of “co-possession.” The Church requires that people with homosexual tendencies be welcomed with respect, compassion and refinement.

The loss of the sense of sin has led to the loss of the awareness of the need for salvation, and hence to the forgetfulness of God through indifference. But Christ’s triumph on the Cross is an expression of his mercy towards us, an assurance that “love is stronger than sin.” Mercy is the fundamental law that should guide the heart of every person when looking at a brother or sister encountered on life’s journey.

God has given human beings dominion over the world and has commanded them to exercise this authority. Care for the environment is a moral duty for each individual and for all humanity. Ecology is one of the areas in which dialogue between Christians and the followers of other religions is particularly important, so as to bring about mutual cooperation.

Jesus sent the apostles into the whole world to “preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15) The content of that Gospel is what Jesus said and did in his earthly life. The four accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the result of a long process of composition. The Gospels are not books that present Jesus as a figure of the past: they are a living word, and in them Jesus is always alive.