Prayer and the Fundamental Structure of the Faith

In the years that bring us to the second millennium, the Church is called to the great task of the new evangelization. The impulse of the Holy Spirit leads it by a road plagued with challenges: the Gospel must be announced not just to those who ignore it but also to those who try to forget it or have already done so. It has to be proclaimed without ceasing to bring us to deepen our commitment to Christ. For the new evangelization, the evangelizers themselves have to be evangelized. The encounter with Christ and full adherence to His Person are based on faith, initium salutis. If faith is a gift from God, it is important to prepare for it and resolve the doubts that are an obstacle to receiving it, and once adhering to this faith, we must not cease, with the help of God, to believe in it.

So, in our preparation for the tasks that are offered to us, the living examples of a lived faith and holiness are an essential aid. And one such example is a saint of our day, St. Josemaría Escrivá. Reflecting on certain aspects of his spirituality, we will try to draw some applicable conclusions to the apostolate of faith in the context of the new evangelization.

Steps: to be resigned to the will of God; to conform to the will of God; to want the will of God; to love the will of God.¹

And before:

Resignation? … Conformity? Love the will of God!²

Meditating on faith in the spirituality of St. Escrivá, we can start with this thought that, with few lapidary formulas, describes the path of holiness lived by the saint himself and taught to his sons and daughters. Indeed, his own life is an example of a constant availability to the will of God, sought with all his soul.

When this will takes the form of the Cross and draws from him wailings that might seem reproaches to God, immediately, with a sort of spontaneous reflex, he responds with total acceptance so that the deep peace that dwells in him is never destroyed.

According to the spiritual tradition rooted in the heart of the Gospel and illustrated particularly by the Way of Perfection of Teresa of Avila, the love of the Father finds its concrete and everyday realization in the search of God’s will, the object of the third petition of the Our Father: thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And, indeed, the will of God is communicated to us through the moral conscience enlightened by faith and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The judgments of conscience later remit the specific actions that we must carry through or, otherwise, avoid. However, if you attach to the word “action” such a broad meaning that it also includes internal attitudes, conscience asks us often for a reaction, an acceptance of the events that make up the fabric of our existence and that we have chosen or, on the contrary, we would have preferred to reject. To each individual are presented events or outside demands that repel or cost him much. This set of circumstances that do not depend on us and are integrated into our lives should be forewarned with the eyes of faith.

Which leads us to a triple certainty: God’s Providence is omnipotent, embraces all things; all things work for good for those who love God (see Rom 8:28); and the Father’s will is a will that loves us.

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (see 1 Thess 4:3). Sanctification, in turn, passes by way of participation in the Cross of Jesus.

Union with God is a filial relationship in the Only Son; and Christian prayer, which expresses this relationship with the Father, has as its source the depths of the same Holy Spirit, according to the puzzling words of Paul to the Romans and Galatians: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. In...