The Work in The Gulf: Quiet, Persevering & Thriving

For some time now, I have been weighing the odds of writing about my experience as an Opus Dei Cooperator in Dubai.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever written anything at length about this part of my life.

When I first started receiving formation, my newfound enthusiasm had to be constantly tempered by a firm counsel that my being a Cooperator does not make me better than everyone else, no matter how much I think it has bettered me.

But I thought that, given the recent turn of events, I could make an exception.

Without delving in details, by the time I moved to Dubai, I had known Opus Dei for 3 years.

One of my reservations about coming to live here was the fact that there aren’t any Study Centers in the whole of the U.A.E.

I’d spent a good part of the last 3 years in a Study Center back home.

All of a sudden, I was faced with the prospect of long empty weekends – no volunteer work, no out-of-town trips, and no more kitchen raids.

It was a small comfort to know that my new place was a 10-minute bus ride to St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

But what ultimately cheered me was finding out that there are a handful of active but discreet Members living under people’s noses.

Fast forward to a few months (and socially awkward attempts on my part to make friends) later, the coordinator of activities surprised us with news that the Members in Spain planned on featuring the Members in the Gulf Region in time for The Founder’s Feast Day.

The initial round of interviews was conducted via email, and the responses were woven together in a 3-part Spanish article published in OpusDei.Org three days after this year’s Feast Day.

And I made the cut.

“Nicholette, 23, left her job as a teacher and is now a secretary for a group of companies. ‘I wanted to leave my comfort zone, to explore who I am and what I want to do in the future.'”

“Nicholette remembers the first time she attended Mass at St. Mary’s. “The Church in Dubai is truly Catholic, universal, where all kinds of people are welcomed and where there is mutual respect for all the Faithful.”

“And in humility, patience, trust,” adds Nicholette, “I realized the importance of living each day with holy abandonment. Today I have a relatively well-paid job and a roof under my head, but tomorrow I could lose everything.”

I had mixed feelings about the, uh, “special mention” (and I apologize for the lack of a better word).

On the outset, it was very flattering to the human vanity.

But this is not my last semester in college where I got published in a national newspaper (and consequently got a sweet 1.0 final grade for essay writing class)

— No. This is something deeply personal to me, which brings me back to square one: Weighing the odds.

And what tipped the scale in favor of writing about it was that, given the choice of pride or false humility, pride — at least in this case —  was a tiny bit better.

Pride is a matter between my conscience and my God, and I would very much like to believe that everyone else outside that sphere can benefit from knowing about Opus Dei.

Opus Dei is composed of two Latin words. Opus means “work,” and Dei means “God.” Opus Dei means the “Work of God.”

St. Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei in 1928 under the divine inspiration that everybody is called to be a saint.

That you can be a saint in the middle of the world, in whatever station of life you are in.

That you can offer up your work as a form of prayer.

Or, simply put, Work = Prayer.

As in all quote-and-quote mysterious organizations, there are several misconceptions surrounding Opus Dei.

First of all, it is not an evil society of self-flagellating monks as Dan Brown famously (cough infamously) made it out to be.

In fact, there is no such thing as an Opus Dei monk, because monasticism is the 180-degree opposite of the central teaching of “sainthood in the middle of the world.”

I mean, of course you can be a saint as a contemplative (just look at the long roster of monastic saints in Church History!)

But you, O non-contemplative one, are equally called to be a saint.

You actually have a pretty good shot – and that’s rad (at least it was in Pre-Vatican II)!

Second, Opus Dei is not an elitist, Catholics-only club.

People of All Faiths are welcomed as Cooperators if they should ever find themselves drawn to the whole Work = Prayer equation, better translated into living, breathing charitable and educational institutions spanning across the globe.

For example, the Study Center I attended back home was right next to a vocational school for underprivileged ladies who were given scholarship programs for 2-year courses on hotel and restaurant management.

Which initially meant really free good food for me (hence the occasional kitchen raids).

But on a far deeper aspect, Cooperators – both Catholics and Non-Catholics alike – “cooperated” to make a seemingly abstract precept a concrete possibility.

“Work = Prayer” is all very well and good, but to build upon it a means of providing the less fortunate with not just daily sustenance but even a livelihood to break the cycle of poverty – that’s how people should know about Opus Dei.

A few weeks after the 3-part San Josemaría en el Golfo series was published, a short video entitled Celebración de la fiesta de San Josemaría en Dubai was also released.

The footage was shot on the Feast Day celebration in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church on 25 June.

The respondents came from all over Asia, Africa, America, and Europe, and we were all encouraged to speak in our native languages.

Doing the interview in Cebuano was the least of my worries.

I was (and still am) dealing with personal and spiritual struggles which initially kept me back from going fully on board.

Not to mention I had a big red zit that week.

It took a while to embrace the task as one of the Good Lord’s more unconventional ways of pushing me to do something good.

Because really, at the end of the day, it’s not my five seconds of fame at stake here.

Everything belongs to God.

It was an honor to be given the opportunity to lend a voice in the Opus Dei Gulf feature.

They are big ways to say that Christianity exists against all odds.

In a Muslim country where the act of converting Muslims into Christians is punishable by the Sharia Law, we are thriving here.