‘Do it for God, and do it well for God’

Matthew McBride wouldn’t go so far as to say that he loves doing homework.

But when he looks at it through the lens of sanctifying work — that by doing his assignments to the best of his ability, he gives glory to God — it does take on a different meaning.

“I enjoy it much more than whenever I didn’t have this outlook on it,” said Matthew, a freshman at St. Dominic High School. “…If we turn our work into a prayer, do it for God, and do it well for God, it turns something that is at first undesirable into something that is of great value, and it’s not something to be avoided.”

The practice of offering every ordinary action to God has been nurtured through Matthew’s involvement in the Wespine Study Center, an Opus Dei center for men in Kirkwood. The mission of Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Church, is to contribute to the evangelizing mission of the Church by fostering among Christians a life fully consistent with their faith, in the middle of the ordinary circumstances of their lives, and especially through the sanctification of their work.

Matthew has been attending programs at Wespine since he was in second grade and is now part of The Elements, a five-year program for boys in grades 8-12 that helps them grow in faith and personal character.

The monthly meetings start around the dinner table, sharing food and trading stories before heading downstairs to the chapel for eucharistic adoration, guided reflection and confession. Then, the boys split up into three age groups for a lesson, a guest speaker or a group discussion.

Outside of the monthly gatherings, each boy meets with an assigned mentor to talk about the past month and set goals for the upcoming month. The goals can be simple: Lorenzo Buitrago, a sophomore at Clayton High School, is working on getting out of bed as soon as his alarm goes off in the morning.

It might seem like a small thing. But “it’s building a sense of responsibility. Because often, if you don’t wake up on time, you’ll hit the snooze button, and then you’ll find yourself being 10 minutes late,” Lorenzo said. “So it’s that responsibility of, I’m late because I chose to try to be comfortable instead of waking up on time as I should have. And that responsibility could be applied to anything; and if you practice it, you get better at it.”

Tom Herman, an English teacher at Whitfield High School, has been mentoring teens since 2018. He helps his mentees talk through their various commitments and priorities in school, extracurricular activities, friends and family relationships, he said.

“Everything has its place, so trying to figure out where those commitments stand in relation to each other,” he said. “As best I can, I just help them lay their own groundwork, because it’s their car, their ship, their life.”

As Lorenzo looks to college and adulthood, the mentoring has given him an example of what it looks like to be an adult actively living out the Catholic faith, he said.

“It’s like, this is a normal person, where a big part of their life is their faith, and it is possible and it can work,” Lorenzo said. “It doesn’t have to be, be religious or have a life. You can do both. And that’s something that I think is important to realize, especially in this day and age.”

Sam Faust, a senior at Saint Louis Priory School, has been part of The Elements since eighth grade. At a recent gathering, he joined the other seniors for a discussion on evolution and what makes humans different, part of the senior series aimed at developing a deeper understanding of various intellectual concepts before college.

Sam also regularly participates in Wespine’s monthly service activities, which include visits to hospitals, senior living facilities and other vulnerable or lonely groups. He recalled the first time he visited people who were unhoused and living on the street.

“It was less of just bringing them things to help out — we did that, and then we also just sat and talked with them for like 25 minutes, and it helped me appreciate experiencing someone who is homeless on a more personal level, rather than being removed from them,” he said.

Upstairs, the sophomores and juniors heard a presentation from Dr. Michael Dixon, one in a series of career talks from professionals who integrate their faith and their careers.

Joe Murphy invited his good friend and fellow Chesterton Academy of St. Louis sophomore Dominic Unseth to join The Elements program last year. Both boys participated in a service trip to South Dakota this summer, where they volunteered with Red Cloud Renewable, a renewable energy nonprofit on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation.

The manual labor they did for the nonprofit was impactful, Joe said, but the trip also helped him realize that simple actions like helping cook dinner for the group or quietly taking out the trash can be acts of love, too, that extend even after returning home.

“It’s a spirit of service, being oriented not toward yourself but helping others,” he said.

While The Elements program is led by lay members of the Opus Dei community, Father Mike Giesler, a priest of Opus Dei, serves as the chaplain of high school activities. He celebrates Mass, hears confessions and meets regularly with the boys for spiritual direction.

“I try to give them the spirit of Opus Dei, which is to find Christ in ordinary work,” Father Giesler said. “That’s what Opus Dei really means — ordinary work — that you needn’t make any special vow or become a religious to find Christ, and actually, to become a saint.”

He’s glad to offer the sacraments and provide a priestly presence, but the example of the lay leaders is especially important to the boys, he said.

“A lay man is praying; a lay man says the Rosary. A lay man is trying to be really good and virtuous and help poor people. That’s what’s really important, because they see someone like them who’s really trying to be a good Catholic, and that’s something you can’t express in words,” he said. “I can give 1,000 homilies, but one good example is worth 1,000 homilies.”

One of the most important lessons he tries to impart on the boys is to “give God priority in your day,” he said. “I know you’re very busy, but God is not a cheater — He will pay you back 100 fold for everything you give to Him.”

He recalled an interview that St. Josemaria Escriva gave in the 1960s, where he was asked the purpose of Opus Dei centers: “May they look for Christ, may they find Christ, may they love Christ.”

“If we can fulfill those three things, we’ve succeeded OK,” Father Giesler said.

Opus Dei

Opus Dei’s mission is to contribute to the evangelizing mission of the Church by fostering among Christians a life fully consistent with their faith, in the middle of the ordinary circumstances of their lives, and especially through the sanctification of their work. Work, family life and the ordinary events of each day are opportunities for drawing close to Christ and making Him known to others.

Opus Dei was founded in 1928 in Spain by St. Josemaria Escriva and is a personal prelature of the Church. Personal prelatures exist to carry out specific pastoral missions in the Church and are part of the jurisdictional, hierarchical structure of the Church. There are two Opus Dei centers located in Kirkwood: Wespine Study Center for men, and Lindell Study Center for women.

For more information, visit wespine.org or lindellstudycenter.org.