The Norms of Piety
The daily and weekly norms of Opus Dei's plan of life, gathered in the order they fall through the day — sanctity in ordinary work, built out of small things kept every day.
Opus Dei calls the practices of its plan of life norms: not a wish-list of devotions but a fixed rule, kept whether or not the day cooperates. Its foundation is divine filiation — you are a child of God, so there is no sacred hour and secular hour, only one life offered whole — and its method is smallness: the heroic minute at the alarm, a pause for the Angelus at noon, three Hail Marys before sleep.
Nothing here binds under sin. But the substance is meant to be defended: Mass and the two half-hours of mental prayer are the load-bearing walls, and a norm that drops out every day is a signal to take to your director, not an accident. The order below is the order of the day, from the first sound of the alarm to the holy water at the bedside.
What is proper to each person — the book for spiritual reading, the form of morning offering customary where you are — is settled with your director, not by a list.
The Morning
The heroic minute and everything that follows from it. The day is really won the night before, by keeping a fixed hour for lights-out.
Through the Day
The norms that break the working day open — a pause at noon, a brief stop before the tabernacle, and the vocal prayer proper to the Work.
Reading & Formation
Two distinct norms, not one: a few minutes of the New Testament itself, and ten or fifteen of a solid spiritual book. Nourishment, not volume.
The Marian Norms
Five decades vocally each day and the mysteries contemplated — and the three Hail Marys that close the night.
The Night
The general examination: thanksgiving, light, the day reviewed, contrition, and one concrete resolution for tomorrow.
Weekly
Beyond the daily norms: the sacrament of confession each week, even without grave matter.