St Josemaría Escrivá

On October 2, 1928, Opus Dei was born. Saint Josemaría was making a retreat in Madrid, and while meditating on the notes of interior inspirations received from God over previous years, he suddenly “saw”—the term he would always use to describe the foundational experience—the mission the Lord entrusted to him: to open within the Church a new vocational path, dedicated to spreading the universal call to holiness and the practice of apostolate through the sanctification of ordinary daily work in the middle of the world, without altering one's state in life. A few months later, on February 14, 1930, the Lord made him understand that Opus Dei had to develop its apostolate among women as well.

From that moment, Saint Josemaría gave himself entirely to fulfilling his foundational mission: promoting among men and women from all social strata a personal commitment to follow Christ, to practice selfless love of neighbor, and to pursue holiness in ordinary daily circumstances. Conscious that the task entrusted to him was supernatural in origin, he laid its foundations upon deep prayer, penitence, joyful awareness of divine filiation, and indefatigable labor. People from all walks of life began to follow him—in particular university students, in whom he kindled a sincere desire to serve their fellow men and a burning yearning to “place Christ at the summit and heart of all human activities through work that is sanctified, sanctifying, and sanctifier.” This is the supreme aim he assigned to all initiatives of the faithful of Opus Dei: to elevate toward God, with the assistance of divine grace, every created reality, so that Christ may reign in all and over all; “to know Jesus Christ; to make Him known; to carry Him everywhere.” Thus one understands his joyful exclamation: “The divine paths of the earth have been opened!”

In 1933, Saint Josemaría promoted the DYA Academy, a university center fostering professional and spiritual formation. In 1934, he published—under the initial title Consideraciones Espirituales—the first edition of The Way, a spiritual classic that has since sold over four and a half million copies across 372 editions in 44 languages.

Opus Dei was taking its initial steps when, in July 1936, the Spanish Civil War erupted. In Madrid, fierce anti-religious persecution broke out, but Father Josemaría, despite mortal danger to his life, gave himself heroically to prayer, hidden priestly ministry, and sacramental assistance to those in hiding. In 1939, once the military conflict concluded, the Founder was able to give fresh apostolic momentum across the Iberian Peninsula, mobilizing university students and professionals to bring the love of Christ into all sectors of society and discover the grandeur of their Christian vocation. Concurrently, his reputation for holiness spread: numerous bishops invited him to preach spiritual retreats to diocesan clergy and Catholic Action organizations, requests echoed by superiors of major religious orders, to which he always generously acceded.

In 1941, while preaching a retreat to priests in Lleida, his beloved mother passed away—she who had so selflessly sustained the domestic apostolates of Opus Dei. At the same time, the Lord permitted severe misunderstandings and calumnies to be unleashed against him and the nascent Work. The Bishop of Madrid, Monsignor Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, gave him his most steadfast support, granting the first canonical approval of Opus Dei as a Pious Union. Saint Josemaría weathered these tribulations with serene prayer and supernatural cheerfulness, mindful of the words of Saint Paul: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12), exhorting his spiritual children never to harbor resentment, but always to forgive and forget: “to keep silent, to pray, to work, and to smile.”

In 1943, by a new foundational grace, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was founded within Opus Dei, enabling priests ordained from among the lay members of Opus Dei to be incardinated into its service. The organic unity and cooperation of lay faithful and ministerial priests in the single apostolate of Opus Dei is an essential hallmark of its charism, canonically confirmed by the Church in 1982 with its definitive erection as a personal prelature. On June 25, 1944, three engineers—among them Álvaro del Portillo, the Founder's first successor—were ordained to the priesthood.

The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross—intrinsically united to the Prelature of Opus Dei—also develops spiritual formation activities for diocesan priests and candidates for the priesthood in full harmony with local diocesan bishops. Diocesan priests may belong to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross while preserving entirely unaltered their incardination and obedience to their respective diocesan bishops.

As soon as the end of World War II approached, Saint Josemaría began preparing the expansion of apostolic work to other countries, insisting that “Jesus wants His Work from the very beginning to have a universal, Catholic heartbeat.” In 1946 he moved to Rome, in order to prepare the pontifical recognition of Opus Dei. On February 24, 1947, Pope Pius XII granted the Decretum laudis; and on June 16, 1950, definitive pontifical approval. From this date, non-Catholics and non-Christians could also be admitted as Cooperators of Opus Dei, assisting its apostolic undertakings through their professional labor, alms, and prayer.

The central headquarters of Opus Dei were established in Rome, to embody visibly the aspiration inspiring all its labors: “to serve the Church as the Church wishes to be served,” in steadfast communion with the Chair of Saint Peter and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. On numerous occasions, Popes Pius XII and John XXIII conveyed expressions of paternal affection and profound esteem; Pope Paul VI wrote in 1970 describing Opus Dei as a «living expression of the perennial youth of the Church».

This period of the Founder's life was likewise marked by great trials: severe physical suffering (he endured an acute, life-threatening form of diabetes for more than ten years until being miraculously cured in 1954), acute financial difficulties, and the complexities of worldwide apostolic development. Nevertheless, his face always radiated serene joy, for “true virtue is never sad or antipathetic, but lovably cheerful.” His unfailing good humor was an eloquent testimony of unconditional love for God's will.

“The world is small when Love is great”: the desire to illuminate the world with the light of Christ led him to welcome calls from bishops across the globe requesting the assistance of Opus Dei in evangelization. A vast array of educational and social initiatives blossomed: technical and vocational training schools, agricultural centers for farmworkers, universities, secondary schools, general hospitals, and medical dispensaries. These initiatives—a “shoreless sea,” as he loved to say—arising from the personal initiative of ordinary citizens striving to address concrete local needs with professional competence, welcome people of all races, creeds, and social conditions, harmonizing a clear Christian ethos with profound reverence for freedom of conscience.

When Pope John XXIII announced the convocation of the Second Vatican Council, Saint Josemaría prayed and asked countless people to pray “for the happy success of that great initiative that is the Second Vatican Council,” as he wrote in a 1962 letter. During the Council sessions, the solemn Magisterium affirmed essential dimensions of the spirit of Opus Dei: the universal call to holiness; professional work as a means of sanctification and apostolate; the legitimate freedom of lay Catholics in temporal matters; the Holy Mass as the “center and root” of the interior life, and the dignity of the lay vocation. Saint Josemaría met with numerous Council Fathers and periti, who saw in him an authentic precursor of the council's major insights. Deeply united to conciliar teachings, he diligently promoted their implementation through Opus Dei's worldwide educational and pastoral apostolates.

“From afar—there on the horizon—heaven and earth seem to merge. But do not forget that where heaven and earth truly meet is in your heart when you live as a child of God.” Saint Josemaría's preaching tirelessly underscored the absolute primacy of the interior life over organizational activity: “These world crises are crises of saints,” he wrote in The Way; and holiness always requires that harmonious synthesis of prayer, work, and apostolate which he termed “unity of life,” of which his own daily conduct offered the finest witness.

He was deeply convinced that to attain holiness in daily professional work, one must strive to be a soul of contemplative prayer, a soul of profound interior life. When lived in this supernatural spirit, “everything is prayer, everything can and should lead us to God, nourishing that continuous dialogue with Him from morning to night. Every honest work can be prayer, and every work that is prayer is apostolate.”

The secret of the extraordinary fruitfulness of his ministry lies precisely in the ardent interior life that made Saint Josemaría a contemplative in the middle of the world: an interior life nourished by daily prayer and the sacraments, manifesting itself in passionate love for the Holy Eucharist, in living the Mass as the center and root of his day, in tender devotion to the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and the Guardian Angels, and in unswerving loyalty to the Church and the Roman Pontiff.

In the final years of his life, the Founder of Opus Dei undertook extensive catechetical journeys across numerous countries in Europe and Latin America. Everywhere, he held simple, family-like gatherings—often attended by thousands of people—speaking tirelessly of God, the sacraments, Christian piety, the sanctification of daily work, and love for the Church and the Pope. On March 28, 1975, he celebrated his golden jubilee of priestly ordination. That day, his prayer encapsulated his entire life: “Looking back over fifty years, I am like a stammering child: I am beginning, re-beginning, in my daily interior struggle. And so it will be until the end of my days: always beginning again.”

On June 26, 1975, at midday, Saint Josemaría died in his workroom in Rome from cardiac arrest, collapsing beneath a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe to which he directed his final gaze. At that moment, Opus Dei was established across all five continents, with over 60,000 members of eighty nationalities. The published spiritual works of Saint Josemaría Escrivá (The Way, Holy Rosary, Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer, Christ Is Passing By, Friends of God, In Love with the Church, The Way of the Cross, Furrow, The Forge) have circulated in tens of millions of copies worldwide.

Following his death, thousands of faithful and hundreds of bishops petitioned the Holy See for the introduction of his cause of canonization. On May 17, 1992, in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, Pope Saint John Paul II beatified Josemaría Escrivá before an immense gathering of faithful. On September 21, 2001, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints unanimously confirmed the miraculous nature of a medical cure attributed to his intercession. On October 6, 2002, Pope John Paul II solemnly canonized Saint Josemaría Escrivá before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, proclaiming him “the saint of ordinary life.”

Further information: Saint Josemaría Escrivá ; books about Opus Dei