‘ABOVE all, what we need are saints. Looking at the state the world finds itself in today. May I remind you that what nations need most today is sainthood. We need saints. We need saints above everything else. This is the greatest need of the present world,” said Saint Pope John Paul VI to an audience in Saint Peter’s Square.
Saint Josemaria Escriva saw the need for saintly people when he founded the Opus Dei (Work of God) in 1928. But they would not come from the ranks of Christians martyred for their faith. Too, not only from those with religious badges, cassocks or habits, but from people in all walks of life engaged in different human activities. Conscious of their own wretchedness, they trust God and work for their salvation and exemplify how to be good Christians according to the rules of Mother Church.
We are all destined to be saints. This charism of the Opus Dei on holiness has truly become within everyone’s reach.
Earth is not our home. Heaven is.
“Go, therefore, and make disciples from all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to fulfill all that I have commanded you. I am with you always until the end of the world,” is an often quoted lines on evangelization in the gospel of Matthew.
‘Lord, yes to Your will’
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer was born on January 9, 1902, in Barbastro, Spain, to Jose and Dolores Escriva. At an early age, he learned his daily prayers and how to pray the rosary, alms giving, frequent confession and Holy Communion, too.
Seeing the bare footprints left by a monk in the snow when he was 16 years old left reflections he had to decipher. He strongly felt that God wanted him to do an important task.
Then-Pope John Paul II, in the Decree of Canonization, cited this experience as first inkling of God’s call when the young Escriva recited two aspirations: “Domine ut videam [Lord that I might see], and Domina ut sit [Lady that it might be].”
He studied to be a priest in Logrono, then in Zaragosa and was installed deacon on December 20, 1924. On March 28, 1925, he was ordained as a priest and briefly assigned in a rural place in Perdiguera.
In 1927 he went to Central University of Madrid to take a doctorate in civil law. He was also employed as private tutor and chaplain of Santa Isabel Foundation.
On October 2, 1928, the Feast of Guardian Angels, he had a spiritual retreat. On that day, the Opus Dei was born. It has the theme, “Universality of the Call to full union with Christ,” the call to be holy in one’s secular work; that there are different roads to heaven, nourished and strengthened through the sacraments. The Opus Dei charism brings God to one’s place of work, where God is proclaimed through one’s words and actions. Jesus’ teachings on love and service are then exemplified.
In the impressionable words of Saint Escriva: “To be holy is not easy, but it is not difficult either. To be holy is to be a good Christian, to resemble Christ. The more closely a person resembles Christ, the more Christian he is, the more he belongs to Christ, the holier he is.”
The Spanish Civil War in 1936 to 1939 is considered as one of the most violent periods of religious persecution when Escriva exercised his priestly functions with dedication and heroism.
Holy Spirit wills
On February 14, 1943, while celebrating Mass, he received a “new fundamental grace to establish the Priestly Society of Holy Cross,” which made it possible for “Opus Dei lay faithful to be ordained as priests.” A theologian commented that again, the “Master of Christian Living,” said yes to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Father Enzo Lodi in Saints of the Roman Calendar commented that the incorporation resulted in a “seamless cooperation in the apostolic work possible, an essential feature of the foundational charism of the Opus Dei.”
The Priestly Society also accepted diocesan priests as supernumeraries or associates while remaining clergy in their own dioceses.
On June 16, 1950, Pope Pius XII approved Opus Dei and the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross as institutions of political rights. Escriva was also appointed Honorary Domestic Prelate by the pope, which allowed him to use the title monsignor.
Miraculously cured of a serious form of diabetes in 1954, which he endured for more than a decade, he continued his studies in the Pontifical Lateral University of Rome and finished his doctorate in Theology.
During the Second Vatican Council held in Rome from 1962 to 1965, Monsignor Escriva discussed the universal call to holiness and the importance of lay people in the mission of the church.
To Jesus through Mary
After entering his workroom on June 26, 1975, Escriva gave an “affectionate glance” to a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” slumped on the floor and died. He was 73.
By this time, Father Lodi, wrote that Opus Dei has spread to 30 nations on six continents. It has 84,000 lay members and 1,800 priests in 60 countries.
The founder of Opus Dei, known for this sentient quote: “Sanctify your daily life, and sanctify yourself in and through that daily life,” was beatified on May 17, 1992, and canonized on October 6, 2002, by now Saint Pope John Paul II.
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.