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Saint Josemaria
Quotations from Saint Josemaria

About the Opus Dei's message

Tags: Opus Dei, Holiness, Ordinary life
People have sometimes said that Opus Dei was organised internally along the lines of secret societies. What is to be thought of such a statement? Could you give us, with this in mind, your own idea of the message you wanted to address to men of our time when you founded the Work in 1928?


Ever since 1928 my preaching has been that sanctity is not reserved for the privileged few and that all the ways of the earth can be divine. The reason is that the spirituality of Opus Dei is based on the sanctification of ordinary work. The prejudice must be rejected that the ordinary faithful can do no more than limit themselves to helping the clergy in ecclesiastical apostolate. It should be remembered that to attain this supernatural end men need to be and to feel personally free with the freedom that Christ won for us.

To proclaim and to teach how to practise this doctrine I have never needed anything secret. The members of the Work detest secrecy because they are ordinary faithful, the same as anyone else. They do not change their status when they join Opus Dei. It would be repulsive for them to carry a sign on their back that said, 'Let it be known that I am dedicated to the service of God' . That would be neither lay nor secular. But those who associate with members of Opus Dei and are acquainted with them realise that they belong to the Work, for, even if they do not publicise their membership, neither do they hide it.


Extract from Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer: press interviews given in the 1960s , published by Scepter / Little Hills Press, 1993.