I belong to the generation whose childhood, youth and early adulthood were spent in the Soviet Union era

Irina Sapronova, Lecturer in Russian at Kazakhstan National University

March 2, 2009

Tags: Passionately Loving the World, Opus Dei, Supernatural outlook In order to understand my generation (and not only mine) you have to bear in mind that we had been robbed of the possibility of learning about God, being with him and believing in him.

Although my parents were Christian Orthodox, for reasons familiar to everyone they could not even have their children baptized. My two sisters and I were baptized as adults in the 1990s, when people were at last able to follow God freely and without fear. I think my story is a very common one, and hundreds of people in the different countries of the former Soviet Union could say the same.

But what followed, the real turning-point in my life, took place when I met people of Opus Dei on my path. People who have had a great influence on my life, changing it completely. I think this was no accident, but the Will of God.

Something that made an especially deep impression on me was the homily given by the Founder of Opus Dei, Father Josemaría Escrivá, at the Mass he celebrated on October 8, 1967 on the campus of the University of Navarre. The homily is printed under the title “Passionately Loving the World”. I read it all in one go, unable to stop. It was like a breath of fresh air in the heavily-charged atmosphere in which we were living. “... the Christian vocation consists of making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my sons and daughters, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives...”

It seemed so simple, but why had this simple, obvious thought never occurred to me before? In Opus Dei I have seen real people of flesh and blood, who live in harmony with God without leaving the world, who are fully immersed in the world’s affairs and problems, for example in their work and study. And I have come to understand that I can live like that too.

I’ve read all the books by Josemaría Escrivá that have been published in Russian, and in them I have found what was missing in my life. I have found the answer to the question “How should I live my life?”

And now that I am a Co-operator of Opus Dei, I have realized that I have the spiritual help and prayer of all the members of Opus Dei, that I myself have to do apostolate too, without shutting myself up in my own little world. I have realized that I can’t content myself with what I have already achieved, but that people always need to grow and continue developing spiritually, going forward without ceasing. As Josemaría wrote in The Way, “When you live a supernatural life, God will give you the third dimension: height, and with it, perspective, weight and volume.”

When I need help I often appeal to Josemaría’s intercession. I look at his photo and I think that he can hear me and will help me without fail, as he did a short time ago when I had a serious operation.

Now I can say with conviction that I have found what I was searching for without knowing it. I have found God. For me, God is like the air I need to breathe. And in Opus Dei I have learned that “We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things.” To finish off, all I can say is that finally I am happy.