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Picture of St Josemaria in Vilnius (Lithuania)

October 23, 2008

Tags: Founding of Opus Dei, Pictures and statues of St Josemaria Escriva
A solemn Mass was celebrated in Vilnius on October 6, 2008 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of Opus Dei. The Mass was offered by Cardinal Audrys Juozas Bačkis, Archbishop of Vilnius, in the Church of All Saints in the Lithuanian capital.

Before the end of the celebration, Cardinal Bačkis blessed a picture of St Josemaria which had been placed in a side-chapel for the veneration of the faithful. The prayer for blessing the statue encourages the faithful to revere pictures and statues of Saints so that, on looking at them, we may be inspired to follow the example of their actions and their holiness.

At the end of the ceremony the Cardinal was presented with a bouquet of flowers by a family on behalf of all the faithful present, to congratulate him for the twentieth anniversary of his Episcopal ordination. Then a relic of St Josemaria was exposed so that those who wished could come up and kiss it. Many of the congregation came forward to venerate the relic and then went to the chapel where the picture was for a few minutes’ prayer.

The picture was painted by a Lithuanian artist especially for the church. The parish priest, Fr. Vytautas Rapalis, hopes to place a portrait of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on the other side of the same side-chapel, “because,” he says, “St Josemaria and Mother Teresa are two highly representative twentieth-century saints.”