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Updates to October 6, 2002
October 5, 2006
St Josemaría’s canonization - October 6 2002
From the U.S.
My wife and I have 10 children and have both been supernumerary members of Opus Dei for about 12 years.
We were able, through the grace of God to scrape together enough resources to make the pilgrimage to Rome, along with our eldest daughter, for the canonization of St. Josemaria in 2002.
The event was overwhelming in two primary ways. One was the dignified piety of the enormous crowd during the Holy Mass. Even though there were a half million people in St. Peter's Square, you could hear a pin drop at the moment of the consecration. The other notable characteristic of the event was the universal fraternity. I met people from Asia, South America, Europe and Africa and yet it seemed to be a big family reunion for the Church. Especially given the then recent difficulties in the Catholic Church in the US, the canonization affirmed for me the universal call to holiness and the enormity of the Catholic faith in the world. It also called to mind my own smallness and the importance of offering every detail of my life and my day towards loving God and lighting up the pathways around me with joy and simplicity.
In the final analysis the trip to Rome, which was the first for my wife and myself, helped me to see that I am a citizen of Rome and I will take my natural Catholic identity with me wherever I go with a much more concretized awareness from that time on.
Michael King
From Spain
John Paul II gave my daughter Maria a kiss on the forehead
I took my husband and my three-month-old daughter, Maria, to the Canonization of the Founder of Opus Dei. My husband went by coach as a teacher of his school in Seville, with a number of pupils and other teachers. I went by plane with my baby daughter and other people from Seville. Our Father granted me a favour at Seville airport, because we couldn’t find my daughter’s passport and then we found it and were able to go through. In Rome I was with my husband the whole time, except for the actual ceremony, when I was in the front section with my daughter in her baby-carriage. The volunteers were very helpful, especially when I had to go to the first-aid posts to warm up Maria’s feeding-bottle every three hours. But the best part of the journey, apart from the canonization itself, was that John Paul II gave my daughter Maria a kiss on the forehead, because I managed to get close to the Pope-mobile and Bishop Javier Echevarría helped me to lift up my baby for the Pope to kiss her.
Rocío Molina León
My life is divided into two: before October 6 and after October 6
It was just 33 days after my Maturità classica exam, and I’d been living in the hall of residence for only a fortnight. My classes at University were going to begin on the seventh. I’d often been to Rome, but I’d never managed to see our dear Pope John Paul II. I decided to go to Rome mainly for that purpose: videre Petrum, to see Peter! But I also saw “the rest of the Church”. It was really moving to see John Paul II so close, he was so impressive in spite of his age… like Michaelangelo’s “Moses”. But how can I describe that deep, serene joy underlying the excitement of the crowd? The filial love that all those thousands had for “my” beloved Pope left me dumbfounded, it was something quite out of the ordinary. You could see it was a united people, truly founded on Peter. And the more I saw of Opus Dei, the more I saw how united it was to the whole Church and to every man and woman on earth. I felt the absolute certainty that Opus really was Dei, that it was God’s, is God’s and will be God’s. And I realized that the slanders I’d heard about the Prelature were nonsense. The only thing that Opus Dei people do is spread love for Jesus Christ, in union with the Pope, through Mary. All of this is something I “touched”, saw, lived, from the corner of the Via della Conciliazzione and Via Pio XII ! And so I like to say that my life can be divided into two parts: before that October 6 and after it. Because that encounter with Josemaría, with his sons, and with my Pope changed my life and set me once and for all on the path of the Gospel. With unconditional faithfulness to Pope John Paul II and to his successor Benedict!
Alexander Petrachi
From Mexico
A radical change after the TV program
Unfortunately I couldn’t get to Rome for the Canonization, but I watched the whole ceremony on TV from home. I have to say that my parents did not accept Opus Dei and I couldn’t get them to look at anything connected with it – books, prayer-cards, etc. I taped the Mass of the Canonization, and when my parents watched the video they changed radically. Now they not only respect the Christian formation I receive in an Opus Dei center, but they give out prayer-cards of St Josemaría to relatives and friends and encourage them to pray through his intercession. There can be no doubt that I owe my parents’ conversion to my Father St Josemaría.
Monica L
Another year of thanksgiving since October 6, 2002
I often call to mind October 6, 2002, when Pope John Paul II canonized St Josemaría. From that time on my devotion to this “Saint of everyday life” has grown steadily. I ask him for all sorts of big and little favors! Another year has come and gone, of thanksgiving to God for the abundant gifts he has given the Church through St Josemaría’s fidelity.
Maria.
Italy, 2005
October 6, 2002 is a day that is present in every moment of my life
The favour that I received was in Rome on October 6, 2002. At that time I was 24 and a student. I prayed that I could attend Saint Josemaría’s canonization from a point where I would not get distracted. I had decided to place all my intentions there: professional, the family I wanted to form, etc. Everything.
Obviously I didn’t tell anyone about my intention. Anyway, a friend of mine who lives in Rome telephoned me in September to say that he’d got me a ticket in Sector 4. Everyone who was at the canonization knows what a big crowd it was, and what a ticket like that meant. I was delighted: someone up there had heard my prayer. I began to say prayers of thanksgiving. But the best was yet to come.
When I got to Rome from Milan on October 5 I went to my friend’s place. Next morning we went to the canonization together. My friend drove us to St Peter’s and round to the back. We went through a checkpoint and, to my surprise, I found that we were in the Vatican. I asked him what we were doing there. He didn’t answer, and I said nothing more, but waited.
Without telling me, my friend had got us tickets near the rows of officials, between the choir and the Holy Father. When I realized this I got goose-bumps.
I followed the whole ceremony just about from “inside”, because I was behind the Holy Father.
I have no doubt that Saint Josemaría saw fit to intercede for me to obtain the grace I had prayed for.
That day, in every detail, is present in every moment of my life. From then on I haven’t stopped giving thanks and believing more strongly than ever.
Federico Leone
What I want is to change my life
Before I set off for Rome for Saint Josemaría’s canonization, someone asked me, “Have you thought of what to ask Saint Josemaría for in Rome?” I hadn’t actually thought of anything. The firm I worked for at that time was a multinational consultancy service, with a corporate culture that was very strong and very competitive. I was at a crossroads professionally speaking: I either had to get promotion to a really high level, or I would be relegated and heading for exit in the short to medium term. What’s more, our sales were low, and the pressure was on.
To begin with I thought of asking Saint Josemaría to help me get my promotion, which would give me an assured position plus economic stability. But I knew that if I stayed with that firm I would never be able to spend the time I should with my family and friends – at that stage I was spending less and less time with them. So I thought of praying to find another job, but as my salary was above the market average, I felt that in a different firm I wouldn’t be able to earn enough to give our children the security and education we wanted for them. So I asked Saint Josemaría: “You’ll see what’s best. But what I want is to change my life.”
My wife, who was expecting our eighth child, and I went to Rome, where we lived through some unforgettable days. When we got back I went straight to South Africa on a project for my firm. The weeks went by very quickly and I got back to Spain at the end of November. The project had gone very well, and I came home happy with the way my career was going. But the very first day back at the office in Madrid I was given one month’s notice to leave the firm. My first thought was: “Well, it looks like Saint Josemaría got moving, because he really has started to change my life.”
After two or three weeks’ negotiations with my old firm I obtained a sizeable redundancy payment. At the same time I was looking for a new job. After several applications and interviews, just before the last interview in the selection process for what was to be my new firm, I had a coffee, and when I went to pay I found a prayer-card of Saint Josemaría. On the back I read something I’d often read before, but just then it took on a vivid meaning for me: “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.”
Then I prayed to him very intensely: “We have to finish the round, this is the last interview to settle the change in my life.” The interview was successful, and a month later I was at work with the new firm. Since then my life has had a much better work-family balance. What’s more, my pay is higher than in my last job.
I really did change my life.
J. J. R.
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