For a “today” that builds tomorrow

We soon found out that the best option was to start with a secretarial school, so I went to speak with the principal of the best secretarial school in Nairobi (for Europeans). When she learned that we were thinking of admitting African girls she couldn´t believe it. “What?” she exclaimed,“they don´t know English! I went away feeling a bit deflated, but knowing that we would go ahead... Tags: Kenya

A real passion for making Jesus Christ known

St Josemaria recalled that God’s children have to have a “priestly soul”, meaning we have to try and grow our friendship with Jesus Christ and follow his example. We have, he said, to aim to bring other people to God, and turn the whole of our lives into an opportunity to love him. The Mass is where all of that is done most fully and perfectly, which is why St Josemaria used to call it the “centre and root of the interior life”. Tags: Apostolate, Madrid, Priesthood, Priestly soul, Pictures and statues of St Josemaria Escriva

God is my Father!

This tour of some streets in Madrid highlights some events in St Josemaria’s life. A notable aspect was his experience of divine sonship – the fact of having God for his Father – expressed in trust in God’s providence, simplicity in talking to God, a deep sense of human dignity and of fraternity, real Christian love for the world and everything created by God, serenity, and optimism. Tags: Abandonment to God, Divine sonship, Madrid, sick

Opus Dei’s First Steps in Madrid

On finishing the spiritual retreat during which he had received the light to found Opus Dei, St Josemaria returned to his activities in Madrid. At the same time, he started to look for people with whom he could begin the new apostolate that God had entrusted to him. This new foundation took first place in his heart, head and actions. Tags: Founding of Opus Dei, History, Madrid

St Josemaria Escriva in Madrid: the founding of Opus Dei

Fr Josemaria Escriva moved to Madrid in April 1927. He once said, “It was in Madrid that I received my mission, and for that and other reasons I feel that I have full right to call myself ‘a person of Madrid’.” Tags: Founding of Opus Dei, Madrid

St Josemaria’s final moments

Thursday, June 26, St Josemaria celebrated Mass at eight in the morning. At nine-thirty, he went by car to Castel Gandolfo, where he had a get-together with his daughters, in the living room. About twenty minutes into it, he started to feel ill. After a little while, since he was still not feeling well, he took his leave. They entered Villa Tevere a few minutes before noon. He headed for the room he usually worked in “I don’t feel well,” he said in a weak voice to Fr Javier. And at that point he collapsed Tags: Death, June 26, Priestly soul

Saint Josemaría’s love for the Eucharist

Bishop Javier Echevarría

Saint Josemaría often talked about the need for Christian life to be essentially Eucharistic. He summed it up in a classic phrase: having a “Eucharistic soul”. Tags: Love of God, Eucharist, Javier Echevarria, Piety, Priesthood

January 1938, from Burgos, Spain: "If you need me, just call me"

Andrés Vázquez de Prada

After escaping to the other side of Spain and staying briefly in Pamplona, St Josemaria settled in Burgos. From there, in conditions of great deprivation, in a country devastated by war, he carried out an intense apostolate until March 27, the day on which he moved to Madrid. Tags: Spanish Civil War, Burgos

Tracing the history of the Church in the footsteps of St Josemaría

Places in Rome (1)

St Josemaria is a good guide to the many places in Rome that he himself visited to draw faith from the witness of the early Christians. The aim of the articles gathered under the heading Places in Rome is to reveal the main traces of the history of the Catholic Church that are to be found in Rome, the Eternal City. Tags: Church, Places in Rome, Pope

St Peter’s Basilica

Places in Rome (2)

“Peter is here.” On arriving in Rome for the first time, how the Founder of Opus Dei must have longed to go into St Peter’s Basilica to pray before the tomb of St Peter! He spent the whole of his first night in Rome praying on the balcony of the apartment where he was staying with other people of Opus Dei, in the Piazza della Città Leonina, with his eyes fixed on the lighted rooms of the Holy Father in the Vatican nearby. Tags: Church, Places in Rome, Pope, Early Christians