My journey to the Catholic Faith

Saida Wangeci, Kenya

May 20, 2013

As God’s plans are not human plans, I would like to reveal my journey to the Catholic Faith. My father was Muslim and my mother Catholic, they got married in the Catholic Church but my father preferred to continue his religion and made an agreement with my mother that she too would continue with her religion and the children would be Catholic. We are four in the family, and I am the youngest. The first three got baptized as babies and got through the rest of the sacraments as usual, as my dad had agreed, but after I was born my dad suddenly decided that they could wait for me to grow up and choose between being Catholic or Muslim. My mother was not really for the idea, but my father was firm, so she gave in. All the same my father would always allow me to go to church with my mother, though he preferred that I do not attend any doctrine classes until I was old enough to choose my religion.

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St. Josemaria in Korea

Hijung Shin, Korea

May 7, 2013

A friend gave me a copy of The Way when I was in college. That was the very first book I read by St. Josemaria. It touched me deeply, and I wanted to read more. I learned many things from St. Josemaria’s writings: how to talk to God, how to take care of little things, love for the Church… But most of all they made me very happy. I wanted to share it with as many people as possible, including my family and friends from my country, Korea.

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Rosalia Lopez Interview

Rosalia Lopez has lived in Rome since 1946, having moved there at St Josemaria’s invitation. Only a few months previously, she had decided to join Opus Dei...

April 13, 2013

While you are working, say loving things to him
Rosalia Lopez has lived in Rome since 1946, having moved there at St Josemaria’s invitation. Only a few months previously, she had decided to join Opus Dei, while she was working in the catering department or “administration” of the first students’ residence of Opus Dei in Bilbao. From 1946 until St Josemaria’s death on June 26, 1975, Rosalia worked in at the Opus Dei headquarters in Rome.

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Finding God while being a wife, a mother and a doctor

Joanna Pestalozzi, mother and doctor, Sweden

April 2, 2013

I was the eldest of six children. We grew up on the island of Gotland, Sweden, which has only one Catholic church, with 200 parishioners. My parents always tried to make sure we all got a good Catholic education and that we made friends with other Catholics – which is not easy bearing in mind that in Sweden, only 1 per cent of the population are Catholic.

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From the Fast Lane to the Right Lane

Lassi Viljakainen, Finland

March 23, 2013

“If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For he who would save his life shall lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake shall find it. For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world at the cost of losing his own soul?” (Mt 16: 24-26)

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I went in search of beauty and found God

Josefina Calvente, architect, Argentina

March 20, 2013

I was 25 when I packed my bags and went to Valencia, Spain. My excuse was that I wanted to do an MA in architecture. I say “excuse”, because my real aim was to get away, wherever. I wasn’t happy and I needed a change. I never imagined it would be such a big one.

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Emerging from the fog

Fausta writes from Switzerland. Married, and mother of nine, she tells of her struggles as a young girl to discover genuine freedom amidst the ideological confusion around her.

January 31, 2013

I never imagined, while I was doing volleyball practice one afternoon in 1968, that my life was about to take a turn that I had been seeking for some time. That afternoon Maria joined our team. She was a university student from Sicily who was living in the Viscontea hall of residence in Milan.

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He had a plan for me

María Jara, Costa Rica.

January 29, 2013

Although I grew up in a Catholic family, a rebellious spirit joined with immaturity and ignorance made me stop practicing. For about fifteen years God had no place in my life, though I know he never stopped loving me and looking after me. I was focused on my job as a journalist, earning money, going to parties, and plunged into a worldly and superficial way of life.

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My First Meeting with St Josemaria

Fr Ferdinando Rancan is the first diocesan Opus Dei priest in Italy. In this interview he describes his first meeting with St Josemaria in Rome in 1959. “During the hour I spent with the Father, I lost track of time. I was plunged into a world of marvels that belonged to this world but spoke the language of another dimension – God’s world!”

January 19, 2013

In connection with the visit of the Prelate of Opus Dei to Verona in December 2012, we publish a recent interview with Fr Ferdinando Rancan, a priest of the diocese of Verona, who first met Opus Dei in Rome in 1954.

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When I was 32 I was converted again

Marco, Italy

January 2, 2013

My name is Marco and I first heard of St Josemaria’s message about Christian living just over a year ago. I had stopped practicing my faith more than fifteen years before – I still said prayers every day, but without knowing what I was saying or who I was talking to. I would catch glimpses of God around me, in the beauty of a sunny day, or a smile, or a work of art, but I didn’t have the tools to begin to understand it all.

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Papers that help people be better

María Denisse Fanianos de Capriles

December 7, 2012

If there is one phrase that has marked the path of our marriage in these twenty years of happy union, it is St Josemaria’s words, “Dream, and your dreams will fall short.” Going back thirty years, I remember, on the first day of my journalism degree course, writing an essay on “Why do I want to study journalism?” My great passion and also my great concern, was educating people in my country, Venezuela, in values. I knew that it was urgent to teach my countrymen human and family values. At that point I didn’t talk about Christian or Catholic values, because I didn’t know what Christ or the Catholic Church signified.

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Escobar - no, Escriva!

The Italian writer Emanuele Cazzolla describes his visit to the church of Church of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, which houses the mortal remains of St Josemaria. The description comes in his book Il vecchio devoto o altri 11 racconti brevi.

November 29, 2012

The Italian writer Emanuele Cazzolla describes his visit to the church of Church of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, which houses the mortal remains of St Josemaria. The description comes in his book Il vecchio devoto o altri 11 racconti brevi.

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