ORDINARY CHRISTIANS IN THE WORLD
--------------------------------
What is Opus Dei?
by Russell Shaw
Copyright 1994 Office of Communications,
Prelature of Opus Dei in the United States
INSIDE FRONT COVER:
"...God is calling you to serve Him *in and from* the ordinary,
material, and secular activities of human life. He waits for us
every day in the laboratory, in the operating room, in the army
barracks, in the university, in the factory, in the workshop, in
the fields, in the home and in the immense panorama of work.
Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine,
hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one
of you to discover it."
- Blessed Josemaria Escriva at a homily given at the University
of Navarre, October 8, 1967
A MAN, A CALL, AND BELLS
The man was a young Spanish priest named Josemaria Escriva
de Balaguer. As early as 1917, when he was a teenager, he'd come
to understand that God wanted something special of him. In fact,
he later explained, it was that which led him into the
priesthood.
But what did God want? On October 2,1928, he was pondering
that question, as he'd often done, while making a retreat in
Madrid. Suddenly, while bells pealed in a nearby church, it
became clear: God made him *see* Opus Dei.
An institution which, as he put it, was to "tell men and
women of every country and of every condition, race, language,
milieu, and state of life...that they can love and serve God
without giving up their ordinary work, their family life, and
their normal social relations."
Opus Dei - the Work of God
Today it numbers well over 77,000 members representing more
than 80 nationalities. It has been praised by popes, prelates,
ordinary Christians - and thousands of non-Christians as well. It
has brought new insight and encouragement to countless men and
women striving to live their Christian vocations in the world.
After Msgr. Escriva died in Rome on June 26, 1975, his
reputation for sanctity was such that thousands of people from
all over the world asked the Vatican to open his cause of
canonization. Following an exhaustive investigation into his life
and work, and after the confirmation of a miracle through his
intercession, Pope John Paul II beatified Msgr. Escriva before
more than a quarter of a million people in St. Peter's Square on
May 17, 1992.
But none of that was so at the start.
PHOTO CAPTION: One of the bells from the church of our Lady of
the Angels in Madrid that Blessed Josemaria heard ringing on
October 2, 1928.
THE BEGINNINGS
At the start, Blessed Josemaria often recalled, he had "26
years, of age, God's grace, a good sense of humor, and nothing
else. But just as men write with a pen," he would add, "Our Lord
writes with the leg of a table to make it clear that it is He who
is doing the writing."
Gradually the youthful priest gathered a few young men with
whom he shared his vision. In 1930 he saw that God wanted Opus
Dei to include women as well. But growth came slowly, and both
the Spanish civil war (1936- 1939) and the Second World War
(1939-1945) made expansion difficult.
Still, efforts continued. By 1940 Opus Dei had between 300
and 400 members. During the Second World War it spread to Italy,
then to Portugal, Ireland and England. It received its first
recognition by the Holy See in 1943, and in 1946 Blessed
Josemaria moved to Rome. The international headquarters are now
located there at 73 Viale Bruno Buozzi.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Work was introduced
into Mexico, West Germany, France and most of Latin America. It
came to the United States in 1949 and to Canada in 1958.
Meanwhile, it has continued to grow in Latin America and Western
Europe, while spreading to countries of Scandinavia and Africa,
the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Opus
Dei has recently begun in some countries of Central Europe and in
India and Israel.
How does Opus Dei grow? Certainly not by legislative decree.
To be sure, Opus Dei establishes a corporate presence nowhere
without the permission of local Church authorities, but its
actual growth in all cases is due above all to three things: the
efforts of individual members and supporters, the generous
response of other individuals when they hear about Opus Dei, and
- especially - the action of God's grace.
PHOTO CAPTION: Blessed Josemaria Escriva in a get-together in
Spain in 1972.
OPUS DEI IN THE UNITED STATES
In 1949 Blessed Josemaria sent Fr. Joseph Musquiz and a
young physicist, Salvador Ferigle, to Chicago to begin Opus Dei
in the United States. As was customary, all he would give them
was his blessing and a picture of the Virgin Mary. In time they
opened a student residence near the University of Chicago which
they named Woodlawn Residence. Vocations began to arrive.
The first women came to this country in 1950: Margarita
Barturen, Nisa Guzman, and Blanca Dorda. They opened Kenwood
Residence in Chicago. Opus Dei began to spread across the United
States. Activities for men and women are now available in about
35 cities spanning the country.
The spiritual formation members receive inspires in them the
desire to undertake apostolic works, normally in cooperation with
non-members, many of whom are not even Catholic or even
Christian. In this country, these apostolic works have primarily
been of an educational nature, such as high schools in Chicago,
Washington DC, and Boston, and supplementary education centers in
many inner cities, including in Chicago, Washington DC, Boston
and in the South Bronx of New York.
PHOTO CAPTION: At the Lockwood building at Arnold Hall Conference
Center near Boston members, cooperators, and friends attend
spiritual retreats, seminars on family development and classes on
philosophy and theology.
PHOTO CAPTION: Midtown Center, an after-school program located in
the heart of Chicago's inner city, has helped thousands of
economically disadvantaged young men since 1965 to achieve
academic and professional success. A similar program for girls is
run at Metro.
"Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine
forth with the light of your faith and of your love...and light
up all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you
carry in your heart."
- Blessed Josemaria Escriva, _The Way_, 1
A SPIRITUALITY OF WORK
One of the most incisive analyses of his spiritual legacy
was written by Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice, shortly before
he was elected Pope John Paul I. Describing Msgr. Escriva as "a
revolutionary priest... vaulting over traditional barriers," he
compared the founder of Opus Dei to St. Francis de Sales as a
master of the spiritual life.
"St. Francis," Cardinal Luciani wrote, "proclaimed sanctity
for everyone, but seems to have taught only a 'spirituality for
lay people,' whereas Msgr. Escriva wants a 'lay spirituality.'
Francis, in other words, nearly always suggests for the laity the
same practical means used by religious, but with suitable
modifications. Escriva is more radical; he goes so far as to talk
about 'materializing', in the good sense, that quest for
holiness. For him, it is the material work which must be turned
into prayer and sanctity."
There is nothing complicated or obscure about the purpose
which Opus Dei has in view - holiness and apostolate in and
through one's ordinary work, using the traditional practices of
the interior life. What is new is that Opus Dei encourages
ordinary lay people living in the world to aspire to heroic
sanctity without changing their state of life or occupations.
In response to a question from a journalist, Blessed
Josemaria explained the importance of work: "Ordinary work is not
only the context in which people should become holy: it is the
raw material of their holiness. It is the there in the ordinary
happenings of their day's work that they discover the hand of God
and find the stimulus for their life of prayer." He added that
"holiness, apostolate, and the ordinary life of the members of
Opus Dei come to form one and the same thing, and that is why
work is the hinge of their spiritual life."
To Blessed Josemaria any honest work can be a means for
holiness. "In God's service there are no second-class jobs. All
of them are important...Sanctity, for the vast majority of men
and women, implies sanctifying their work, sanctifying themselves
in it, and sanctifying others through it."
"Work is a witness to the worth of the human creature...It
becomes a means, a way of holiness, a specific task which
sanctifies and can be sanctified."
- Blessed Josemaria Escriva, _The Forge_, 702
THE BEATIFICATION OF MSGR. JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA
Msgr. Escriva's cause of beatification began in 1981. By
then, the Vatican had received dome 6,000 requests, among them
from over a third of the world's bishops. Cardinal Sebastiano
Baggio considered him a "turning point" in the history of
spirituality; Cardinal Parente compared him to the great founders
like St. Benedict and St. Francis; Cardinal John Carberry, former
Archbishop of St. Louis, said he was "one of the heroes of our
time"; and Cardinal Maurice Otunga of Nairobi did not hesitate to
call him "one of the greatest saints of all time."
After an exhaustive study, the Vatican declared on April 9,
1990, that Msgr. Escriva lived the Christian virtues to a heroic
degree. On July 6, 1991, the Holy See confirmed that the
Carmelite Sister Concepcion Boullon Rubio, who was at the point
of death in 1976 from a rare disease that caused tumors
throughout her body, had miraculously recovered through Msgr.
Escriva's intercession. The cure was one of many attributed to
Msgr. Escriva, including thousands of small favors.
At the beatification ceremony in St. Peter's Square on May
17, 1992, Pope John Paul II told the 300,000 people in attendance
that Josemaria Escriva was an "exemplary priest who succeeded in
opening up new apostolic horizons of missionary and evangelizing
activity." The following day, at an audience in the Square, the
Holy Father again echoed Blessed Josemaria's exhortation that all
Christians must strive to "permeate homes, workplaces, centers of
culture, the media, public and private life" with the Gospel
message. Quoting the newly Blessed, John Paul said: :Christians,
working in the middle of the world, have to reconcile all things
to God, placing Christ at the peak of all human activities."
For canonization to occur, the Church requires proof of
another miracle through Blessed Josemaria's intercession.
The beatification process of two other members of Opus Dei
(Isidoro Zorzano, an Argentinean engineer who died in 1943, and
Montserrat Grases, a young Spanish girl who died in 1959) are
also underway.
PHOTO CAPTION: Bishop Alvaro del Portillo (1914-1994) greets Pope
John Paul II after a Mass of Thanksgiving in St. Peter's Square
on May 18, 1992.
PHOTO CAPTION: St. Peter's Square during beatification ceremony
of Msgr. Josemaria Escriva, May 17, 1992.
AN OPEN BOOK
The very ordinariness of the members of Opus Dei - the fact
that they don't look or act or speak differently from anyone else
(because in fact they aren't different) - does not imply any type
of secrecy. But while members of Opus Dei do not advertise their
membership, neither do they conceal it. As one expressed it, "We
never hide what we are or what we do, but we don't carry a sign
saying that we are good Christians or want to be."
In any case, Opus Dei's spirit, purposes and program are,
both literally and figuratively, an open book: they can be seen
in the writings of its founder and the lives of its members.
Perhaps the best-known book by Blessed Josemaria is _The
Way_. It is regarded by many as a spiritual classic, with nearly
four million copies in 39 languages published to date. Several
other works by him - collections of homilies and meditations -
are also available in English.
"Don't let your life be sterile," _The Way_ begins. That
could serve as a motto for the organization. Opus Dei urges people
to be of service, to carry on an active apostolate in and to the
world. This spirit has been called a "naive success ethic," but
it isn't. Opus Dei does not aim at routine success but at sanctity.
Says _The Way_: "I'll tell you a secret, an open secret: these
world crises are crises of saints. God wants a handful of people
'of his own' in every human activity. Then . . . *pax Christi in
regno Christi* - 'the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ'."
While Opus Dei is people far more than it is institutions,
there are a certain number of institutions conducted by members
on their own initiative, which in one way or another embody the
spirit and purposes of the organization.
Although these institutions - universities, schools, study
centers, student residences, conference centers, and professional
or vocational training institutes of various kinds - have an
apostolic purpose, they are not officially "Catholic" since
members of Opus Dei conduct them on their own and in
collaboration with others who are not only not members of Opus
Dei but, in many cases, not even Catholics. Opus Dei itself takes
responsibility only for the spiritual and doctrinal aspects of
the programs of these institutions, not for their practical and
professional management.
PHOTO CAPTION: Featherock Conference Center, near Houston, Texas.
MEMBERS OF ALL KINDS
People of all kinds belong to Opus Dei: priests and lay
people, men and women, young and old, married and single, of
every occupation and profession. Most members are married and
have families. A relatively small number of members, both men and
women, make a commitment to celibacy and thus have more time and
availability to provide guidance for the other members and to
staff the various apostolic activities.
Some single members are ordained as priests after years of
professional work and following the required studies to prepare
for the priesthood. They make up about 2% of the membership and are,
properly speaking, "priests of Opus Dei."
Other secular priests can also have access to the specific
spirituality of Opus Dei by receiving personal spiritual guidance
and participating in such activities as retreats and days of
recollection. Some in fact join, by divine vocation, what is
called the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which is
integrally united to Opus Dei. In doing so, however, they remain
priests of their own dioceses with their own bishops as their
superiors. Like any other secular priests, they follow all the
indications given by their bishops for the running of the diocese
and for the collective spiritual direction of priests; what they
receive from Opus Dei, not in place of but in addition to this
formation, is help and guidance in seeking holiness in carrying
out their ministry.
In addition to the members of Opus Dei and the priests
associated with the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, there are
also "Cooperators" who help through their prayers, work, and
financial assistance. In return, they benefit from the prayers of
members and other spiritual helps. If they wish, they can
participate in various spiritual and educational activities.
Non-Catholics as well as Catholics can be Cooperators. (Opus Dei
was the first Church institution to have non-Catholic
Cooperators.)
PHOTO CAPTION: Jeff and Linda Howlett family, Rochester, New
York.
PHOTO CAPTION: Students at Strathmore School in Nairobi, Kenya.
Began in 1961, Strathmore was among the first schools in Africa
to enroll students regardless of race, tribe, or religion.
A VOCATION
Why do people join? The answer is that they receive a
vocation from God. Usually, an individual was impressed by
someone already a member, to the point that membership began to
seem like an attractive possibility for him or her, too. The
criteria for membership aren't income, education, social status,
race, or similar considerations. They are, instead, the
conviction, shared by the directors of Opus Dei, that one has
this vocation and the accompanying determination to live
according to the spirit and program of Opus Dei. That
determination is concretized by means of a contractual commitment
which spells out the rights and obligations which members of Opus
Dei assume.
Opus Dei observes canonical and common-sense requirements
regarding commitment and vocation. The earliest age at which an
individual can formally apply for membership is
sixteen-and-a-half. But, someone applying at that age cannot make
even a temporarily binding commitment until he or she is 18.
Before that, a contract would not be valid, in accord with the
general provision of Canon Law. Moreover, no lifetime commitment
can be made earlier than age 23.
To a great extent, Opus Dei can be summed up in four words:
vocation, work, apostolate, and formation.
Despite the different forms of membership and the
differences in function and lifestyle that they entail, members
believe they all share essentially the same vocation. This
concept of a calling is central to Opus Dei, and its idea of
vocation focuses especially on work.
"The vocation to Opus Dei in no way changes or modifies a
person's condition or state in life," Blessed Josemaria once
said. And since man's condition, his lot, is to work, the
supernatural vocation to holiness and apostolate according to the
spirit of Opus Dei confirms this human vocation to work."
PHOTO CAPTION: Business Institute, San Sebastian, Spain.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland. Founded
in 1969 by several Opus Dei members and others, it has earned a
distinctive reputation among schools in the Washington area.
APOSTOLATE IN ORDINARY LIFE
Work and the round of everyday activities provide the
context of apostolate for the ordinary lay person. As Opus Dei
sees it, apostolate is simply the natural response of a person
trying to live as a Christian and help others around him do the
same. Blessed Josemaria expressed it this way: "Whoever said that
to speak about Christ and to spread His doctrine, you need to do
anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your ordinary life;
work at your job, trying to fulfill the duties of your state in
life... be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on
yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your
apostolate."
This understanding of apostolate in ordinary life was
confirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which taught that all
the faithful - owing from their baptism - are called to
participate in the mission of the church, both as a right and a
duty. In practice, this means helping other people - both by
responding to their ordinary human needs for friendship,
encouragement, and support, and also, where possible and
appropriate, urging them to persist or go deeper in their own
struggle to know God's will for them and observe it more
faithfully.
It isn't a sense of superiority that causes members to act
in this way but something quite different. As one expressed it:
"It would be absolutely false to imagine I joined Opus Dei,
solved all my problems, and then set out to help everybody else
solve theirs. I want to become a saint, but I'm not one yet. The
difference Opus Dei makes is that I now have a new source of
encouragement in trying to cope with my weaknesses - including
picking myself up and starting over when I blow it - and for
giving others a hand"
PHOTO CAPTION: Hiking in upstate New York
PHOTO CAPTION: Student and teacher conferring at Tangara, a
school for girls in Sydney, Australia
PHOTO CAPTION: Rosedale Achievement Center in the Bronx, New
York, is an after- school program that helps inner-city girls to
achieve academic success. A similar program for boys in the South
Bronx is offered at the Crotona Achievement Program
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Opus Dei's program of formation for this enterprise is
demanding but not remarkable, composed as it is of traditional
elements of Catholic piety and doctrine according to the letter
and spirit of Vatican Council II. The spiritual elements include
daily Mass and Communion, frequent reception of the sacrament of
Penance, Scripture and spiritual reading, mental prayer, the
Rosary. Small acts of self denial and penance are encouraged in
line with traditional Christian practice. There is an emphasis on
devotion to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph and on loyalty to
the Pope and bishops. Members are urged to deepen their knowledge
of Christian doctrine through courses, lectures, and systematic
study and reading of books by writers faithful to the Church.
The program is undoubtedly time-consuming, but members find
the time for it because they recognize it as essential to living
out their freely chosen commitment. As one said, "If there are
shortcuts to establishing and maintaining a relationship with the
Lord, I don't know what they are. Furthermore, Opus Dei puts a
lot of emphasis on order and the good use of time. When you get
the hang of it, you find that you have time for what the Work
asks of you and for a lot else besides, because you don't waste
time as you used to do. The basic purpose of it all is nothing
more and nothing less than to help you live your whole day in the
presence of God."
PHOTO CAPTION: Torreciudad, a shrine to the Mother of God that
was the initiative of Blessed Josemaria, is located in the
foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees.
PHOTO CAPTION: A young Japanese woman is baptized at a center of
Opus Dei. The apostolates of members of the Opus Dei Prelature
reach out to peoples of all creeds, races, and social conditions.
"It is necessary to be convinced that God is always near us. Too
often we live as though Our Lord were somewhere far off - where
the stars shine. We fail to realize that He is also by our side -
always."
- Blessed Josemaria Escriva, _The Way_, 267
FREEDOM IN TEMPORAL MATTERS
Men and women of Opus Dei can be expected to work in every
conceivable field, from very humble occupations to positions of
influence in business or politics or whatever. No situation,
however, compromises the exclusive spiritual purposes of Opus Dei
and the unqualified respect that the institution has for the
freedom of its individual members.
This view remained that of Blessed Josemaria, who,
congratulated on one occasion by a well meaning individual over
the appointment of a member to the Spanish cabinet, replied,
"What does it matter to me whether he is a minister of state or a
street sweeper? What I am interested in is that he sanctify
himself in his work." As one might expect from that, Opus Dei has
no views of its own on politics, economics, and similar matters,
and no concern for the views of its individual members, as long
as they are consistent with Catholic doctrine.
Blessed Josemaria recognized the obligation of Christians to
participate responsibly in the public life of their communities,
to contribute to the common good. He urged that these obligations
would be included in religious instruction. And he incorporated
respect for the dignity of the human person, the virtue of
justice, and all the social doctrine of the Church in his own
teaching. He encouraged his sons and daughters to do the same.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa
(IESE) in Barcelona, Spain, has consistently been ranked among
Europe's best graduate business schools.
PHOTO CAPTION: Service project in Lithuania
AHEAD OF ITS TIME
Ideas like lay initiative and sanctity in the world were
avant-gard novelties when Opus Dei began, but, especially since
Vatican Council II, they've come to be widely appreciated. The
universal call to holiness, for example, is a major theme of the
Council's _Constitution on the Church_; the _Decree on the
Apostolate of Lay People_ stresses the laity's role; the
_Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World_
underscores the importance of the secular order and the
Christian's mission there.
Members grasp what the Council, in developing the Church's
teaching, had in mind saying lay people should "endeavor to have
the gospel spirit permeate and improve the temporal order."
Despite the weaknesses and limitations they share in abundance
with everybody else, they know that the Council's proclamation of
a "universal call to holiness" is neither theory nor mere
rhetoric but a mandate for every Christian in every walk of live.
While times may be catching up with the vision Blessed
Josemaria Escriva had in 1928, it wasn't always so. "You have
come a century too soon" a ranking Vatican prelate told Blessed
Josemaria when he first brought Opus Dei to Rome in 1946. Church
law then lacked a category for Opus Dei.
It was left to the Second Vatican Council to find the
solution. Lay spirituality and lay apostolate were not its
invention, but something else was - the personal prelature.
PHOTO CAPTION: Tilden Study Center, located near the UCLA campus
in Los Angeles, California, offers programs of professional,
cultural, and personal enrichment for university and young
professional men.
PHOTO CAPTION: Womens' study group in the San Francisco area.
THE FIRST PERSONAL PRELATURE
A personal prelature, according to Vatican II, is a
jurisdictional structure in the Church that is not territorial,
as a diocese is, but "personal" in the sense that it affects
individual persons. Opus Dei received this status in 1982 by
decision of Pope John Paul II, the first institution in the
Church to do so.
Rather than being cut off from their dioceses under the new
arrangement, lay members of the prelature - that is, members of
Opus Dei - remain ordinary faithful in the dioceses in which they
live and work. As a Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for
Bishops dated August 23,1982, explains, the lay members of Opus
Dei "are under the jurisdiction of the Prelate in regard to what
has to do with the fulfillment of the specific ascetic, formative
and apostolic commitments, which they have freely undertaken by
means of the contractual bond dedicating them to the service of
the aims of the Prelature." It is "an ordinary power of
jurisdiction or government, limited to that which refers to the
specific finality of the prelature, and differs substantially, by
reason of the matter involved, from the jurisdiction of the
diocesan bishops in the ordinary care of the faithful."
Diverse in education, temperament, occupation, politics, and
virtually everything else, members of Opus Dei nevertheless agree
on this: Here they find an exciting vehicle for spiritual growth
that gives a new dimension to work, family life, study,
recreation, friendship, and all they do. To be sure, what God
showed Blessed Josemaria in 1928 has been nothing short of
revolutionary to the practice of one's faith.
PHOTO CAPTION: Msgr. Javier Echevarria was elected Prelate of
Opus Dei on April 21, 1994, following the death of Bishop Alvaro
del Portillo on March 23, 1994.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Roman Atheneum of the Holy Cross, located in
Rome, is a center for the study of philosophy, theology, and
canon law.
PHOTO CAPTION: Blessed Josemaria Escriva
BOOKS BY BLESSED JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA
_The Way_
Considered by many to be a modern spiritual classic, this book of
considerations for prayer has sold more than 3.5 million copies
in 39 languages.
_Furrow_
Born of the author's interior life and experience with souls,
this book also facilitates dialogue with Christ.
_The Forge_
A book of over 1,000 points for meditation intended to bring many
souls to the forge of divine love.
_Christ is Passing By_
The first published compilation of homilies by Blessed Josemaria
covers the Church's liturgical year.
_The Way of the Cross_
The author comments on the fourteen stations of the cross,
showing how the search for forgiveness is only possible in union
with Jesus Christ.
_Friends of God_
A collection of 18 homilies that center on the theme of Christian
virtue, the spiritual life, and dealing with God and the Blessed
Virgin.
_Holy Rosary_
This short book vividly recreates the 15 mysteries of the Rosary
"to help you and me become absorbed in contemplation when we pray
to Our Lady."
_Conversations with Msgr. Escriva_
Interviews with Time Magazine, The New York Times, and other
publications cover the spirit, structure, and activities of Opus
Dei and reveal the remarkable personality of its founder.
_Love for the Church_
Homilies on the Church that help deepen the reader's love for and
service to the Church.
Further information about Blessed Josemaria and Opus Dei
Books:
PETER BERGLAR, _Life and Work of the Founder of Opus Dei_
AMADEO DE FUENMAYOR et al, _The Canonical Path of Opus Dei_
FRANCOIS GONDRAND, _At God's Pace_
DENNIS HELMING, _Footprints in the Snow_
JOSE L. ILLANES, _On the Theology of Work_
PEDRO RODRIGUEZ et al, _Opus Dei in the Church_
DOMINIQUE LE TOURNEAU, _All about Opus Dei_
WILLIAM WEST, _Opus Dei: Exploding a Myth_
Reprints:
POPE JOHN PAUL II, "All Are Called to Holiness," (Beatification
homily), L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, May 20, 1992.
POPE JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Constitution "Ut Sit", November 28,
1982.
POPE JOHN PAUL II, _address to participants at a symposium on the
life and thought of Blessed Josemaria Escriva_, Rome, October 14,
1993.
JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER, _keynote address delivered at
symposium on the life and thought of Blessed Josemaria Escriva_,
October 14, 1993.
SACRED CONGREGATION FOR BISHOPS, "Declaration concerning Opus
Dei," August 23, 1982.
_Decree Declaring the Servant of God Josemaria Escriva
Venerable_, Congregation for the Causes for the Saints, April 9,
1990.
CARDINAL ALBINO LUCIANI,, "Seeking God through Everyday Work,"
July 1978.
MICHAEL PAKALUK, "Opus Dei In Everyday Life," The Family, June
1978.
WILLIAM SCHMITT, "Opus Dei: Holiness and the Ordinary," The
Family, August 1994.
Booklets:
ANDREW BYRNE, "Sanctifying Ordinary Work," Scepter booklet 22.
FLAVIO CAPUCCI, "The Beatification of Msgr. Escriva," Scepter
booklet 192.
CARDINAL JOSEPH HOEFFNER, "Opus Dei and its Critics," Scepter
booklet 151.
RAPHAEL PEREZ, "Money Doesn't Make a Saint," Scepter booklet 195.
_Press interviews with Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, former Prelate
of Opus Dei_, Scepter booklets 137 and 143.
Videos
_A Gift of God, Blessed Josemaria Escriva_ (hour-long documentary
aired on PBS.)
_Blessed Josemaria Escriva, A Profile of his Life and Work_
The books, booklets, and videos are available from Scepter
Publishers, PO Box 1270 Princeton, NJ 08542-1270 (800-322-8773).
The reprints are available from Opus Dei's Office of
Communications, 524 North Ave, Suite 200, New Rochelle, NY 10801.
A periodic Bulletin on the Life of Blessed Josemaria is also
available at the same address.
INSIDE BACK COVER:
"Your institution has as its aim the sanctification of one's
life, while remaining within the world at one's place of work and
profession: to live the Gospel in the world, but in order to
transform it, and to redeem it with one's personal love for
Christ. This is truly a great ideal..."
- Pope John Paul II
Office of Communications, Prelature of Opus Dei
524 North Ave., Suite 200
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Telephone: (914) 235-1201
Provided courtesy of:
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Trinity Communications
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Fax: 703-791-4250
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