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En esta página se ofrecen testimonios de gran valor histórico. Es una recopilación de artículos publicados en la prensa internacional entre los años 1975 (fecha de fallecimiento del fundador del Opus Dei) y 1990, muy cerca ya de su beatificación por Juan Pablo II. Enlaces Romana (Boletín de la Prelatura del Opus Dei) Obras de San Josemaría Escrivá Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer - Fundador del Opus Dei Iniciativas sociales promovidas por personas del Opus Dei Documentos, artículos y testimonios sobre el Opus Dei y su fundador |
Julio R. Rosales, Arzobispo de Cebú, Presidente de la Conferencia Episcopal de las Filipinas, en Philippines Evening Express (Manila), 26.6.76, y en The Visayan Times, 30.5.80.
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Philippines Evening Express Manila 26.6.76 MSGR. ESCRIVA • Profile o f o Saint By JULIO CARDINAL'ROSALES Acrd what is the secret of perseverance?Lone. Fall in love, and you will not leave him. -The Way, n. 999 When Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer died a year ago, letters requesting the. early start of the process for his beatification began pouring in almost immediately. Although he worked silently in his lifetime, actively exercising an intense pastoral caicem for soils, and at the woos time abboning any form of undue publicity, hundreds of thousands of men and worsen of all ages, states, and conditions throughout the world already knew of his sanctity through contact with Opus Dei, the international Catholic association that he founded, raised, and nurtured, and throuugh his writings (The Way, Holy Rosary, Conuei ations with Msgr:.Escriva de Balaguer', Christ' Is Passing By) that spoke simply, with a disarming penetration of insight, of love for God, His Mother, the saints, the Church, the Pope, the Sacraments, prayer, and the sanctity of ordinary work. It is hard to summarize the work he has done for the Church, and the assessment of his contribution to the deeper understanding of Qrristian spirituality will doubtless continue for the next few decades- so rich are his writings in •their elucidation of points of the faith. The Cross embracing the world_ God is unstinting Love: the realization of this fact is at the heart of everything Msgr. Escriva de Balaguer ever wrote or did. Again and again, in his little book The Way, a spiritual bestseller whose sales have gone up tp 2.5 million copies, he compares God's love to fire and one immediately realizes that, the comparisons are not pious repetitions of words of other saints but rather the spontaneous expression of the writer's personal experience of divine love. The realization of divine love is the spine of his writings and his own sanctity. "Consider what is most. beautiful and noble on earth, what pleases the mind and other faculties and what delights the flesh and the senses. Consider the world, and the other worlds that shine in the night - the whole universe. And this, along with all the satisfied follies of the heart, is worth nothing, is nothing and less than nothing, compared .with this God of mine! - of yours! Infinite treasure, most beautiful pearl..: humbled, became a slave, reduced to nothingness in the form of a servant in the stable where he willed to be born... in Joseph's workshop, in his passion and in his ignominious death, and in the frenzy of love - the blessed Eucharist" (The Way, 432). There are a number of things we might glean from this point of The Way: that Msgr. Escriva's apprehension of divine love spranj from a deep undenitanding of the Incarnation, that it was passionate but at the same time intelligent, and that it took divine love as it is- without "humanizing" or romanticizing it. Hence, his twin devotions to the Cross and to the Eucharist. Msgr. Escriva saw clearly that God's love embraces the world - everyone. In other words, he saw that the call to sanctity is uhiuersal, that factory workers,chauffeurs,plant managers, cinema artists, and journaIIa are all called to be saints and to be true saints - men of prayer end mortification and an uncompromising love for Christ, our Lady, thiz Church, the $acrements, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The world embracing the Cross How? Not as quasi-religious but precisely as ordinary men and women. Msgr. Escriva wrote: "You asked me and so I answer you: your perfection consists in living perfectly in the place, occupation and position in which God, through those in authority, has assigned to you" (The Way, 926). The ordinary Christian who strives toward sanctity is not a freak. He is a person of flesh and blood, with the same everyday concerns, working in the same environment as his colleagues and follow citizens. He does not run away from making decisions in political, economic, or cultural spheres. Neither does he hide behind the apron of his Mother the Church, making her an excuse for personal flaccidity. He is no aper of clerical functions. Neither does he walk with a drooping head and folded arms, rarely talking above a whisper, wrapped in impenetrable meekness. But.he does not,wear his faith only upon his sleeve or on his hat. What is he then ? An ordinary man, who loves God. His models, Msgr. Escriva would point out, are Mary and Joseph who live; undramatic livesand never caught the world's attention but who head the hierarchy of .saints. The ordinary Christian who takes his faith seriously has this in common with all saints: thatfie is first and foremost a man of prayer ("Sanctity withöut prayer? I don'tï believe in that sanctity," The Way,107), a man of solid doctrine ("Student: form in yourself a solid and active piety; be outstanding in study have strong desires for a professional apostolats . And with that vigor in yourreligious and scientific training, I promise you rapid and far-reaching developments,".The Way, 346), a man of mortification ("Unless you mortify yourself you'll never be a prayerful soul," The way, 172), and finally a man of strong apostolic spirit ("It is necessary that you be a Brian of God,' a man of interior life, a man of prayer and of sacrifice. Your apostolate must be the overflow of your life 'within' ", The Way, 961). An oxlinary Christian achieves sanctity through his everyday work, whatever it may be, manual or intellectual, by performing his work with human and suoematura~ perfection, practising human and spiritual virtues quietly and heroically, sanctifying his work in the process and himself and others through that work. His means of sanctification then are eminently within his reach, arising in fact, from his very situation in life. In this connection, we should mention marriage, which Yser. Escriva called a `Christian vocation." To what? To sanctity, of course. How? Precisely by fulfilling to a heroic degree one's vocation as husband or wife, father or mother. MSGR. ESCRIVA AT WOR ( "Joy has its roots in the shapes of a Cross," Magr. Escriva would say. We can paraphrase him and say that the Crossblooms into joy. To this Msgr. Escriva's own life was witness. One day, perhaps, we shall have his biography which will detail sections of his heroic and saintly life. And yet even now, anyone who has met him, and those who lived dosest to him affirm that he was always cheerful, and-infectiously so, even in moments of great suffering and grief. If he would ever manifest sorrow, this was always because of some pain he saw inflicted on Christ, as In his last years, In the face of the growing doctrinai confusion and sacrilegious attacks against the Church. But this sorrow always resoved itself in joy born of his unshakeable faith in divine love. The 26th of June 1976 isthe firstanniversary of Msgr. Escriva's .death. Already we hear of numerous favors obtained through his intersession. The great majority of them are typical of the man; not spectacular miracles but rather conversions of the heart, silently effected in the confessional and In:intimate chats with any of his numerous spiritual children. As in his life so also after his death, Msgr. Escriva's apostolate continues, as silent and as irresistible as leaven. 65 Opus Dei: opiniones de protagonistas |
