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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 Friday, May 30, 1980 be i~acs~n ¿ imee A priest through and through By JULIO CARDINAL ROSALES Archbishop of Cebu MSGR. JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA DE BALAGUER Y ALBAS, Founder of the Opus Dei Whenever I ask myself about the amazing . phenomenon of Opus Dei in the Catholic Church today_, numbering close to 70,000 men and women of more than eighty different nationalities, I always end up focusing on the very attractive person of the late Founder of Opus Dei, Msgr. Josemaria Escriva. The effectiveness of the apostolate of Opus Dei - in the Philippines and in all parts of the world - can be explained by the opening words of the prayer for private devotion to Msgr. Escriva, a prayer that is now being said by numerous Christians all over the world: "O God, you granted countless graces to your servant and priest Josemaria, choosing him as a most faithful instrument to found Opus Dei ...." There can be no other explanation. Msgr. Escriva corresponded fully and heroically to the special graces granted to him by God. Above all, he was a good priest, or in his words "a priest through and through." And God knows how our troubled world today needs many good priests! It is with great boy- and expectation that I watch th apostolic activities of Opus Dei gradually grow in my Archdiocese. True, the main apostolate of the Work is with lay people - with workers and intellectuals, housewives, students, professional people, etc. - whom Msgr. Escriva reminded unceasingly about the universal calling to sanctity, about Christ's command that all of us have to be perfect as His Heavenly Father is perfect. In the work of the forination of diocesan priests, I know that the members of opus Dei are following the example of their Founder whose concern for the spiritual and material health of priests was boundless. As I read in a book by Salvador Bernal entitled A Profile of Msgr. Escriva, only . ä yeàr before his death in the odor of sanctity, he had been recalling in • Buenos Aires, Argentina: "I began to give many, many retreats - they used to last seven days at that time - in a number of Spanish dioceses. I was very young and it embarrassed me. I always began by going to Our Lord and saying to him: "You'll have to see what you are going to say to your priests, because I ... I felt so ashamed! And afterwards if they didn't come to chat, I called them one by one. Because they weren't used to talking to the preacher." (A Profile.. ., p.112). His concern for all priests lasted all his life. He literally begged for prayers for the sanctity of priests. In another large gathering at the Coliseo Theater of Buenos Aires on June 23, 1974, he raised his voice in emphasis: "Pray for all priests - sinners like myself - so that we done do anything crazy, and so that, at the altar and away from the altar, we behave as Jesus Christ and our Mother the Church would wish. There are no bad priests, they are all good. They would be better if we prayed more. Let us pray more!" (A Profile.... P. 113). Considering this love he showed for those who have received- the sacrament of holy orders, it is no wonder that he personally brought to the priesthood close to one thousand professional men of diverse nationalities, among whom are several Filipinos. Today, this process he began continues: every year, some fifty or more professional men - all members of Opus Dei - áre ordained priests. As he himself said in a homily on the occasion of the ordination of a similar group of professional men in 1973: "The sacrament of holy orders is going to,.e conferred on this group of members of the Work who have had very substantial experience, perhaps over many years, in medicine, law, engineering, architecture and many other professional fields. They are -men whose work would allow them to aspire to more or less prominent positions in society. "The purpose of their ordination is service. They are not being ordained to take charge or to attract attention, but rather to give themselves to the service of all souls in a divine and continuous silence. When they become priest, they will not allow themselves to yield to the temptation of imitating the occupations of lay people - even though they are well able to do that work, because they have been at it up to now and have acquired a lay outlook which they will never lose. "Their competence in the various branches of human knowledge, such as history, natural sciences, psychology, law and sociology is a necessary feature of this lay outlook. But it will not lead them to put themselves forward as priest-psychologists, priest-biologists or priestsociologists. They receive the sacrament of holy orders to become nothing other than priest-priest - priests through and through." (A Priest Forever, Sinag-tala Booklet No. 19, p.3). That is one of the traits I admire most in priests who are imbued with the spirit of Opus Dei. They are priests through and through. They fit the description given by Msgr. Escriva of priests who are truly concerned with the welfare of ` their spiritual flock: "They probably know more about a wide range of secular, human matters than many lay people. But the moment they are ordained they cheerfully silence this competence and concentrate on fortifying themselves through continuous prayer so as to speak only óf God, to preach the gospel, and administer the sacraments. If I can put it this way, I would say that this is their new professional work. To it they devote their whole day and find that they still have not enough time to do all that has 66 Opus Dei: opiniones de protagonistas |
