Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, baptized with the name José María Julián Mariano (Barbastro, Huesca, Aragón, January 9, 1902-Rome, December 26, June 1975), was a Spanish priest, founder of Opus Dei in 1928 and saint of the Catholic Church. His feast is celebrated on June 26.

Escrivá obtained a doctorate in Civil Law from the Central University of Madrid and another in Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University. His main work was the foundation, administration and expansion of Opus Dei, an institution belonging to the Catholic Church. His best-known publication is Camino , a work translated into dozens of languages and with several million copies sold.

Biography

Early Years

José María Escrivá Albás(future Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás) was born in Barbastro (Huesca, Spain) on January 9, 1902. His parents were named José Escrivá y Corzán and María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc. He was the second of six brothers; his three little sisters died as children. The last one, Santiago, was born in 1919 and died on December 25, 1994 at the age of 75. When Josemaría was two years old, he suffered a serious illness in which he feared for his life. After his recovery, his parents took him on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Torreciudad in fulfillment of a promise to the Virgin Mary for his healing. In the 1960s, Escrivá promoted the construction of a sanctuary in Torreciudad, which was finished in the mid-1970s. Josemaría studied at the Piarist school in Barbastro (October, 1908-1914).

In 1914, the father's business, which was a cloth trade, went bankrupt, leaving the family in ruins. They had to move to Logroño, where his father found a job as a clerk. Escrivá continued studying until finishing high school. At Christmas 1917-18, seeing the footprints of a barefoot Carmelite in the snow, he was impressed and decided to become a priest. He entered the Logroño seminary as an external student in October 1918.

In September 1920 he moved to Zaragoza. Some of his classmates from the Zaragoza seminary remember him as an alert, intelligent and cheerful young man, as well as very pious.

At Christmas 1922, he received the degrees of host and lector, along with those of exorcist and acolyte. His superiors appreciated his skills for which they named him Inspector of the Seminary —in charge of maintaining discipline among the seminarians, both in class and on trips—; it was an unusual fact that they appointed a seminarian and not a priest to this position. In 1923, following the advice of his father, he began studying Law at the University of Zaragoza.

His father, José Escrivá, died in 1924, leaving Josemaría as head of the family. She received priestly ordination on March 28, 1925 and began to minister in various rural parishes and later in Zaragoza, preferably in the church of San Pedro Nolasco, then governed by Jesuit priests.

Opus Dei Foundation

In 1927 he moved to Madrid, with the permission of his bishop, to begin his doctoral thesis in Law. There he worked in an academy teaching Roman and canon law to support his family. He exercised his priestly ministry in the Patronato de Enfermos, a charitable institution run by the Apostolic Ladies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

He treated many people from various social backgrounds as a priest. He dedicated the best hours of his youth, as chaplain of the Patronato de Enfermos, caring for numerous patients and underprivileged children in the poor neighborhoods of Madrid. At the same time, he dealt with many other people: university students and professors, workers, dependents of trade, artists, etc.

On October 2, 1928, according to his own testimony, he "saw" that God was asking him to spread throughout the world the universal call to holiness, and to open a new path within the Church —Opus Dei, in Spanish "Work of God" - to transmit to all men that they can be sanctified through work. From that day on, while he continued with the pastoral ministry that he had been entrusted to in those years, he developed the organization alone. He began to contact people from various professions such as artists, teachers, workers, priests, businessmen and many others, while offering his prayers and mortifications.

At first Escrivá came using the term that he used in the sense that Opus Dei was intended only for men but a few years later, in 1930, according to his own account, God had made him see that it was also intended for women. In 1930, an old high school classmate of Escrivá's, of Argentine origin, Isidoro Zorzano, requested admission to Opus Dei, and in 1932 an Asturian priest, José María Somoano, joined a Cordovan woman, María Ignacia García Escobar, and a young businessman, Luis Gordon, although these three died within a year, and Josemaría had to start over.

Josemaría Escrivá Church dedicated in Guadalajara, Mexico

A year after the founding of Opus Dei, the young José María Escrivá y Albás considered different possibilities to support his family, outside of consecrated life. He even went so far as to register in some oppositions called in 1929 to fill auxiliary positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Opus Dei during the early thirties

The fall of the monarchy brought the arrival of the Second Republic in April 1931, beginning a period of great tension between the new regime and the Catholic Church, when a new secular constitution was approved. At the same time, numerous convents and churches were attacked with the passivity of the authorities. In this context, Josemaría Escrivá continued his work as chaplain of the Patronato de Enfermos, in the Patronato de Santa Isabel and Opus Dei, staying out of the political disputes.

However, during the Republican era there were members of Opus Dei involved in Catholic violence, such as the case of the then student Álvaro del Portillo, a member of the Traditionalist Youth and the Traditionalist School Association. Escrivá himself read in those years the traditionalist newspaper El Siglo Futuro, due to his friendship with the priest Antonio Sanz Cerrada, editor of said newspaper.

In 1933, Don Josemaría had a group of university students and founded the DYA Academy, where, in addition to teaching law and architecture classes, Christian formation talks were organized. In 1934 he published a small book called Spiritual Considerations , which, expanded during the following years, including during the Civil War, was republished in 1939 under the title The Way .

In 1934 Josemaría was appointed rector of the Board of Trustees of Santa Isabel, which was a small relief for his financial difficulties to support his family.

As a means to achieve the goals of the institution, Escrivá conceived the so-called "life plan" that the members must follow, which in those years is taking shape and includes practices such as daily mass, communion, the Angelus prayer, visiting the tabernacle, spiritual reading, praying the rosary and mortifications, among others. Around 1935/36, at the recently founded DyA (Law and Architecture) academy in Madrid, the students began to practice some of the ideas that the founder conceived, and the distinctive signs of the future Work began to appear, and that would be considered in further shows "good spirit", such as fraternal correction, fasting and bodily mortification (see quotes from his book The Way), for example sleeping on the ground, punishing the body by means of a cilicium tight on the thigh for two hours a day and hit yourself with some "disciplines" (rope whip) once a week. According to Escrivá, the purpose of these practices was to join the cross of Christ, tame the passions and obtain gifts from God, punishing the body and restraining the will. To serve as an example, Escrivá gave himself up to all these mortifications, to the point of leaving blood spatters on the walls when he was whipped, although he did not recommend going to these extremes to his followers and also advised other types of mortifications, related to daily life.

Around this time his followers began calling him "the Father." Jesús Ynfante criticizes that this was at the wish of Escrivá himself. However, Escrivá used to refuse any other treatment, for example, that of Monsignor when said title was granted to him, as well as that of Founder.

Civil War

When the Spanish civil war broke out in 1936, Josemaría found himself in Madrid, where he continued to exercise his priestly ministry, at the risk of his life, clandestinely. Religious persecution forces him to take refuge in different places. For example, he was clandestinely hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic with the cover of being severely afflicted with rheumatism and for 6 months he lived in the Honduran consulate. Finally, he managed to leave Madrid in 1937 after several unsuccessful attempts using false documentation. After a long flight with some of his followers through the Pyrenees, he passed through the south of France and moved to Burgos, capital of the insurgent area of Spain where he could freely exercise his priestly work.

The Civil War and the trials he had endured in it had marked him deeply. The fact that the clergy were subjected to persecution in the Republican zone left a particularly lasting memory with him.

Development of Opus Dei in the forties

Josemaría Escrivá returned to Madrid on March 28, 1939, in a military truck, and resumed the expansion of Opus Dei to other cities in Spain. The start of World War II precludes the start in other nations.

When the civil war ended in 1939, a radical change took place in the country's structures and the Spanish State proclaimed itself authoritarian, confessional, publicly linked to Falangist National-syndicalism and Carlist Traditionalism. The relations between Escrivá and Franco were close and are controversial, among other things because years later, the founder would write Franco a letter to thank him for declaring "compliance with the Law of God, according to the doctrine of the Holy Church". It is a letter dated in Rome on May 23, 1958, a photocopy of which, together with other unpublished ones by the same author, is kept in the archives of the Francisco Franco National Foundation. But it is also known that, on one occasion, the Bishop of Madrid asked him to preach some spiritual exercises to Franco and his family in the Palacio de El Pardo and that during those exercises there were certain misunderstandings between the two personalities.

In 1939 he obtained the title of Doctor of Law. He also recovered the position of rector of the Royal Board of Santa Isabel that he obtained in 1934 from the President of the Republic and that year he was granted the position of member of the National Council of Education and the position of professor of Ethics and Deontology at the Official School of Journalism. During the years after the war, many bishops from all over Spain called on him to lead spiritual exercises for priests in his diocese. He also preached to religious —among them the Augustinians of the community of the Monastery of El Escorial— at the request of the respective superiors., and many lay people.

Since the end of the war, it has developed the "Women's Section" within the Work, practically from scratch, with a structure similar to that of men, strictly separated from the men's section. That same year, the Bishop of Madrid, Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, granted the first diocesan approval of Opus Dei.

In 1943 Josemaría Escrivá found a legal solution, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, as a means to bring the spirit of Opus Dei to secular priests. The following year, the Bishop of Madrid ordains the first three members of Opus Dei to become priests: Álvaro del Portillo, José María Hernández Garnica and José Luis Múzquiz.

Move to Rome and expansion

Shield of arms of St.Josemaría Escrivá as Prelate of Honor of His Holiness

After the end of World War II, in 1946, Escrivá moved to Rome for having verified that the future issues for him and for Opus Dei were not in Madrid but in Rome. According to other biographers, that trip It has to be seen from another perspective: already in 1936, he had planned to start the work of Opus Dei in Paris, but the Spanish Civil War, first, and World War II later had prevented the expansion of Opus Dei abroad. His first trip to Rome had the immediate purpose of obtaining from the Holy See an approval of pontifical right that would ensure the secularity of the members of Opus Dei. But his intentions went further: he saw the city of Rome as the necessary enclave to direct the expansion of the Work throughout the world. In Rome, in 1947 he received the title of domestic prelate of His Holiness, which gave him the right to be treated as a monsignor, and to wear a red-trimmed cassock and, above all, made it clear that Opus Dei is not related to religious orders, since their members cannot receive these honorary titles.^{[citation required]}

Around those years he was diagnosed with severe diabetes. His health crises were very frequent starting in 1944. As an insulin-dependent diabetic, Escrivá constantly suffered from fatigue, visual disturbances, and kept himself on his feet thanks to injections and a strict diet.

The founding cycle seemed over. The first founding date, the men's section, took place in 1928; the second, the women's section, in 1930; the third, the priests, in 1943. The incorporation of supernumeraries, made up mostly of married men and women, in addition to the admission of cooperators (who may be non-Catholics, non-Christians and non-believers), took place between 1947 and 1948. From then on, the organization was going to present its definitive physiognomy.

Escrivá began legal operations for the recognition of Opus Dei by the Holy See. In 1947 and 1950, it obtained the approval of Opus Dei as a Secular Institute of pontifical right, its statutes being approved in 1950, in which the laity made, albeit privately, the three classic vows of obedience, chastity and poverty.

The new legal status of the Work as an institution of pontifical right facilitated a new international expansion. In 1949 the first marched to the United States and Mexico. During the 1950s, Opus Dei established itself in Canada and eleven other American countries, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Japan, and Kenya.

Exterior of the Josemaría Escrivá Church in Guadalajara, Mexico

In 1948 the Roman College of the Holy Cross was erected, an international training center for the men of Opus Dei. And in 1952, the Roman College of Santa María, for women. These two institutions allowed a good number of members of the Work to receive spiritual and pastoral formation directly from Escrivá, while obtaining a degree or doctorate in Philosophy, Theology, Canon Law or Sacred Scripture at one of the pontifical universities in Rome.. Many of the men and women who would begin the work of the Work throughout the world would first spend several years in Rome.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Escrivá made various trips to European capitals to prepare for the start of Opus Dei in those countries.

In 1947 the acquisition took place in Rome of a large house, with a garden at number 73 Bruno Buozzi street for the construction of the central house of the Work and headquarters of the Roman College of Opus Dei, which would last thirteen years, until 1960. Eight buildings were built from the original house. All of this gave the building an imposing air, as it was a complex and interconnected structure made up of eight buildings, with twelve dining rooms and fourteen oratories, some of which were underground, with the largest of the oratories accommodating more than two hundred people.

In the House of Rome, the tabernacle of the Trinidad oratory was Escrivá's favorite and where he prayed with the greatest devotion. There his children placed -following an ancient tradition- a tabernacle in the shape of a columba, a & # 34; Eucharistic dove & # 34;. It is hung from the ceiling above the altar and is a dove made of gold and precious stones, in whose crop a small tabernacle opens where the consecrated hosts are kept.

Escrivá was also made an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. He obtained a doctorate in Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University. He is appointed consultor of two Congregations of the Roman Curia.

He closely followed the preparations and sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), and sought intense contact with many of the council fathers. However, Escrivá did not participate in any of the council commissions or sessions, since -according to some- he was not invited no matter how hard he tried. However, the general secretary of Opus Dei, Álvaro del Portillo, played an important role in Council preparations.

Last years: apostolic catechetical trips

Despite the deterioration of his health, Josemaría Escrivá continued to stimulate and guide the spread of Opus Dei throughout the world during the last years of his life. For this reason, in the seventies he began to travel the world in what he called "apostolic forays".

In 1970 he went to Mexico to pray before the Virgin of Guadalupe and visit the people who participated in the apostolic work of Opus Dei there.

Two years later he made a trip around the Iberian Peninsula. In 1974, Escrivá traveled to South America for three months. He began his journey in São Paulo (Brazil), where he was from May 22 to June 7, holding twenty-five meetings with various groups of people.In Buenos Aires, he stayed from June 7 to 28. And he had meetings with about twenty-five thousand people. At the Coliseo Theater he held two meetings on June 23 and 26, each of which was attended by five thousand people. From June 28 to July 9, he went to Santiago de Chile, and took the opportunity to visit the sanctuary of the Virgin of Lo Vásquez, then continued his trip through Peru, from July 9 to 31. In Lima, he fell ill and remained convalescing for almost ten days (August 15-24). His stay in Quito lasted from August 1 to 10, but due to the soroche, he had to limit his activity, and could only meet four times with small groups. On August 15, he arrived in Caracas sick, and his physical condition worsened. His discomfort made him rest most of the time, from August 15 to 27. For this reason they decided to shorten their long catechetical trip and return to Rome on August 31.

In 1975 he began his last catechetical trip. The trip began on February 4 in Caracas, where he stayed until the 15th of the same month; and ended on February 23 in Guatemala City, from where he returned to Rome, dismissed by Cardinal Mario Casariego.

Abundant audiovisual material has been preserved from these trips, especially from his meetings with hundreds of people.

Death and canonization. Reactions

He died in Rome on June 26, 1975, after suffering a sudden heart attack. After his death, the Holy See received thousands of letters -among them, those from a third of the world episcopate and 41 superiors of religious orders- requesting the opening of the beatification and canonization process. Finally, her cause was introduced in 1981 and on May 17, 1992, John Paul II beatified Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer in Saint Peter's Square, in Rome. "With supernatural intuition," the pope said in his homily, "Blessed Josemaría tirelessly preached the universal call to holiness and the apostolate." On October 6, 2002, he was canonized by John Paul II in Rome, supported by the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the events. During his canonization ceremony, John Paul II encouraged everyone to seek holiness in the midst of of the world, in work and ordinary life, as taught by the new saint and following his example.

His rapid process to the altars was not without controversy and opposition. Detractors criticize what they see as a lightning canonization or "turbo sanctity" de Escrivá, and they affirm that the entire process was riddled with irregularities. However, he also obtained the support of various figures in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

John Paul II, in his canonization bull, called him "the saint of the ordinary or ordinary life" and that Saint Josemaría "was among the great witnesses of Christianity".

After his canonization, in many countries he has received some public recognition: sculptures, images, plaques, murals, churches, streets, squares, etc.

Currently there are more than eighty thousand members of Opus Dei according to the data provided by the Work itself to the Pontifical Yearbook of the Holy See.

Thought and message

Divine affiliation

“Divine filiation is the foundation of the spirit of Opus Dei,” Josemaría stated on numerous occasions. From baptism, a Christian is a child of God. Escrivá strove to live and spread this message as central to the life of a Christian.

Freedom

All the biographies and studies on Escrivá's thought highlight, as one of the fundamental elements of his personality, his life and his works, the value he assigns to freedom as a gift from God. His teaching on freedom is not limited to the social, political and thought action of the Christian. It is a reality that influences the entire Christian life in its existential unity and in its variety of ways, in particular it characterizes the entire spiritual life of the Christian, his relationship with God, with others and with the world.

Hallow work

Escrivá de Balaguer taught to seek holiness at work, which means striving to do it well, with professional competence, and with a Christian sense; that is, for the love of God and to serve men. Thus —he affirmed— ordinary work becomes a place of encounter with Christ.

Unit of life

The founder of Opus Dei explained that the Christian must not “lead a double life: the interior life, the life of relationship with God, on the one hand; and from another, distinct and separate, family, professional and social life». On the contrary, Saint Josemaría pointed out, "there is only one life, made of flesh and spirit, and that is the one that has to be —in the soul and in the body— holy and full of God."

Prayer and sacrifice

St. Josemaría recalled the need to cultivate prayer and penance proper to the Christian spirit. He recommended attendance — if possible, daily — at Holy Mass, spending time reading the Gospel and going frequently to the sacrament of confession. He encouraged devotion to the Virgin. To imitate Jesus Christ, he also recommended offering some small mortifications, especially those that facilitate the fulfillment of duty and make life more pleasant for others, as well as fasting and almsgiving.

Ordinary Life

It is in the midst of the most material things on earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all men,, said Saint Josemaría. The family, marriage, work, the occupation of each moment are habitual opportunities to try and imitate Jesus Christ, trying to practice charity, patience, humility, industriousness, justice, joy and in general the human virtues. and christians.

Honors and distinctions

Painting of Godofredo Zapanta, Jr.

• Marquesado de Peralta (1968-1972)
• Doctor honoris causa de la Universidad de Zaragoza (October, 1960)
• Predilection son of Barbastro (March 29, 1947)
• Adoptive Son of Barcelona (October 7, 1966).
• Adoptive Son of Pamplona (October, 1960).
• Great cross of San Raimundo de Peñafort (1954).
• Great cross of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio (1951).
• Grand Cross Knight of the Order of Elizabeth the Catholic (1956)
• Big Knight of the Order of Charles III (1960).
• Great cross of the Civil Order of Charity, with white distinction (1964).
• Appointment as a Monsignor by the Pope.

Influence

Oratory of Santa María de la Paz at the central offices of Opus Dei, where are the mortal remains of Escriva.

He is the author of books on spirituality distributed in the five continents. The best known and most popular is Camino, which has nearly four and a half million copies in 43 languages.

Some characteristic features of Escrivá were his deep adherence to the Pope and the Church; He repeatedly affirmed that "Opus Dei (which is" a part of the Church ") is there to serve the Church as she wants to be served".

Numerous personalities of the Church consider Josemaría Escrivá as a forerunner of the Second Vatican Council due to his preaching about holiness in the middle of the world, affirming that people of any condition and from any honest profession can become saints without having to be priests or religious.

Cardinal Albino Luciani —future Pope John Paul I—, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI supported Escrivá's teachings "on the universal call to holiness, the role of the laity, and the sanctification of work."

Controversy

During his life, both his person and Opus Dei aroused controversy, mainly due to accusations of secrecy, elitism, and sectarianism by the organization and its founder, in addition to the organization's support for ultra-right totalitarianisms, such as the well-known participation of the so-called "Opus technocrats" in the economic plans of the Francisco Franco dictatorship. Described as "the most controversial force in the Catholic Church", in the words of journalist John Allen, Opus Dei was viewed by some theologians as a sign of contradiction and by others as a source of controversy.

Some authors, who never lived with Escrivá, such as Ynfante and Carandell, have presented a very negative image of Escrivá, accentuating his bad humor, and even his anger. Regarding Carandell's biography, Ricardo de la Cierva dismisses it as "jocular and stupid". The accusations have been denied by people who lived with Escrivá for long years, such as Rafael Gómez Pérez, former member of the Prelature and many other people. such as Ángel Galíndez, Manuel Aznar, or José Antonio Giménez-Arnau, none of whom belonged to Opus Dei.

After his death, his canonization caused considerable controversy, both within the Church and in the press around the world. Several journalists who investigated Opus Dei's history, including Vatican scholar John Allen, argued that many of the accusations against Escrivá are unproven or come from the enemies of Josemaría and his organization.

Request and concession of the Marquesado de Peralta

Possibly one of the most controversial episodes in Escrivá's life occurred in 1968. When he applied for and was granted by the Franco government, in part -according to Jesús Ynfante - thanks to the collaboration of a member of Opus Dei in the Ministry of Justice the title of III Marquis of Peralta, a title that he retained without using for four years, before renouncing it in 1972 in favor of his brother Santiago. According to Ricardo de la Cierva's investigation, the concession, although with good intentions, was obtained irregularly.

Posts

His best-known book is Camino, a collection of 999 aphorisms. Two other collections of aphorisms were published posthumously: Surco and Forge.

La Abadesa de las Huelgas is a theological-legal study, based on original sources and documents, on the extraordinary case of quasi-episcopal jurisdiction by the abbess of the famous Burgos monastery. The first edition was published in 1944.

Loving the Church brings together three homilies by the founder of Opus Dei: Loyalty to the Church, The Supernatural End of the Church and Priest for eternity. The volume also includes two articles by Bishop Álvaro del Portillo on the figure of the founder of Opus Dei.

Speeches on the University is a volume prepared by the University of Navarra on the occasion of the beatification of its Founder and First Grand Chancellor. It includes the various academic speeches he gave before the university corporation, the homily he gave on the campus of the University of Navarra in October 1967 and some other public statements of his on university issues.

In addition, two collections of homilies were published: Christ is passing by, dedicated to the great moments of the liturgical year; and Friends of God , in which he glosses a series of virtues. Holy Rosary and Way of the Cross (posthumous work) are dedicated to these two traditional forms of Catholic piety. Finally, Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer brings together in one volume interviews given to various media and a homily delivered on the campus of the University of Navarra in 1967.

A critical-historical edition has been published for both Camino and Santo Rosario.

Movie

In 2011 There be Dragons was released, a film starring Charlie Cox, Wes Bentley, Dougray Scott and Olga Kurylenko, in which Charlie Cox gives life to Josemaría. According to the synopsis of the tape: & # 34; In the aftermath of the horror of the Spanish civil war, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers that his own father had a deep, dark and devastating connection & # 34;.

Bibliography on Josemaría Escrivá and Opus Dei

Biographies

Bibliography References