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100 years on |
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JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ |
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CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH |
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Are you close to God in your workplace? Do you find Christ at the office, at school, at home? |
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In 1958 a Spanish priest was walking the streets of the City of London. Sensing the vast human power of the financial institutions around him, he felt a twinge of discouragement: can we really evangelise here? Almost immediately he heard inside him some words, as if God were speaking to him in his heart: You can’t, but I can.
That priest was Josemaría Escrivá, who founded Opus Dei in 1928. |
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His message was simple: everyone is called to holiness wherever they are. Some 35 years later this message would form part of the teaching of Vatican II. |
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“A man who sells ice cream should be a saint, and also a woman who works in the kitchen all day, and a bank manager, and a university lecturer, and a farm labourer, and a porter carrying suitcases on his shoulders… All are called to sanctity! This has now been included in the last Council, but at that time – in 1928 – people didn’t think that way.”
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Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975) |
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Today, Opus Dei is established as a personal Prelature of the Catholic Church. It has about 84,000 faithful, men and women of all ages and backgrounds, mostly married, from over 90 different 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 out their Christian vocation in the world. |
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