Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer was born in Barbastro (Spain) on January 9, 1902, the second of six children of José Escrivá and María Dolores Albás. His parents, fervent Catholics, took him to the baptismal font four days later, on January 13, and then taught him, first of all with their exemplary life, the foundations of faith and the practice of Christian virtues: love for frequent confession and communion, trust in prayer, devotion to Our Lady, and helping those most in need.

Blessed Josemaría grew up as a cheerful, bright and simple child, naughty, a good student, intelligent and gifted with a spirit of observation. He had great affection for his mother and great trust and friendship for his father, who invited him to turn to him freely to tell him his worries, always ready to give him affectionate and prudent advice. Soon the Lord began to temper his soul in the forge of pain: between 1910 and 1913 his three younger sisters died and in 1914 the family suffered a financial collapse. In 1915 the Escrivás moved to Logroño, where the father had found a job that would allow him to support his family, albeit modestly.

In the winter of 1917-18, an event occurred that would have a decisive influence on Josemaría Escrivá's future: during the Christmas holidays, a heavy snowfall fell on the city and one day he observed the frozen footprints left in the snow by two bare feet; they were the prints of a Carmelite friar who was walking barefoot. He then asked himself: - If others make so many sacrifices for God and for their neighbor, will I not be able to offer Him anything? Thus a "divine restlessness" arose in his soul: - I began to have a presentiment of Love, to realize that my heart was asking me for something great and that it was love. Although he did not yet know precisely what the Lord was asking of him, he decided to become a priest, to make himself more available to fulfill the divine will.

After completing high school, he began his ecclesiastical studies at the seminary in Logroño and, in 1920, he transferred to the seminary in Zaragoza, where he completed his formation prior to the priesthood at the Pontifical University. In the capital of Aragon, following a suggestion from his father and with the permission of his ecclesiastical superiors, he also studied law. He was much loved by his classmates for his generous and cheerful, simple and serene character. Josemaría's commitment to a life of piety, discipline and study was an example for all seminarians and in 1922, at the age of just twenty, the Archbishop of Zaragoza appointed him Inspector of the Seminary.

In those years he spent many hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, laying the foundations for a profound Eucharistic life, and went every day to the Basilica of the Pillar to ask Our Lady to show him what God wants from him: – Since I felt those premonitions of God’s love, he said on October 2, 1968, in my smallness I tried to realize what He expected from this poor instrument [...]. And, amid those anxieties, I prayed, prayed, prayed in a continuous prayer. I never stopped repeating: Domine, ut sit! Domine, ut videam!, like the poor man in the Gospel, who cries out because God can do everything. Lord, let me see! Lord, let it be! And I also repeated, [...] full of trust in my Mother in Heaven: Domina, ut sit!, Domina, ut videam! The Most Holy Virgin has always helped me to discover the desires of her Son.

On November 27, 1924, José Escrivá died of a sudden syncope. On March 28, 1925, Josemaría was ordained a priest by Msgr. Miguel de los Santos Díaz Gómara, in the church of the Seminary of San Carlos in Saragossa, and two days later he celebrated his first solemn Mass in the Holy Chapel of the Basilica del Pilar. On the 31st of the same month he moved to Perdiguera, a peasant village, where he was appointed auxiliary regent of the parish.

In April 1927, with the approval of his archbishop, he moved to Madrid to obtain a doctorate in Civil Law, which at the time could only be obtained at the Central University of the Spanish capital. Here his apostolic zeal immediately put him in contact with people from all social backgrounds: students, artists, workers, intellectuals, priests. In particular, he tirelessly devoted himself to the children, the sick, and the poor of the outlying slums.

At the same time, he supported his mother and brothers by giving lessons in legal subjects. These were times of great economic hardship, which the whole family lived with serene dignity. The Lord blessed him with abundant extraordinary graces that found fertile ground in his generous soul and produced abundant fruits for the benefit of the Church and souls.

On October 2, 1928, Opus Dei was born . Blessed Josemaría was taking part in a retreat and, while meditating on the notes in which he had recorded the interior motions he had received from God over the last few years, he suddenly "saw" – this was the term he would always use to describe the foundational experience – the mission that the Lord wanted to entrust to him: to begin a new vocational path in the Church, to promote the search for holiness and apostolate through the sanctification of ordinary work in the middle of the world, without changing one's state. A few months later, on February 14, 1930, the Lord made him understand that Opus Dei must also include women.

From that moment on, Blessed Josemaría dedicated himself body and soul to his founding mission: to ensure that men and women from all walks of life commit themselves to following Christ, loving their neighbor and seeking holiness in their daily lives. He did not consider himself an innovator or a reformer, because he was convinced that Christ is eternal newness and that the Holy Spirit continually rejuvenates the Church, for whose service God raised up Opus Dei. Aware that he had been entrusted with a supernatural mission, he based his work on prayer, sacrifice, the joyful awareness of divine filiation, and tireless work. People from all walks of life began to follow him, especially groups of university students, in whom he awakened a sincere aspiration to serve their fellow men, kindling in them the burning desire to put Christ at the center of all human activities through work that was sanctified, sanctifying and sanctifying. This is the goal he will assign to the initiatives of the faithful of Opus Dei: to raise to God, with the help of grace, every created reality, so that Christ may reign in everyone and in everything; to know Jesus Christ, to make him known, to bring him to all places. It is therefore understandable that he could exclaim: – The divine paths of the earth have been opened.

In 1933 he opened a university academy because he realized that the world of science and culture is a focal point for the evangelization of the entire society. In 1934 he published, with the title of Consideraciones espirituales, the first edition of Cammino, a book of spirituality, of which more than four and a half million copies have been published so far, with 372 editions in 44 languages.

Opus Dei was still in its infancy when, in 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Anti-religious violence was raging in Madrid, but Don Josemaría, despite the risks, devoted himself heroically to prayer, penance and apostolate. It was a time of suffering for the Church; but they were also years of spiritual and apostolic growth and of strengthening hope. In 1939, with the conflict over, the founder of Opus Dei was able to give new impetus to his apostolic work throughout the country and, in particular, he mobilized many young university students to bring Christ everywhere and discover the greatness of their Christian vocation. Meanwhile, his fame for sanctity was spreading: many bishops invited him to preach retreats to the clergy and lay people of Catholic organizations. Similar requests came from the superiors of various religious orders and he always granted them.

In 1941, while he was preaching a retreat to a group of priests in Lérida, his mother, who had helped the apostolates of Opus Dei so much, died. The Lord also allowed bitter misunderstandings to arise against him. The bishop of Madrid, Msgr. Eijo y Garay, sent him his most sincere support and granted the first canonical approval of Opus Dei. Blessed Josemaría endured the difficulties with prayer and good humor, knowing full well that "all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim 3:12), and he recommended to his spiritual children that, faced with offenses, they should strive to forgive and forget: to be silent, to pray, to work, to smile.

In 1943, through a new foundational grace he received during the celebration of Mass, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was born within Opus Dei, in which priests from the ranks of the lay faithful of Opus Dei could be incardinated. The full membership of lay faithful and priests in Opus Dei, as well as the organic cooperation of both in its apostolates, is a specific characteristic of the foundational charism, which the Church confirmed in 1982 with its definitive juridical configuration as a personal Prelature. On June 25, 1944, three engineers, including Alvaro del Portillo, the Founder's first successor at the head of Opus Dei, were ordained priests. By 1975, there were almost a thousand lay members of Opus Dei whom Blessed Josemaría would lead to the priesthood.

Furthermore, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, intrinsically united to the Prelature of Opus Dei, carries out, in full harmony with the Pastors of the local Churches, activities of spiritual formation for diocesan priests and candidates for the priesthood. Diocesan priests can also be part of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, without changing their membership in the clergy of their respective dioceses.

As soon as he glimpsed the end of the world war, Blessed Josemaría began to prepare apostolic work in other countries, because – he repeated – Jesus wants his Work to have a universal, Catholic character from the very beginning. In 1946 he moved to Rome with the aim of preparing the pontifical recognition of Opus Dei. On February 24, 1947, Pius XII granted the decretum laudis and on June 16, 1950, definitive approval. From that day on, non-Catholic and even non-Christian men and women could be admitted as Cooperators of Opus Dei, to support its apostolic activities with their work, almsgiving and prayer.

The headquarters of Opus Dei was established in Rome to emphasize even more tangibly the aspiration that informed all its work: – To serve the Church as the Church wishes to be served, in strict adherence to the Chair of Peter and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Pius XII and John XXIII repeatedly sent him expressions of affection and esteem; Paul VI wrote to him in 1964, defining Opus Dei as a "living expression of the perennial youth of the Church".

This period in the life of the founder of Opus Dei was also marked by all sorts of trials: to his health compromised by so many hardships (he suffered from a serious form of diabetes for over ten years, until 1954, when he miraculously recovered), were added the economic hardships and difficulties connected with the expansion of the apostolates throughout the world. And yet he was always seen cheerful, because true virtue is not sad and unpleasant, but rather amiably cheerful. His perennial good humor is a continuous testimony of unconditional love for the will of God.

The world is very small when Love is great: the desire to flood the earth with the light of Christ leads him to welcome the appeals of the numerous bishops who, in every part of the world, ask for the contribution of the apostolates of Opus Dei to evangelization. Various projects are born: professional schools, training centers for farmers, universities, schools, clinics and dispensaries, etc. These activities, which he liked to define as a sea without shores, the fruit of the initiative of ordinary Christians who want to take care, with a lay mentality and professional sense, of the concrete needs of a certain place, are open to people of all races, religions and social conditions, because their clear Christian identity is always combined with a profound respect for the freedom of conscience.

When John XXIII announced the convocation of an Ecumenical Council, he began to pray and have others pray for the happy outcome of this great initiative that was the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, as he wrote in a letter in 1962. In the Council sessions the solemn Magisterium confirmed some fundamental aspects of the spirit of Opus Dei: the universal call to holiness, professional work as a means of holiness and apostolate, the value and legitimate limits of the freedom of the Christian in temporal matters, the Holy Mass as the center and root of the interior life, etc. Blessed Josemaría met numerous Council Fathers and Experts, who saw in him an authentic precursor of many of the main lines of Vatican II. Deeply identified with the Council's doctrine, he diligently promoted its diffusion through the formation activities of Opus Dei throughout the world.

Far away – over there, on the horizon – it seems that heaven and earth are united. Do not forget that where heaven and earth truly unite is in your heart as a child of God. The preaching of Blessed Josemaría constantly emphasizes the primacy of interior life over organizational activities: – These world crises are crises of saints, he wrote in The Way, and sanctity always requires that interpenetration of prayer, work and apostolate that he calls unity of life and of which his conduct is the best testimony.

He was deeply convinced that to achieve sanctity in daily work it is necessary to strive to be a soul of prayer, a soul of profound interior life. When one lives in this way, everything is prayer, everything can and must lead us to God, nourishing a continuous relationship with Him, from morning to night. Every honest job can be prayer; and every job that is prayer is apostolate.

The root of the prodigious fruitfulness of his ministry is found precisely in the ardent interior life that made Blessed Josemaría a contemplative in the midst of the world: an interior life nourished by prayer and the sacraments, which expressed itself in his passionate love for the Eucharist, in the depth with which he made the Mass the center and root of his life, in his tender devotion to Mary, to Saint Joseph and to the Guardian Angels, in his fidelity to the Church and to the Pope.

In the last years of his life, the founder of Opus Dei made catechetical trips throughout much of Europe and several countries in Latin America. He took part in numerous formation meetings everywhere, simple and familiar, even though thousands of people were often present to listen to him, in which he spoke about God, the sacraments, Christian devotions, the sanctification of work, and love for the Church and the Pope. On March 28, 1975, he celebrated his priestly jubilee. That day, his prayer was like a synthesis of his entire life: – Fifty years later, I find myself like a babbling child. I begin and begin again in my interior struggle every day. And so it is until the end of my remaining days: always beginning again.

On June 26, 1975, Blessed Josemaría died in his workroom at midday, following a cardiac arrest, at the foot of a picture of Our Lady upon which he cast his last gaze. At that time, Opus Dei was present on the five continents with more than 60,000 members of 80 nationalities. The spiritual works of Msgr. Escrivá (The Way, The Holy Rosary, Conversations with Msgr. Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Friends of God, Our Mother Church, The Way of the Cross, Furrow, The Forge) were distributed in millions of copies.

After his death, a large number of faithful asked the Pope to open the cause of canonization. On May 17, 1992, in Rome, His Holiness John Paul II elevated Josemaría Escrivá to the honors of the altars, in a beatification ceremony attended by a multitude of faithful. On September 21, 2001, the Ordinary Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops, members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, unanimously confirmed the miraculous character of a healing and its attribution to Blessed Josemaría.

On December 20, 2002, John Paul II approved the decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints regarding the miracle of Blessed Josemaría that opened the doors to his canonization. It concerns the miraculous healing of a serious occupational disease (chronic radiodermatitis) suffered for several years by Dr. Manuel Nevado Rey , who disappeared in November 1992, after having turned to the intercession of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá.

Radiodermatitis is a disease typical of health workers who have exposed their hands to the action of radiation emitted by X-ray equipment for a prolonged period of time. The disease is progressive, it inevitably progresses until it causes, over the years, the appearance of skin cancer. Radiodermatitis has no adequate cure. The only known treatments are surgical (skin grafts, amputation of the parts of the hands affected by the lesions). In fact, no case of spontaneous healing of chronic radiodermatitis in cancerous evolution has been reported in medical literature to date.

Dr. Manuel Nevado Rey is Spanish, born in 1932, a medical specialist in traumatology. For almost fifteen years he operated on fractures and other injuries, exposing his hands to the effects of X-rays. He began to perform this type of surgery very frequently starting in 1956. The first symptoms of radiodermatitis began to appear in 1962 and the disease worsened to the point that in 1984 he had to limit his activity to minor surgery, due to the already serious damage to his hands, and then even stop operating in the summer of 1992. Dr. Nevado did not undergo any treatment.

In November 1992, Dr. Nevado met Luis Eugenio Bernardo, an agricultural engineer who works for a Spanish public organization. Hearing about Dr. Manuel's illness, Bernardo gave him a prayer card of the founder of Opus Dei, beatified on May 17 of that year, inviting him to turn to his intercession to be cured of radiodermatitis.

From that moment on, Dr. Nevado began to recommend himself to Blessed Escrivá. A few days after this meeting, he went with his wife to Vienna to attend a medical conference. They visited several churches together and found prayer cards of Blessed Josemaría. "I was impressed," Dr. Nevado explains, "and I was encouraged to pray even more for my healing." From the day he began to entrust his healing to the intercession of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá, the lesions on his hands improved and, in about fifteen days, disappeared completely. The healing was complete, so much so that in early January 1993, Dr. Nevado was able to return to his work as a surgeon without any problems.

In the Archdiocese of Badajoz – where Dr. Nevado resides – a canonical process was held on this healing, which was concluded in 1994. On July 10, 1997, the Medical Committee of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints unanimously issued the following diagnosis: “ Cancerization of serious chronic radiodermatitis in the 3rd stage, in the irreversible phase ”; and therefore with a certainly inauspicious prognosis . The complete healing of the lesions, confirmed by objective examinations of the patient in 1992, 1994 and 1997, was declared by the Medical Committee to be “ very rapid, complete and lasting, scientifically inexplicable ”. On January 9, 1998, the Special Congress of Theological Consultors gave a unanimous affirmative response regarding the attribution of the miracle to Blessed Josemaría Escrivá. The Ordinary Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops, on 21 September 2001, confirmed these judgments. On 26 February 2002, John Paul II presided over the Ordinary Public Consistory of Cardinals and, having heard the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops present, established the date of 6 October 2002 for the ceremony of Canonization of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá.

From the Apostolic Brief of Beatification of the Venerable Servant of God Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Priest, Founder of Opus Dei:

« The Founder of Opus Dei recalled that the universality of the call to the fullness of union with Christ also means that every human activity becomes a place of encounter with God [...]. He was an authentic master of Christian life and knew how to reach the heights of contemplation with continuous prayer, uninterrupted mortification, the daily effort of a work carried out with exemplary docility to the motions of the Holy Spirit in order to serve the Church as the Church wants to be served» .

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