Fr. Jorge Molinero, vicar of Opus Dei in Valencia, Spain

Fr. Jorge Molinero, vicar of Opus Dei in Valencia, Spain

April 30, 2010

“In the years that I knew him, I smiled and laughed non-stop with St Josemaria, the founder of Opus Dei. Knowing that he was a son of God; knowing that he was in God’s tender, powerful hands; loving created things passionately, starting with people, and also admiring all the good things people are capable of doing... all of that filled his soul with a joy that was mysteriously compatible with the great sufferings that God also permits in the lives of his saints.”

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Escriva showed me that there is freedom in the Catholic Church

Rolf Herold, Physics and Mathematics Professor, Forchheim, Germany

April 9, 2010

Escriva showed me something that I would have never believed, that there is freedom in the Catholic Church. What I thought before about the Catholic Church was the usual clichés: coercion, narrow-mindedness, “you must…”

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Bishop Anthony Muheria of Kitui, (Kenya)

As the Church, we have to foster encounters between very different people, not reject anybody. St Josemaria Escriva used to say there is only one tribe, only one race: that of God’s children.

March 26, 2010

The teachings of the founder of Opus Dei help me in my work. As he inspired so many social projects, he challenges me and helps me to practise justice with charity. And his optimism encourages me to avoid escapism and fatalism. For example, although my diocese is in one of the poorest areas, dry and arid, we have a lot of hope.

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Roland Joffé and St Josemaria Escriva

Roland Joffé, scriptwriter, director and producer of movies.

February 28, 2010

Roland Joffé is the scriptwriter, director and co-producer of the forthcoming film There be dragons, which features St Josemaria, founder of Opus Dei, as one of the main characters.

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Cardinal Franz König, Archbishop Emeritus of Vienna

A man with a great heart and broad vision

February 27, 2010

I met Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in Rome during the Second Vatican Council. I had been told that he fostered the role of laity in everyday life, in the world of work. He wanted the Church to be active in the world through the laity, without Roman collars or the bishops’ sashes. In my opinion he was a man with a great heart and broad vision. He followed events in the Council closely, and spoke about what was happening all over the world. I soon realized that in him the Church was very much alive.

What Happened?

From Atheistic Radical Feminist to Stay-at-home Catholic Mom

February 12, 2010

I have been a member of Opus Dei for almost 17 years. It enriches all aspects of my life by helping me understand everything with a supernatural outlook. In joining Opus Dei I did not change what I believed. Rather, being a member helps me to live my faith every day, and even every minute of every day.

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Dancing Hula in the Quest for Holiness

Jane Reckart, mother of six, studied engineering at Stanford University

January 15, 2010

I learned from St. Josemaría’s love of freedom that God made me the way he did for a reason, and as a Christian I have to be open to his promptings so I can fulfill what he wants of me. I can’t wait to find out how a Jamaican/English hula-dancing engineer with six kids fits into his plans.

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His words reached people’s souls

Inés Dorronsoro, Medical Doctor, Pamplona, Spain

December 5, 2009

My first encounter with the founder of Opus Dei was in the year 1960. I was starting my second year of medicine. Even more than his face, I remember his warm, vigorous voice as he gave a homily in the Cathedral in Pamplona. His words reached people’s souls, producing in them resolutions of greater commitment to Christian living.

The Work of a Film Historian

William J. Park, Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Film Historian, USA

December 1, 2009

I am a Professor of English Literature who also became a Film Historian and Critic while teaching at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville NY. Last year my wife and I retired to Santa Cruz, California, where I continue to study, to write, and to spend a great deal of time with my grandchildren.

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I had yet to know anything of Christianity

Toshimi Nakai, Author of Ten to chi wo Tsunagu (“Uniting Heaven and Earth”), a biographical sketch of the founder of Opus Dei.

November 29, 2009

Constancy has never been my strong suit. Many’s the time I’ve regretted not finishing what I’d started. But there is one glowing exception: at college I converted to Catholicism.

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He can put everything right

Virginia McGough, home maker, Cheshire, Great Britain

November 4, 2009

I think the aspect of Saint Josemaria’s teaching that has the greatest effect on my life is his teaching on divine filiation. The knowledge that I’m a precious daughter of God, and that everything that happens to me is either willed or permitted by God, gives me a wonderful feeling of security, a great peace. Of course, sometimes (well, quite often if I’m truthful) I lose this peace. I get in a flap, and end up shouting at the children. But that’s where Josemaria Escriva’s teaching on rectifying, on going back to Our Father God with all the confidence of a child who knows her father is longing for her to say sorry so that he can put everything right, is so wonderful. And once I’ve said sorry to

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She sewed a prayer-card into the inside of our clothes to protect us

Hayat Hassan Ali, Ethiopia

Canada, November 2, 2009

I was born in Ethiopia and have lived in Quebec since 1985. I’m the youngest daughter of a large family of 18 children.
When my brothers and sisters and I had to escape from Ethiopia because of the war, my grandmother sewed a prayer-card of Msgr Josemaria Escriva into the inside of our clothes, to protect us from danger. We felt secure on the way to the border, as we knew our friend was with us. On our long journey on foot, we were terribly thirsty but there was no drinking-water. All we could find were dirty puddles. The guide knew our devotion to our “saint” and encouraged us to kneel down and pray to him. Afterwards we came to a fork in the path, and we saw a man dressed in white waving to us from some way off, as if to say “Over here! This way!” We decided to follow him, and found ourselves standing before a stream of clean water where we could all drink. We couldn’t see any sign of the “guardian angel” who had guided us to it.

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