St Josemaría Escrivá and Nazism

This is a letter from Domingo Diaz-Ambrona, a civil engineer and lawyer, to Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, Prelate of Opus Dei, dated 9 January 1992. It ispublished in Immersed in God. I met the future Saint, Josemaría Escrivá, during the Spanish Civil War. At that time [...]
Tags: Spanish Civil War, History

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Maria Pötsch (Austria)

St Josemaria’s devotion to the picture of our Lady known as “Maria Pötsch” originated in one of the journeys he made to Vienna, Austria. He first went to Austria in 1949, but he did not get as far as Vienna itself. In the aftermath of [...]
Tags: History, Our Lady

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Our Lady of Lourdes

In the year 1858, in the folds of the east-central Pyrenees, Lourdes was a little township with a total population of around four thousand people. An ancient story relates that a Saracen emir named Mirat occupied the fortress overlooking the city in the year 778. [...]
Tags: Spanish Civil War, History, Crossing the Pyrenees, Our Lady

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Freedom, politics and Opus Dei

The difficulties that the Work encountered in the sixties did not come just from the opposition of one particular person or group. The founder faced all kinds of resistance, as often happens with any institution of historic significance. Some of these have already been mentioned, [...]
Tags: Citizenship, History, Freedom, Opus Dei, Politics

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Koichi Yamamoto and the beginnings of Opus Dei in Japan

A brief account of the beginnings of Opus Dei’s apostolate in Japan and the life of one of the first Japanese members. It shows the keen affection St Josemaría always felt for Japan, as well as the way the spirit of Opus Dei is lived [...]
Tags: History, Opus Dei, numerary

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St Josemaria and Our Lady of Mercy, Barcelona

St Josemaria Escriva was a devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary his whole life long. Each of her titles found a place in his heart and some took on special resonance at particular eras in his life. One of these was Our Lady of Mercy, [...]
Tags: Gratitude, Barcelona, History, Our Lady

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Christian Parents

Saint Josemaría was born in Barbastro at about ten o’clock at night on January 9, 1902. His parents were José Escriva and Dolores Albas The Escrivas came originally from Narbonne in France, but had been settled for centuries in the Catalonian district of Balaguer. José’s parents [...]
Tags: Barbastro, Cross, History

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October 16, 1931, in a Madrid streetcar: Abba, Pater!

I learned to call God “Father” as a child in the Our Father. But to feel, to see, to admire God’s desire that we be his children…, that was on the street, in a streetcar, for an hour or an hour and a half, I’m [...]
Tags: Divine sonship, History, Madrid

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Prehistory of the founding of Opus Dei (1917-1928)

Opus Dei was founded by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer on October 2, 1928. At that point he was a 26-year-old priest. Up till that moment, there is no history of Opus Dei as such. There was a prehistory, which was the story of its Founder’s [...]
Tags: October 2, 1928, Founding of Opus Dei, History, Footprints in the Snow, Vocation