Saint Josemaria Escriva:

Feast day : 26 June

“Dont let your life be barren. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and of your love.”

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Josemaria Escriva, a Spanish Roman Catholic priest who lived during the period 1902-1975. He is the founder of Opus Dei, an organisation of lay people, priests and religious that brought forth the message of a universal call to holiness for all people. The organisation’s mission was to sanctify everyday ordinary life. He was canonized in 2002 by Saint Pope John Paul II. During the thanksgiving Mass of his canonization, Saint Pope John Paul II, said: "In the Founder of Opus Dei, there is an extraordinary love for the will of God. There exists a sure criterion of holiness: fidelity in accomplishing the Divine will down to the last consequences. For each one of us the Lord has a plan, to each he entrusts a mission on earth. The saint could not even conceive of himself outside of God's plan. He lived only to achieve it. St Josemaría was chosen by the Lord to announce the universal call to holiness and to point out that daily life and ordinary activities are a path to holiness. One could say that he was the saint of ordinary life.

Early life:

Saint Josemaria Escriva was born in 1902 to a devout and happy family in the Spanish province of Aragon. When he was sixteen years old, he went out on a snowy morning and saw the marks of a bare foot imprinted in the snow. He realised that these belonged to one of the Discalced Carmelite friars who had moved into the area. The young Josemaria was so moved to see this sacrifice for God that he resolved to emulate it saying “If others make such sacrifices for God and neighbour, cant I offer something?” He made up his mind to become a priest but also knew that there was something more that God wanted from him. He always believed that he was chosen for something. He did not know about it till the year 1928, ten years after he saw the footprints in the snow. All the years that he spent pursuing his priestly formation, studies and ministry he would spend hours before the Blessed Sacrament praying for insight into what it was that the Lord wanted him to do, praying “Lord, let me see! Lord let it be! What is it you want and I do not know?”

Religious life:

On October 2, 1928 as he was going through some notes in his room, it suddenly dawned on him. God was asking him to help ordinary Catholics sanctify their secular work and occupations, so that they could become saints in their ordinary lives. This was the beginning of the organisation that he founded, Opus Dei, meaning “Work of God”. He founded it in 1928 and Pope Pius XII gave his approval in 1950. It developed into a world-wide association consisting of priests and lay people who have committed to a life of celibacy to bear witness to Christ. The mission of Opus Dei was “sanctification of everyday life” firmly upholding that all lives were called to holiness and to be witnesses of Christ. Saint Josemaria worked especially among the poor and the sick languishing in the slums and hospitals of Madrid. With tireless charity and operative hope he guided the development of Opus Dei throughout the world, activating a vast mobilization of lay people. He gave life to numerous initiatives in the work of evangelization and human welfare; he fostered vocations to the priesthood and the religious life everywhere.

He put great value in prayer and urged everyone he met to pray for him and his intentions as well urged them to be in prayer as he wrote “A saint, without prayer? I don’t believe in such sanctity”. In his canonization homily, Pope John Paul II described Escrivá as "a master in the practice of prayer, which he considered to be an extraordinary 'weapon' to redeem the world. It is not a paradox but a perennial truth; the fruitfulness of the apostolate lies above all in prayer and in intense and constant sacramental life." When he was 10 or 11 years old, he already had the habit of carrying the rosary in his pocket. As a priest, he would ordinarily end his homilies and his personal prayer with a conversation with the Blessed Virgin. He instructed that all rooms in the offices of Opus Dei should have an image of the Virgin. He encouraged his spiritual children to greet these images when they entered a room. He also encouraged a Marian apostolate, preaching that "To Jesus we go and to Him we return through Mary".

His books, including Furrow, The Way, Christ is Passing By, and The Forge, are widely popular and emphasize the laity's calling to daily sanctification. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) confirmed the importance of the universal call to holiness, the role of the laity, and the Mass as the basis of Christian life.

In 1950, he was appointed an Honorary Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius XII, which allowed him to use the title of Monsignor. In 1955, he received a doctorate of theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He was a consultor to two Vatican congregations (the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities and the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law) and an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. In 1948 he founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Crucis (Roman College of the Holy Cross), Opus Dei's educational center for men, in Rome. In 1953 he founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Mariae (Roman College of Saint Mary) to serve the women's section (these institutions are now joined into the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.) He also established the University of Navarre, in Pamplona, and the University of Piura (in Peru), as secular institutions affiliated with Opus Dei.

Death and Sainthood:

While looking at a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe giving a rose to San Juan Diego, he once commented: "I would like to die that way." On 26 June 1975, at the age of 73, after entering his work room, which had a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he slumped on the floor and died. He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, who declared Josemaría Escriva should be "counted among the great witnesses of Christianity." He described him as “All those who met him, whatever their culture or social status, felt he was a father, totally devoted to serving others, for he was convinced that every soul is a marvellous treasure; indeed, every person is worth all of Christ's Blood. This attitude of service is obvious in his dedication to his priestly ministry and in the magnanimity with which he started so many works of evangelization and human advancement for the poorest persons.”