No Ordinary Light: The Founding of Opus Dei

In our meditation of the week: Fr. Peter Armenio reflects on how St. Josemaria Escriva was inspired by the light of God with the mission to bring Christ into the heart of the entire world in a way that he had never been before, especially into a world gripped by a culture of death and in need of healing through God’s mercy.

St. Josemaria wrote: “God is the same as always. It is men of faith that are needed: and then, there will be a renewal of the wonders we read of in the Gospel” (The Way, no. 586). Therefore, as Fr. Peter explains, St. Josemaria understood that all of God’s children are needed and called to participate in this beautiful mission! And our mission is to replicate both the joy and the affection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, which can be cultivated through a well-formed interior life of prayer. It is our prayer life that exudes the joy and light of Christ in the world.

“[God] wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world” (St. Gregory Nazianzen; Oration, no. 39). We are called to be light, but this is no ordinary light; it is a light in which we are bathed in the glory of God. Our Blessed Mother, Mary, helps us to enter into the light, the light of her son, which is nothing more and nothing less than the mercy of God.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. 

With your permission, Lord Jesus Christ, truly present with us in the Blessed Sacrament. We have this solemn exposition this evening because we are celebrating a very big feast. This is for people connected with Opus Dei, this is feast day week. The beginning of the work week began with a festive bang, where we celebrate the actual anniversary of the founding of Opus Dei, that consisted of a spectacular divine intervention, I would say, a preternatural episode of cosmic proportions. Why do I say cosmic? Because it involves the entire world. That's more than St. Josemaria bargained for when he felt that God was asking him something. I have a feeling he didn’t ever consider or fathomed that it would involve the entire world. That's a big assignment. And today is also a festive occasion. It's kind of a conclusion of the founding of Opus Dei because we celebrate the actual canonization of St. Josemaria. 

And what's a very interesting characteristic of this canonization was the sea of people representing five continents and virtually every ethnic nationality. What seemed like insanity on October 2, 1928, became extremely real with a sea of people. I was there. Stretching to the shores of the Tiber River, I thought these mini balconies in Rome, since most buildings are 400-500 years old, were going to collapse. Every balcony was packed with people, every window. Long windows there—I never could imagine that a window could have so many people looking out each window. You know, I thought, one head per window, but sometimes there were four heads per window. Roofs were packed with people. Uh, lots of bishops, lots of cardinals, to the tune of 500. It was quite something. And in some restaurants, they ran out of bread. That's inconceivable in a place like Italy, especially Rome. And it’s always congested. But I lived there, and during those few days around the canonization, it was packed with people. And I remember the reigning prelate, who's now called Don Javier because we have a new prelate, said that those of us who were there or saw it on TV, that we should in our prayer, reflect on that event. And I have a feeling, I was trying to figure out... sure, let's reflect on the event. It was a lot of fun, lot of yuks, lot of joy. I mean, what better celebration than celebrating the canonization of your founder? With all these people there, all these smiling faces, and these little anecdotes—hey, I went to a restaurant and they ran out of pasta, and so I had to ask for a hamburger in Rome, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or instead, they ran out of wine, and I had to ask for a chocolate malt, whatever it was.
No, I think what he's saying is, contemplate the amount of evangelization that occurred through the holiness of this individual. That because of, it’s about our Lord, it's not about an individual, but because of this individual's closeness to Christ, we were able to see—I don't know how many, a half a million people packing that whole area. And it's not an ode to Josemaria Escriva. He's the vessel who was filled with Christ. It's an ode to our Lord and his Mother. And using a consideration in St. Josemaria Escriva’s prayer when he was a young priest and he had no human results, no human success, minimal success, he says the following, amid a terrible religious persecution—these are his words: "God is always the same. It is men and women of faith that are needed." Now let's detain ourselves with the word "faith." James says that faith is as real as it is inspired by love. That faith is terribly incomplete unless it involves a closeness to Jesus Christ. Even the evil one has faith. It's an empty faith. It's a perverse faith, but it's faith. Faith is not simply agreement with the teachings of the Church or belief that divine revelation comes from God, but faith means incarnating the life of Jesus in our own life. That's what faith means. And I think we could safely replace the word "faith" with "holiness." God is always the same. It is men and women of holiness that are needed. That's what real faith is. Then he says something that he didn't see at all. His annual report certainly didn't reflect this point he's going to make: "Then there will be a renewal of the wonders we read of in Holy Scripture."

And one of those wonders occurred on October 6, 2002. I saw it with my own eyes. That was, for me, certainly a wonder. Never saw anything like it, that show of humanity because of one person's sanctity. We use some words of St. Josemaria. Jesus, speak to me. What do you want me to learn from these two feasts? One that initiated the work week on Monday, and this present feast that concludes the work week. What do you want to tell me?

Well, let's look at October 2, 1928, in order to understand October 6th. We need to go to another October date, October 2nd. And more than narrating a history, we want to reflect on this because the Lord is talking to us through this history of St. Josemaria and history of Opus Dei. 1917, the year Our Lady appeared to these three little shepherds. St. Josemaria didn't have an apparition, but there was a watershed moment in his life. He, after a snowstorm, came across footprints in the snow. Those were penitential footprints. It wasn't that the Carmelite priest forgot his boots or forgot his shoes; he was doing penance, so he was walking around barefoot. Those footprints stops the future St. Josemaria in his tracks. I'm sure lots of people saw the footprints. Probably most—99% of the people—said, "My gosh, this Carmelite is going too far," or "Why would someone go barefoot in this cold weather?" But it had a different effect on St. Josemaria. God wants something of me. He's calling me to do something.

My speculation is that he wanted to be an architect. He wanted to be a married man. He had his plans. He sees the footprints, and he's stopped in his tracks. And he said he underwent a powerful grace of conversion, a unique grace of conversion. And then and there, that grace was so powerful, he said, "Well, I'm going to change my whole life. I'm going to be available for whatever God wants. So the best way to be available is to commit myself to the priesthood, and I'm going to become a priest.” Right then and there. I don't know if it occurred to him before—there are no writings about him having any inklings about entering into the seminary and becoming a priest. So he starts to pray, putting exorbitant hours into prayer as a teenager, going to the local seminary, he's pulling all afternooners. They didn't jog and work out in those days, at least not that much. I don't think God gave him the grace of athleticism. Maybe that was providential, because that's more time in prayer and less time on the soccer field. So, he's pulling all afternooners, and he goes to the seminary. Anyway, he's doing this for over 10 years, and he's using an aspiration: "Lord, that I see. Tell me what you want me to do, that I may see." It's the blind man, Bartimaeus of the Gospel, praying to our Lord. The Lord says, "What do you want?" "That I may see." "Let me see. What is it you want me to do?" And he's pulling all-nighters—that's not the moral of the story—believe me. And all afternooners too, in front of this image of Mary, Our Lady of the Pillar. Tradition has it that Mary, who bilocated, appeared to the Apostle St. James, who was discouraged in evangelizing the Iberians. And he just was totally frustrated and discouraged. These were a tough, tough crowd to convert, and so it took Our Lady to appear to him and say, "Listen, there is hope here. Stick with it." She bilocated to deliver that message. So anyway, it's kind of germane to what St. Josemaria had to go through.

Finally, amid deep prayer during a retreat, he received what I would say was preternatural. I mean, what you and I are doing now is supernatural. We're adoring the Blessed Sacrament—that's supernatural. Preternatural is if I levitated from this chair. That's preternatural. Or if you levitated—please don't. We're very much into the ordinary here, okay? Or if the image of Mary started to shed tears—that's preternatural. I would say the enlightenment was preternatural. He said, "I saw"—and Opus Dei didn't have a name—"I saw what God wanted. I saw Opus Dei, even though it didn't have a name then." And what did he see? Well, he saw Jesus Christ, because that's what Opus Dei is all about: Christ in the world in a new way, in a way that he had never been in there before, in a more intense way. And he got shaken up. His knee-jerk—no pun intended—reaction dropped to his knees. And uh, he was visibly shaken, and he said he was frightened. He started to hear peals of bells. It was the Feast of the Guardian Angels, and Our Lady of the Angels nearby was pealing, and that, too, he felt was supernatural—the pealing of the bells calling him to this new vocation.

And it wasn't an ordinary light on many levels. Until that time, the Holy Spirit would enlighten founders to be very specific: Okay, you train orphan boys—that's your mission, like Don Bosco. Okay, you've got orphan boys to train, and he was able to do backflips, walk on tightropes, and everything to impress the young boys. So that's Don Bosco. Okay, Cardinal Newman, okay you're inspired to start a Catholic revival in England. Okay, Francis of Assisi, you're called to live in radical poverty and preach to the poor. Everybody had a specific mission. What St. Josemaria had was to bring Christ into the entire world. That's why he got shaken up. I don't know what he thought, but I could understand if he said, "Well, maybe God wants me to work with intellectuals. I kind of like canon law and civil law. And I’ve kind of, you know I've made a lot of friends, and maybe I should be this mega spiritual director to university students. Maybe that's what he's asking me to do. Whatever it is, I'll do it." Or maybe he thought, "Well, he was really good at serving the sick, thousands of people with infectious disease—maybe he wants me to do that. That would be a great call." No, I have to be a vehicle to bring Christ into the heart of the world in a way that he has never been before. In a world that is gripped by a culture of death—wars are taking the toll of millions of people already, the Communist revolution has taken place, and that's taking a toll in human life, it's the eve of the Spanish Civil War, which will be the most virulent persecution of the Church in its history, even more than the ancient times. All sorts of bad stuff was happening. And so St. Josemaria Escriva said this is an intervention of God's mercy. God's mercy has entered in the world in a new way.

He apologized, I don't think he had to, but anyway, he felt he had to apologize because he says, "I tried to cut and run. I was looking for other institutions and organizations to join that kind of squared with the light I received on October 2, 1928. I couldn't find it." So he's even looking into other countries, you know what kind of organizations do they have, he’s doing research to join it and fulfill the light. But it was no ordinary light, and he realized that, no, he is the recipient, and he's got to spread the message. And what is the message? Because you're the protagonist of the message, in a certain sense, more than me. I don't mean it in a trendy way. I'm supposed to use a trendy word, though, to wake you up. I'm supposed to empower you—how's that? Okay? It's a trendy word. With what? With preaching. Preaching the Word of God, uh the sacraments: the sacrament of reconciliation, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. And cut you loose into the world, so you bring the Church into the world because the world is not going to come to the Church. You know that just as well as I, if not better. And so what did he see? He saw that our Lord wanted the woman or the man in the middle of the world—in the home, in the office, on the farm, in the laboratory, in the auto body shop, in the saloon—well, maybe, if you drink with moderation in the saloon—that that person is called to be as holy as the All-Stars that mark the history of the Church called the saints. In their culture, within the customs of their country, within the customs of their culture and their time period, but with the same love of God as a Mother Teresa, a St. Thérèse, of a John of the Cross, a St. John Paul—the same love of God. And he sees in this light that if they have that kind of faith, that kind of holiness, they're going to change the world. Our Lord does not ask us to preach to all nations if it's going to fail. He does not ask us to do what's divinely impossible. There's no such thing as divinely impossible. And so the light is, if that woman, that man in the middle of the world follows Christ in a committed way, that person will be a vehicle, a medium to extend the Kingdom in the world. He or she will bring Christ into the world in a new way. But the age of people just coming to church to be evangelized has ended. 

I don't think he saw that that clearly then. I mean, I can even remember as a little kid, when I was in single digits. Yes, single digits—you have to make an act of faith, but there was a time—make an act of faith, okay? I remember the churches were packed, and there were upstairs Masses and downstairs Masses, and they were all packed, standing room only. And there were benedictions every first Friday, long lines for confession, four or five priests. I remember that. You're too young, you're going to have to believe me. Every parochial school was well-stocked with nuns, okay? You'd go to buy a loaf of bread, you'd always see a couple of nuns shopping there, dressed in their habit, covered from head to toe. That's gone, unfortunately, but it's gone. And so you’re it. Our Lord is asking you—I should say "we," but you're more in the middle of the world than I am. I don't get invited to parties. I'm too decrepit to play sports. I'm not called anymore to flip hamburgers, but you're in the middle of the world, and in a way, you can't cheat, since there is an absence of Christian culture. What do I mean by that? If you say, "Well, when Mass happens and the priest says 'This is my Body,' transubstantiation occurs," tell that to your roommate, see what she says, or your friends, see what he says. Or, "A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace." What does that mean? I mean, we appreciate it, but out there they don't. It's speaking Turkish to Americans—Americans who don't know Turkish. But what they do understand, and that's why our Lord emphasized that, because that handful of people was the only show in town—the disciples of Jesus, that was it. And he told them, "Bring this into the world. I want everybody to hear this. I want everyone to be a beneficiary of the mercy of God, and you're the vehicle.” We need, and it's a matter of spiritual life, we need to replicate the joy of Jesus. That they understand, and the affection of our Lord. And St. Josemaria says, very simply, if you have a good interior life, you're going to transmit the joy of Christ. If you don't, you're not going to reveal the face of Christ—not because there's anything wrong with you or me, but we're not filled with Christ enough, where the vessel is not full. Or we're a light, but we're too, or a flickering light, not a bright light.

Listen to what the first Christians heard. Let me quote, this is a homily given by a Father of the Church in the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus. This is what he says to his audience—this is what he said in his Friday night meditation: "He wants you to become a living force for all mankind." Now, that's the language of the early Christians, this fourth century. "He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received, though not in its fullness, a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God in Christ Jesus, our Lord." 

And we tell our Lord, in the intimacy of our personal prayer, "Lord, what do I need to do to be that great light?" And we want to see this enlightenment, this illumination of St. Josemaria as a marching order from you, Lord—that my prayer, my Mass, my Rosary, yes, I want to be united to him. We can only be filled by Christ, but it is also a means to exude that joy of Christ. See, of all the topics St. John Paul could have covered in the homily on the canonization—and he could have talked about a lot of great things. He could have talked about fraternity, charity, sanctification of work, the cross—a whole slew of topics, which would have been wonderful. He picked one, and he emphasized the power of prayer, the prayer life of St. Josemaria. And maybe we could recommit ourselves. It's about others. It's about witnessing him. It's about being a light. And you saw it in a very special way on October 6th.

I was thinking that in the 40s, in the mid-40s, when, any institution has to be approved by the Church for it to continue in existence, especially to go worldwide. So, St. Josemaria needed the Church to approve it. And his right-hand man, who is now Blessed Alvaro—who hauled in hundreds of thousands of people at his beatification—we're not in the numbers game here. The numbers are about the effectiveness of grace more than any feather in anybody's cap. And so he went to Rome, and these Vatican officials said, "Listen, Opus Dei has come 100 years too soon. Not five years, not ten years, not two years—100. So why don't you call it quits?" That was the advice he had. And St. Josemaria got that news, and Blessed Alvaro said, "Get to Rome as soon as you can because only you can convince them otherwise." And he's making that act of faith, and he gives a famous meditation on faith that you know we really need to believe—that our Lord wants this, and that even though we're told we've come 100 years too soon, it's going to work out. We cross a distance of almost seven decades, and St. Josemaria could never imagine that the light of October 2nd would express itself with that vast sea of people, giving us an endorsement: This works. Christ works. Holiness really works. And then his successor did the same, almost did the same thing in Madrid, which was very surrealistic for me because I knew him. He was kind of laid-back, very self-deprecating, very much in the background, you know, the opposite of a back-slapper. A real easy person to talk to, a great listener—bragged a little bit that he was shy, you know—and he hauls in a half a million people. It's about our Lord. It's not about any particular talent.

And so we ask the Blessed Mother to energize us and grasp this special light, which was no ordinary light. "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed..." In other words, if your sanctity, if you keep growing in love for God, "if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed what promises are contained in this exclamation of the Master.”  Mary, we go to you. We ask for your prayer of intercession so that we recommit ourselves to a life of holiness, so that we can be better instruments, better transmitters, better vehicles of the light of your Son. And the light of your Son is nothing more, nothing less than the mercy of God.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations which you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.