A gift of discerning people through love

By Andre Frossard, from documentary film Divine Paths of the Earth

I never met Msgr. Escriva.

I only knew him by hearsay, from what people in Opus Dei told me.

Then I saw the film of a gathering with Msgr. Escriva. He was walking up and down, and there was a huge number of people of all ages: children and their parents, men, women, old people.

And what surprised me especially was the sort of euphoric feeling in the room. I mean you could see the radiant faces of people who were clearly happy to be there, to be gathered around that man. And he looked just like the father of many children who didn’t often get the chance to see him, and were taking advantage of that gathering to bring up all sorts of little personal problems. The questions really were not that important: it was the spirit they were asked in.

I could see that Msgr. Escriva had a special gift of discerning people, through charity. The love he had for them, visibly, shone light for him on their personal case, so that the answers he gave to their questions in public, touched on their small inner problems, their inmost problems of conscience, you could see that.

Generally speaking, when someone asks a question at a large gathering, it gives rise to some general considerations. But there, there was an answer which was helpful for everyone there, but also a little something that was addressed directly to the questioner.