From Daily Mail
Pope John Paul II regularly whipped himself in a sign of 'remorse for his sins,' a nun has sensationally revealed.
Pope John Paul, who died in 2005, is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church - the ultimate accolade and a tribute to his holiness.
As part of the Vatican's investigation thousands of documents have been collected and examined by officials from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Among them is the testimony of Polish nun Tobiana Sobodka, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order, who worked for Pope John Paul in his private Vatican apartments and at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.
Sister Sobodka said: 'Several times he (Pope John Paul) would put himself through bodily penance.
'We would hear it - we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he flagellated himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.'
The flagellation is also confirmed by another bishop who has given testimony Emery Kabongo, who for several years was a secretary for Pope John Paul.
He said: 'He would punish himself and in particular just before he ordained bishops and priests. Before passing on the sacraments he wanted to prepare himself.
'I never actually saw it myself but several people told me about it.'
Sister Sobodka's leaked statements were published in Italian newspaper La Stampa and are part of new book on Pope John Paul II by it's Vatican correspondent.
Self flagellation is sometimes used by devoted Catholics as it reminds them of the whipping endured by Christ at the hands of the Romans before he was crucified.
It is still common in the Philippines and Latin America, some members of strict monastic orders and some members of the lay organization Opus Dei - who feature in the Dan Brown blockbuster The Da Vinci Code.
In the film - which was condemned by the Vatican - murderous Albino monk Silas, who is a member of Opus Dei is seen in a brutal scene whipping his back and drawing blood as he prays on his knees.
Today a Vatican spokesman said: 'The investigation and documentation is still secret and as such we can make no comment on it until the final report is published.
'I know that the nun in question has returned to Poland and she would have spoken with the Congregation as she was with an order that worked in the apartments of Pope John Paul.'
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has been investigating the case for Pope John Paul since he died and has approved the late pope's 'heroic virtues' and the paperwork has been sent to his German successor.
The late Polish pope's beatification is expected to take place sometime next year, perhaps in April, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of his death or in October to coincide with his election in 1978.
Beatification is the first step in becoming a saint and in order to be granted evidence of a miracle performed by praying to the candidate in question has to be proved and verified by the Vatican.
In the case of Popes the procedure is usually much longer because the Vatican must examine much more material given the mass of responsibility and decisions taken by them as leaders of the Catholic Church.
However, Pope Benedict XVI has put John Paul II's beatification cause on a fast track, waiving a rule requiring a five-year wait before the start of the process.
Following his death in 2005 the vast crowd that gathered in St Peter's Square carried banners bearing the slogan 'Santo Subito' (Saint Immediately).
New reports of miracles attributed to John Paul II's heavenly intervention are said to arrive in Rome every week.
The key one being examined at the moment is the case of French nun Sister Marie-Simon Pierre, 47, said to have been cured from Parkinson's Disease - the same illness suffered by Pope John Paul II - after praying to him.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
New light in Boston on Opus Dei's mission
By Erica Noonan at Boston Globe
At the Montrose School in Medfield, it means educating girls to be leaders with “faith, character, and vision,’’ said the independent Catholic institution’s head, Karen E. Bohlin.
For Mary Brennan, a Franklin mother of six, it is a search for divinity in everyday life as she cares for her children and works part time. “It’s faith in practice,’’ said Brennan, who prays several times a day, using a rosary, Latin readings, and the New Testament. “As Catholics, it’s making a connection between work and faith.’’
Eighty years after being founded in Spain by St. Josemaria Escriva, Opus Dei remains an under-the-radar extension of Catholicism that is often misunderstood, adherents say. Yet it maintains a thriving presence in Greater Boston, with about 300 members, centers in Chestnut Hill, Boston’s Back Bay, Cambridge, and Pembroke, and the affiliated school in Medfield for girls in grades 6 through 12.
It took an image crisis - spurred by a 2003 novel by Dan Brown, “The Da Vinci Code,’’ featuring a monk-assassin with ties to Opus Dei - to put the prelature front and center in popular culture, and not in a positive light.
Finding many misrepresentations in Brown’s book, particularly about how Opus Dei treats women, who make up more than half of its membership, Boston College graduate Marie Oates started work on her own book, a pioneering collection of essays by two dozen women proclaiming the group’s egalitarian nature.
"We realized we had to tell the world about ourselves,’’ said Oates, who co-edited “Women of Opus Dei’’ with Dr. Jenny Driver, a physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. “Saint Josemaria loved women, and had great respect for them and everything they do in the world.’’About 20 percent of the organization’s 87,000 members worldwide are “numeraries,’’ who live celibate lives, primarily work in service to the church, and live in Opus Dei residences.
Roughly 2 percent of its members are priests, according to Opus Dei, and the remainder are regular churchgoers with secular jobs and families, like Brennan, who attends Mass daily when possible. But her deepest relationship with God, Brennan says, is outside the sanctuary while doing her everyday work “with great love’’ - raising children, doing freelance design at night, and in her part-time job in the cafe at Dean College in Franklin.
Opus Dei’s mission was also the inspiration behind the three-decade-old Montrose School, though today 25 percent of the girls and faculty are not practicing Catholics; several are Muslim, Greek Orthodox, or unaffiliated. The school is financially independent from Opus Dei and the Archdiocese of Boston, though it maintains a warm institutional relationship with both.
“I guess you could say our secret weapon is prayer,’’ said Bohlin, a scholar at Boston University’s Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character and an Opus Dei member. “We don’t have a corner on that market, but we do integrate it into all we do. And because we respect every person as a child of God, it’s easier to appreciate people, gain perspective under pressure, and laugh at ourselves.’’
To read the full article, please see Boston Globe.
Some facts about Opus Dei
Latin for “work of God’’
Established in 1928 by St. Josemaria Escrivia in Madrid
87,000 members worldwide; 3,000 in the United States
20 percent of members are numeraries, living celibate lives in service to God; 2 percent are priests, and the rest are supernumeraries, with secular jobs and families.
Joining is a civil arrangement. Members renew their commitment to do “the work of God’’ on an annual basis.
SOURCE: Opus Dei
At the Montrose School in Medfield, it means educating girls to be leaders with “faith, character, and vision,’’ said the independent Catholic institution’s head, Karen E. Bohlin.
For Mary Brennan, a Franklin mother of six, it is a search for divinity in everyday life as she cares for her children and works part time. “It’s faith in practice,’’ said Brennan, who prays several times a day, using a rosary, Latin readings, and the New Testament. “As Catholics, it’s making a connection between work and faith.’’
Eighty years after being founded in Spain by St. Josemaria Escriva, Opus Dei remains an under-the-radar extension of Catholicism that is often misunderstood, adherents say. Yet it maintains a thriving presence in Greater Boston, with about 300 members, centers in Chestnut Hill, Boston’s Back Bay, Cambridge, and Pembroke, and the affiliated school in Medfield for girls in grades 6 through 12.
It took an image crisis - spurred by a 2003 novel by Dan Brown, “The Da Vinci Code,’’ featuring a monk-assassin with ties to Opus Dei - to put the prelature front and center in popular culture, and not in a positive light.
Finding many misrepresentations in Brown’s book, particularly about how Opus Dei treats women, who make up more than half of its membership, Boston College graduate Marie Oates started work on her own book, a pioneering collection of essays by two dozen women proclaiming the group’s egalitarian nature.
"We realized we had to tell the world about ourselves,’’ said Oates, who co-edited “Women of Opus Dei’’ with Dr. Jenny Driver, a physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. “Saint Josemaria loved women, and had great respect for them and everything they do in the world.’’About 20 percent of the organization’s 87,000 members worldwide are “numeraries,’’ who live celibate lives, primarily work in service to the church, and live in Opus Dei residences.
Roughly 2 percent of its members are priests, according to Opus Dei, and the remainder are regular churchgoers with secular jobs and families, like Brennan, who attends Mass daily when possible. But her deepest relationship with God, Brennan says, is outside the sanctuary while doing her everyday work “with great love’’ - raising children, doing freelance design at night, and in her part-time job in the cafe at Dean College in Franklin.
Opus Dei’s mission was also the inspiration behind the three-decade-old Montrose School, though today 25 percent of the girls and faculty are not practicing Catholics; several are Muslim, Greek Orthodox, or unaffiliated. The school is financially independent from Opus Dei and the Archdiocese of Boston, though it maintains a warm institutional relationship with both.
“I guess you could say our secret weapon is prayer,’’ said Bohlin, a scholar at Boston University’s Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character and an Opus Dei member. “We don’t have a corner on that market, but we do integrate it into all we do. And because we respect every person as a child of God, it’s easier to appreciate people, gain perspective under pressure, and laugh at ourselves.’’
To read the full article, please see Boston Globe.
Some facts about Opus Dei
Latin for “work of God’’
Established in 1928 by St. Josemaria Escrivia in Madrid
87,000 members worldwide; 3,000 in the United States
20 percent of members are numeraries, living celibate lives in service to God; 2 percent are priests, and the rest are supernumeraries, with secular jobs and families.
Joining is a civil arrangement. Members renew their commitment to do “the work of God’’ on an annual basis.
SOURCE: Opus Dei
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility
by The Cukierski Family Apostolate
[Saint] Josemaria Escriva once compiled an inventory of pride so exhaustive that it is like something written on the shield of a soldier who has learned it all in true combat.
The seventeen evidences of a lack of humility are:
1. To think that what one says or does is better than what others say or do
2. To always want to get your own way
3. To argue with stubbornness and bad manners whether you are right or wrong
4. To give your opinion when it has not been requested or when charity does not demand it
5. To look down on another's point of view
6. Not to look on your gifts and abilities as lent
7. Not to recognize that you are unworthy of all honors and esteem, not even of the earth you walk on and things you possess
8. To use yourself as an example in conversations
9. To speak badly of yourself so that others will think well of you or contradict you
10. To excuse yourself when you are corrected
11. To hide humiliating faults from your spiritual director, so that he will not change the impression he has of you
12. To take pleasure in praise and compliments
13. To be saddened because others are held in higher esteem
14. To refuse to perform inferior tasks
15. To seek to stand out
16. To refer in conversation to your honesty, genius, dexterity, or professional prestige
17. To be ashamed because you lack certain goods
[Saint] Josemaria Escriva once compiled an inventory of pride so exhaustive that it is like something written on the shield of a soldier who has learned it all in true combat.
The seventeen evidences of a lack of humility are:
1. To think that what one says or does is better than what others say or do
2. To always want to get your own way
3. To argue with stubbornness and bad manners whether you are right or wrong
4. To give your opinion when it has not been requested or when charity does not demand it
5. To look down on another's point of view
6. Not to look on your gifts and abilities as lent
7. Not to recognize that you are unworthy of all honors and esteem, not even of the earth you walk on and things you possess
8. To use yourself as an example in conversations
9. To speak badly of yourself so that others will think well of you or contradict you
10. To excuse yourself when you are corrected
11. To hide humiliating faults from your spiritual director, so that he will not change the impression he has of you
12. To take pleasure in praise and compliments
13. To be saddened because others are held in higher esteem
14. To refuse to perform inferior tasks
15. To seek to stand out
16. To refer in conversation to your honesty, genius, dexterity, or professional prestige
17. To be ashamed because you lack certain goods
How the personal ordinariate for Anglicans is different from personal prelatures
By Rev. Dwight Longenecker in Inside the Vatican and also in Pope Benedict XVI blog
Msgr. William Stetson is the secretary of the pastoral provision, the structure provided by Pope John Paul II in 1980 to enable married former Episcopal priests to be ordained as Catholic priests. The pastoral provision also empowers the establishment of "personal parishes" -- groups to which the Church grants special pastoral care (in this case, non-Catholic Christians from the Episcopal Church) -- that follow the Anglican Use liturgy.
The pastoral provision is overseen by an ecclesiastical delegate -- at the time of its institution, then-Bishop Bernard Law. Since 1996, the ecclesiastical delegate has been Archbishop John Myers of Newark. Monsignor Stetson works for the archbishop -- meeting candidates, managing the examination process, and guiding the application for dispensations to Rome.
I interviewed Monsignor Stetson during a retreat for priests of the pastoral provision in Tampa, Florida, this week.
♦ ♦ ♦
Father Longenecker: You've been working in this area for more than ten years, and you belong to the Opus Dei prelature. How is the new personal ordinariate different from a personal prelature?
Monsignor Stetson: In the new ordinariate, the faithful will receive all their pastoral care from priests in the ordinariate. In a personal prelature, the faithful normally receive their sacraments and pastoral care from the clergy of their diocesan parishes.
FL: The Anglican personal ordinariate -- who's in? Who can belong?
MS: Former members of the Episcopal/Anglican Church who, at the time of coming into full communion, request in writing to be members of the ordinariate. Also, priests -- married or single -- may request to be part of the ordinariate, and then they may move forward through the selection and discernment process to be ordained as Catholic priests. It is also possible for the faithful who are presently Catholic, but who converted from Anglicanism, to belong to the ordinariate.
FL: What about cradle Catholics who have converted to Anglicanism? Can they belong to the ordinariate?
MS: This touches the question not only of those individuals but also Latin Catholics who wish to belong to the ordinariate for whatever reason. The Apostolic Constitution says that those who were baptized as Catholics outside the ordinariate will not normally belong to the ordinariate, unless they belong to a family that is part of the ordinariate.
Msgr. William Stetson is the secretary of the pastoral provision, the structure provided by Pope John Paul II in 1980 to enable married former Episcopal priests to be ordained as Catholic priests. The pastoral provision also empowers the establishment of "personal parishes" -- groups to which the Church grants special pastoral care (in this case, non-Catholic Christians from the Episcopal Church) -- that follow the Anglican Use liturgy.
The pastoral provision is overseen by an ecclesiastical delegate -- at the time of its institution, then-Bishop Bernard Law. Since 1996, the ecclesiastical delegate has been Archbishop John Myers of Newark. Monsignor Stetson works for the archbishop -- meeting candidates, managing the examination process, and guiding the application for dispensations to Rome.
I interviewed Monsignor Stetson during a retreat for priests of the pastoral provision in Tampa, Florida, this week.
♦ ♦ ♦
Father Longenecker: You've been working in this area for more than ten years, and you belong to the Opus Dei prelature. How is the new personal ordinariate different from a personal prelature?
Monsignor Stetson: In the new ordinariate, the faithful will receive all their pastoral care from priests in the ordinariate. In a personal prelature, the faithful normally receive their sacraments and pastoral care from the clergy of their diocesan parishes.
FL: The Anglican personal ordinariate -- who's in? Who can belong?
MS: Former members of the Episcopal/Anglican Church who, at the time of coming into full communion, request in writing to be members of the ordinariate. Also, priests -- married or single -- may request to be part of the ordinariate, and then they may move forward through the selection and discernment process to be ordained as Catholic priests. It is also possible for the faithful who are presently Catholic, but who converted from Anglicanism, to belong to the ordinariate.
FL: What about cradle Catholics who have converted to Anglicanism? Can they belong to the ordinariate?
MS: This touches the question not only of those individuals but also Latin Catholics who wish to belong to the ordinariate for whatever reason. The Apostolic Constitution says that those who were baptized as Catholics outside the ordinariate will not normally belong to the ordinariate, unless they belong to a family that is part of the ordinariate.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Heaven is the goal: "Keep on lifting your eyes up to heaven as you go about your work"
"Grace in the spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva," by Cardinal Leo Scheffczyk
To know where one is traveling one needs to know what the goal is. The path of grace would be a path without meaning if faith and hope in reaching heaven were lacking.
That many Christians view the life of grace as lacking in savor and dynamism stems, in part, from not seeing heaven as a real goal. Therefore Escrivá encourages his hearers in a homily: “let us...go right to the core, to what is really important. Look: what we have to try to do is to get to heaven. If we don’t, nothing is worthwhile.”
And he advised “keep on lifting your eyes up to heaven as you go about your work, because hope encourages us to grasp hold of the strong hand which God never ceases to reach out to us.”
Here he is alluding not simply to a longing glance but to a determined effort to reach the goal, compatible with the reality of the trials and apostolic hardships from which it blossoms. For those who are following the path of salvation “at the end of the road a garden of paradise awaits them, eternal happiness, heaven.”
This realism in regard to salvation is firmly grounded in the Gospels, including the very human concern for the reward. Seeing life as a struggle entails the thought of the prize of victory:
“It’s hard! Yes, I know. But, forward! No one will be rewarded—and what a reward!—except those who fight bravely.” Escrivá recalls St. Paul’s promise that “each will duly be paid according to his share in the work?” What one reaps will be a function of what one sows.
Escrivá, in giving us his fullest view of heaven, asks: “what will it be like when all the infinite beauty and greatness, and happiness and Love of God will be poured into the poor clay vessel that the human being is, to satisfy it eternally with the freshness of an ever-new joy?” Heaven is the definitive fullness of grace, union with the divine Persons in love, joy, holiness and glory.
Here we see the dynamic and personal character of Escrivá’s thought, which permits one to grasp the heights and depths of the Catholic faith.
To know where one is traveling one needs to know what the goal is. The path of grace would be a path without meaning if faith and hope in reaching heaven were lacking.
That many Christians view the life of grace as lacking in savor and dynamism stems, in part, from not seeing heaven as a real goal. Therefore Escrivá encourages his hearers in a homily: “let us...go right to the core, to what is really important. Look: what we have to try to do is to get to heaven. If we don’t, nothing is worthwhile.”
And he advised “keep on lifting your eyes up to heaven as you go about your work, because hope encourages us to grasp hold of the strong hand which God never ceases to reach out to us.”
Here he is alluding not simply to a longing glance but to a determined effort to reach the goal, compatible with the reality of the trials and apostolic hardships from which it blossoms. For those who are following the path of salvation “at the end of the road a garden of paradise awaits them, eternal happiness, heaven.”
This realism in regard to salvation is firmly grounded in the Gospels, including the very human concern for the reward. Seeing life as a struggle entails the thought of the prize of victory:
“It’s hard! Yes, I know. But, forward! No one will be rewarded—and what a reward!—except those who fight bravely.” Escrivá recalls St. Paul’s promise that “each will duly be paid according to his share in the work?” What one reaps will be a function of what one sows.
Escrivá, in giving us his fullest view of heaven, asks: “what will it be like when all the infinite beauty and greatness, and happiness and Love of God will be poured into the poor clay vessel that the human being is, to satisfy it eternally with the freshness of an ever-new joy?” Heaven is the definitive fullness of grace, union with the divine Persons in love, joy, holiness and glory.
Here we see the dynamic and personal character of Escrivá’s thought, which permits one to grasp the heights and depths of the Catholic faith.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
One of the most modern parts of the Catholic church
By Mike Collet-White (Reuters) in Washington Post
If Opus Dei had a rough ride in the blockbuster movie based on Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," it looks set for an altogether more sympathetic portrayal in another film that deals with the Catholic organization.
British director Roland Joffe, renowned for Oscar-nominated "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission," is making "There Be Dragons," a film set during the Spanish Civil War that focuses in part on the life of Opus Dei founder Jose Maria Escriva.
Principal photography is complete, and Joffe is now in the editing room aiming to have the movie, which stars Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, ready for theatres by autumn next year.
Joffe originally intended to turn down a project which, owing to its religious theme and Opus Dei's controversial profile, promises to draw closer scrutiny than the average film.
In The Da Vinci Code, Opus Dei was cast as a secretive cult that resorted to murder to defend a fictional, 2,000-year-old Catholic cover-up. It has also been criticized by church liberals suspicious of its power and reach and by estranged members telling of coercion and corporal mortification.
But when he saw a video of Escriva addressing a large crowd, Joffe changed his mind.
The priest, who was made a saint in 2002, was asked by a Jewish girl if she should convert to Catholicism. Knowing it would upset her parents, Escriva told her that she should not.
"One of the things that impressed me a lot about Jose Maria was the fact that he saw that saintliness didn't require that you withdraw into a religious order, it didn't require that you become a priest," Joffe said on a recent conference call.
"But actually saintliness, saintly acts, could be performed by perfectly ordinary people in their everyday lives, which at the time was a very radical idea."
PROPAGANDA FOR CULT?
Opus Dei ("God's work") teaches Catholics to strive for holiness through their work. The far-flung, conservative Catholic organization was founded in 1928 and has around 85,000 members, some 2,000 of them priests.
Rather than making a biopic of Escriva, Joffe wrote a script that surrounded the priest with fictional characters and dealt with universal themes of love, betrayal and redemption.
The film's $30 million budget came from a mixture of a media company and some 100 investors led by producer Ignacio Sancha, a Spanish financier and Opus Dei member. Sancha also provided Joffe with a leading Opus Dei member to advise him on set.
But despite his clear sympathies with Escriva's teachings, and the financial and logistical backing by members of the organization, Joffe rejected concerns that There Be Dragons will become a propaganda piece for Opus Dei.
"When I wrote it (letter of acceptance) I said to the producers, one of whom is an Opus Dei member, 'Will I be free to write what I want?' He said the only reason we're coming to you is so that you're free to write what you want."
Sancha agreed. "Roland would never get involved in propaganda, left wing or right wing," he told Reuters.
Propaganda or not, There Be Dragons will be welcome by Opus Dei members who feel their organization has been wrongly maligned because of misrepresentations in popular culture.
"I used to think that Opus Dei was a cult," said Sancha, adding that he joined the group around 20 years ago.
"I was a bit tired of hearing on one hand it was a cult and on the other it was fantastic. I went to them and they gave me access to everything and I came to the conclusion that it is not a cult but one of the most modern parts of the Catholic church."
Joffe said Opus Dei's influence had been exaggerated.
"How could it be influential?" he said. "It could have influence, I suppose, in the church. I checked up to find out how many cardinals were Opus Dei and I think there may be one."
If Opus Dei had a rough ride in the blockbuster movie based on Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," it looks set for an altogether more sympathetic portrayal in another film that deals with the Catholic organization.
British director Roland Joffe, renowned for Oscar-nominated "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission," is making "There Be Dragons," a film set during the Spanish Civil War that focuses in part on the life of Opus Dei founder Jose Maria Escriva.
Principal photography is complete, and Joffe is now in the editing room aiming to have the movie, which stars Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, ready for theatres by autumn next year.
Joffe originally intended to turn down a project which, owing to its religious theme and Opus Dei's controversial profile, promises to draw closer scrutiny than the average film.
In The Da Vinci Code, Opus Dei was cast as a secretive cult that resorted to murder to defend a fictional, 2,000-year-old Catholic cover-up. It has also been criticized by church liberals suspicious of its power and reach and by estranged members telling of coercion and corporal mortification.
But when he saw a video of Escriva addressing a large crowd, Joffe changed his mind.
The priest, who was made a saint in 2002, was asked by a Jewish girl if she should convert to Catholicism. Knowing it would upset her parents, Escriva told her that she should not.
"One of the things that impressed me a lot about Jose Maria was the fact that he saw that saintliness didn't require that you withdraw into a religious order, it didn't require that you become a priest," Joffe said on a recent conference call.
"But actually saintliness, saintly acts, could be performed by perfectly ordinary people in their everyday lives, which at the time was a very radical idea."
PROPAGANDA FOR CULT?
Opus Dei ("God's work") teaches Catholics to strive for holiness through their work. The far-flung, conservative Catholic organization was founded in 1928 and has around 85,000 members, some 2,000 of them priests.
Rather than making a biopic of Escriva, Joffe wrote a script that surrounded the priest with fictional characters and dealt with universal themes of love, betrayal and redemption.
The film's $30 million budget came from a mixture of a media company and some 100 investors led by producer Ignacio Sancha, a Spanish financier and Opus Dei member. Sancha also provided Joffe with a leading Opus Dei member to advise him on set.
But despite his clear sympathies with Escriva's teachings, and the financial and logistical backing by members of the organization, Joffe rejected concerns that There Be Dragons will become a propaganda piece for Opus Dei.
"When I wrote it (letter of acceptance) I said to the producers, one of whom is an Opus Dei member, 'Will I be free to write what I want?' He said the only reason we're coming to you is so that you're free to write what you want."
Sancha agreed. "Roland would never get involved in propaganda, left wing or right wing," he told Reuters.
Propaganda or not, There Be Dragons will be welcome by Opus Dei members who feel their organization has been wrongly maligned because of misrepresentations in popular culture.
"I used to think that Opus Dei was a cult," said Sancha, adding that he joined the group around 20 years ago.
"I was a bit tired of hearing on one hand it was a cult and on the other it was fantastic. I went to them and they gave me access to everything and I came to the conclusion that it is not a cult but one of the most modern parts of the Catholic church."
Joffe said Opus Dei's influence had been exaggerated.
"How could it be influential?" he said. "It could have influence, I suppose, in the church. I checked up to find out how many cardinals were Opus Dei and I think there may be one."
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
St. Josemaria Escriva is one of my son’s patron saints
By Jennifer Gregory Miller in Family in Feria and Feast
St. Josemaria Escriva is one of my son’s patron saints. We named him after this saint in thanksgiving to St. Josemaria. In 2002 we made a pilgrimage to Rome for the canonization of Josemaria with the intention of having a child, as we were having difficulties getting pregnant. The next year our son was born, so in thanksgiving his middle name is a form of Josemaria.
Dh and I have told him this story over and over again, and include our “St. Josemaria, pray for us!” every evening in our night prayer. Now at the ripe old age of 4 1/2 our son has totally embraced this saint. And although it’s been really busy this month with many a feast passing by with just a few words and prayers, we are definitely celebrating this nameday.
This site on St. Josemaria has a section for young readers (see sidebar), with this link going a nice short biography. There are also recommendations for reading.
Through the Mountains is the first book we read together. It’s in comic book format, but a very detailed presentation of St. Josemaria’s life. We all learned so much about him reading this every night to our son. Some of the materials was over his head, but he wanted to read it all, so we read it in small chunks every night. We had many discussions stemming from the book.
Our current read-aloud is Yes! The Life of Josemaria Escriva for Young Readers. This is better for younger readers (or listeners). I believe this is a translation into English from another language, as there are some awkward phrasing and several typos. But my son really, really loves it, because it really is detailed on his early years in his family life and has lovely illustrations.
I didn’t realize how much this book was making an impression on him until the last two nights. As I was reading one of the chapters, my son starting talking out loud. I paused and asked if he wanted to continue, and he replied, “Yes, I was just praying.”
I didn’t think much about that until tonight when we said our night prayers together as a family. Our usual prayers are Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Angel of God and invocations to saints, and then spontaneous prayer which include prayer requests and going over the day. When we got to the Hail Mary, ds said we need to say 3 Hail Marys and then led them.
I was puzzled as to where he got this idea of adding the two extra Hail Marys, so after prayers I asked him. He said “We’re praying three Hail Marys to the Virgin Mary, like St. Josemaria’s family did!” And then I remembered that we read that chapter of Josemaria’s family prayer the night before.
It impresses me how absorbent a child is. I have never said explicitly that we read about saints to imitate them. And yet, how easily my son was inspired and made his own decision to imitate his patron saint.
We will be attending a special Mass in honor of St. Josemaria Thursday evening. I know it will be a little difficult due to usual bedtime routine, so I pray St. Josemaria will help the boys (and Mommy!)
And although the suggested feast day food is crespillos (see bottom of page), the recipe doesn’t fit our food allergy needs (nor, I admit, our tastebuds. Fried sweetened spinach?). So I am making allergy safe brownies for dessert, and we have a special favorite cereal for breakfast.
St. Josemaria’s teachings are simple and straightforward, but so helpful for me. Everyone is called to be a saint, echoing Vatican II’s “Universal Call to Holiness” — even lay people are called to be holy and become saints. And in our ordinary daily lives we must have a sanctification of our work.
“Since 1928 I have understood clearly that God wants our Lord’s whole life to be an example for Christians. I saw this with special reference to his hidden life, the years he spent working side by side with ordinary men. Our Lord wants many people to ratify their vocation during years of quiet, unspectacular living.”
The ordinary Christian can seek holiness in and through the ordinary circumstances of life. “Ordinary life can be holy and full of God.” And in everyday life, the Christian practices all these virtues: faith, hope and charity, and the human virtues – generosity, industriousness, justice, loyalty, cheerfulness, sincerity, and so on. In practising these virtues, a Christian imitates Jesus Christ. “The Supernatural value of our life does not depend on accomplishing great undertakings suggested to us by our overactive imagination. Rather it is to be found in the faithful acceptance of God’s will, in welcoming generously the opportunities for small, daily sacrifice.”
For the majority of Christians, marriage and the family are among the things upon which sanctity should be built, and should thus be given a Christian dimension. “For a Christian, marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a supernatural calling.”
I forgot I had written these posts.
And I’ll close with my favorite prayer to the Holy Spirit written by St. Josemaria:
Come, O Holy Spirit:
enlighten my understanding
to know your commands;
strengthen my heart
against the wiles of the enemy;
inflame my will…
I have heard your voice,
and I don’t want to harden
my heart by resisting,
by saying ‘later…tomorrow.”
Nunc coepi! Now!
Lest there be no tomorrow for me!
O, Spirit of truth and wisdom,
Spirit of understanding and counsel,
Spirit of joy and peace!
I want what you want,
I want it because you want it,
I want it as you want it,
I want it when you want it.
St. Josemaria Escriva is one of my son’s patron saints. We named him after this saint in thanksgiving to St. Josemaria. In 2002 we made a pilgrimage to Rome for the canonization of Josemaria with the intention of having a child, as we were having difficulties getting pregnant. The next year our son was born, so in thanksgiving his middle name is a form of Josemaria.
Dh and I have told him this story over and over again, and include our “St. Josemaria, pray for us!” every evening in our night prayer. Now at the ripe old age of 4 1/2 our son has totally embraced this saint. And although it’s been really busy this month with many a feast passing by with just a few words and prayers, we are definitely celebrating this nameday.
This site on St. Josemaria has a section for young readers (see sidebar), with this link going a nice short biography. There are also recommendations for reading.
Through the Mountains is the first book we read together. It’s in comic book format, but a very detailed presentation of St. Josemaria’s life. We all learned so much about him reading this every night to our son. Some of the materials was over his head, but he wanted to read it all, so we read it in small chunks every night. We had many discussions stemming from the book.
Our current read-aloud is Yes! The Life of Josemaria Escriva for Young Readers. This is better for younger readers (or listeners). I believe this is a translation into English from another language, as there are some awkward phrasing and several typos. But my son really, really loves it, because it really is detailed on his early years in his family life and has lovely illustrations.
I didn’t realize how much this book was making an impression on him until the last two nights. As I was reading one of the chapters, my son starting talking out loud. I paused and asked if he wanted to continue, and he replied, “Yes, I was just praying.”
I didn’t think much about that until tonight when we said our night prayers together as a family. Our usual prayers are Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Angel of God and invocations to saints, and then spontaneous prayer which include prayer requests and going over the day. When we got to the Hail Mary, ds said we need to say 3 Hail Marys and then led them.
I was puzzled as to where he got this idea of adding the two extra Hail Marys, so after prayers I asked him. He said “We’re praying three Hail Marys to the Virgin Mary, like St. Josemaria’s family did!” And then I remembered that we read that chapter of Josemaria’s family prayer the night before.
It impresses me how absorbent a child is. I have never said explicitly that we read about saints to imitate them. And yet, how easily my son was inspired and made his own decision to imitate his patron saint.
We will be attending a special Mass in honor of St. Josemaria Thursday evening. I know it will be a little difficult due to usual bedtime routine, so I pray St. Josemaria will help the boys (and Mommy!)
And although the suggested feast day food is crespillos (see bottom of page), the recipe doesn’t fit our food allergy needs (nor, I admit, our tastebuds. Fried sweetened spinach?). So I am making allergy safe brownies for dessert, and we have a special favorite cereal for breakfast.
St. Josemaria’s teachings are simple and straightforward, but so helpful for me. Everyone is called to be a saint, echoing Vatican II’s “Universal Call to Holiness” — even lay people are called to be holy and become saints. And in our ordinary daily lives we must have a sanctification of our work.
“Since 1928 I have understood clearly that God wants our Lord’s whole life to be an example for Christians. I saw this with special reference to his hidden life, the years he spent working side by side with ordinary men. Our Lord wants many people to ratify their vocation during years of quiet, unspectacular living.”
The ordinary Christian can seek holiness in and through the ordinary circumstances of life. “Ordinary life can be holy and full of God.” And in everyday life, the Christian practices all these virtues: faith, hope and charity, and the human virtues – generosity, industriousness, justice, loyalty, cheerfulness, sincerity, and so on. In practising these virtues, a Christian imitates Jesus Christ. “The Supernatural value of our life does not depend on accomplishing great undertakings suggested to us by our overactive imagination. Rather it is to be found in the faithful acceptance of God’s will, in welcoming generously the opportunities for small, daily sacrifice.”
For the majority of Christians, marriage and the family are among the things upon which sanctity should be built, and should thus be given a Christian dimension. “For a Christian, marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a supernatural calling.”
I forgot I had written these posts.
And I’ll close with my favorite prayer to the Holy Spirit written by St. Josemaria:
Come, O Holy Spirit:
enlighten my understanding
to know your commands;
strengthen my heart
against the wiles of the enemy;
inflame my will…
I have heard your voice,
and I don’t want to harden
my heart by resisting,
by saying ‘later…tomorrow.”
Nunc coepi! Now!
Lest there be no tomorrow for me!
O, Spirit of truth and wisdom,
Spirit of understanding and counsel,
Spirit of joy and peace!
I want what you want,
I want it because you want it,
I want it as you want it,
I want it when you want it.
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