The more I read what he wrote the more I like him

By the chaplain of the Sanctuaries of our Lady of Lourdes in France in Immaculata Conceptio.

Here’s the next image of a saint as we move down the ramp into the gargantuan underground Basilica of Saint Pius X here in Lourdes: Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer.

I do not in any way whatsoever have anything to do with Opus Dei, but the more I hear blistering condemnations by the likes of the hate-filled anti-Catholic Press (and not a few priests who don’t know why they are priests), the more I’m becoming interested in the real Josemaria. The more I read what he wrote the more I like him.

What a simple soul, but, because of that, incisive and demanding that Catholics be a sign of contradiction, a sign of hope that they can be good in God’s love for them, a sign that is so contradictory to the world’s aggressive attack on the capacity we do have to respond, in God’s grace, to God’s grace.

Sure, we can find plenty of bad examples of what it means to belong to Opus Dei, whether among the laity or among the priests, but… isn’t that true with every group? Isn’t it true that we all have free will and that we all have much to learn and much from which to repent?

I find Josemaria to have a refreshingly Catholic aggressiveness, that of someone who knows he belongs to the Church Militant (though now, of course, he belongs to the Church Triumphant).

There’s one thing especially that I’ll be emphasizing in the exegesis of Genesis 2,4–3,24 on this blog that finds much in common with the Opus Dei raison d’être, and that is to participate in the work which God has for us upon this earth, and that work is described well in Genesis 2,4–3,24.