St. Escriva, in His Words

By Edward Pentin in Zenit, 9 January 2008

It's perhaps a little late for a Christmas present idea, but an interesting new book has been published that would be perfect for someone whose interest in Opus Dei has been skewered by the novel and movie, "The Da Vinci Code."

Called "Un Cammino Attraverso il Mondo" (A Walk Through the World), the book -- so far only published in Italian -- is an anthology of literature, homilies and letters of St. Josemaria Escriva that aims to reach out to those who may not otherwise have come across the founder of Opus Dei, or know much about what the personal prelature is really about.

"It's one of the many unintended consequences of the Da Vinci Code," says author Father John Wauck, an American priest of Opus Dei. "I wanted to use a secular perspective to get across why St. Josemaria and the spirit of Opus Dei might be interesting to those who aren't necessarily believers."

Father Wauck, a professor of literature at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, says the writings of St. Josemaria are "not very well known, and not terribly accessible." So he has tried to explain Opus Dei through the eyes of its founder in a way that hasn't been done before, lifting out key texts that give the reader a "flavour of his personality."

The process involved scouring through letters, biographies, and interviews. One chapter is devoted to how St. Josemaria envisioned Opus Dei from its founding in 1928 until the 1960s. "That's one of the more valuable chapters," says Father Wauck. Another chapter is called "Like a Donkey," which provides a window on St. Josemaria's personal life of prayer in which he frequently refers to himself as a donkey. One little known fact revealed in the book is the Spanish saint's penchant for drawing cartoon ducks.

The title for the book is taken from a poem by Wallace Stevens, the 20th century American poet who became a Catholic shortly before he died. Father Wauck saw many similarities between Stevens and the spirit of Opus Dei, which seeks to spread the Gospel in everyday life: although he was poet, Stevens never gave up his mundane day job as an insurance salesman.

Like those engaged in the charism of Opus Dei, Stevens understood that it's "easier to transcend the world than to find transcendence through the world," says Father Wauck. "There is a transcendence that can be found through the world, not going around it, not avoiding the things of the world, but going through the world and transforming it. The point of the quote is that it's not easy. It's actually harder to do it that way."

Father Wauck, who continues to run a popular blog that grew out of "The Da Vinci Code," hopes the book will do more than merely right the absurd calumnies made against Opus Dei by Dan Brown's potboiler. He hopes it will also appeal to readers merely from a cultural standpoint, showing a new way of approaching professional work and family life.