Instruction and training in Opus Dei

Taken from an old version of Wikipedia. Also in Martin Frost's Website.

A Christian becomes a saint, according to Opus Dei's founder, through God's grace and mercy, and through the use of some principal means of sanctification, "learning to love": (1) interior life, activities turned into contemplation, which Jesus Christ calls "the one thing necessary" (Lk 10:42), and (2) doctrinal training, a well-reasoned understanding of God and his ordered work as revealed in the Catholic faith, which Benedict XVI calls the religion of the Logos (the Word: logic, intelligence, reason, meaning). Thus Escrivá says Christians should have "the piety of children and the sure doctrine of theologians."

He holds that the "paramount means of formation" is personal coaching through spiritual direction, a practice which has its roots in the early Church. According to Cornelio Fabro, eminent Italian philosopher, Opus Dei's training fosters the human virtues, habits which are developed through the repetition of free decisions in one's activities and professional work. These habits of human excellence, including love for the truth, courage, and generosity, are the "foundation," Escrivá says, of the supernatural virtues of faith and love for God.

Since he always stressed the importance of "the free and responsible personal action of each member," Fabro says Escrivá "restored the true concept of Christian freedom...After centuries of Christian spiritualities based on the priority of obedience, he taught that obedience was the consequence and fruit of freedom." It is to be noted though that this Catholic-Thomistic notion of "freedom for excellence" is different from the secular notion of "free choice" as having the highest value.