A well-placed friend

By Mary Claire Kendall in Envoy Magazine. References to Blessed Josemaria were changed to Saint Josemaria.

When I was a young child, my parents, on a few special occasions, invited a priest of Opus Dei over to our home for dinner with our family. Those dinners bring back the fondest memories, marked as they were by the warmth and light — human, intellectual and spiritual — which the priests of Opus Dei possess.

Founded in 1928, by Father Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer, Opus Dei provides a path by which lay people can achieve sanctity in the middle of the secular world. Where, two centuries earlier, St. Francis of de Sales preached a way to holiness based on spiritualizing one’s material life, Escrivá taught that the vast majority of lay people could achieve sanctity by materializing the spiritual life. In other words: wherever you work — in the lab, factory, academy, courtroom, at a computer, or at a podium giving the State of the Union Address — sanctity is realized by doing one’s work with the greatest human perfection, for the love of God. In this way, you are performing opus Dei — the “work of God.”

The late Father Josemaria (...) is now known as Saint Josemaria, beatified in 1992, [and canonized in 2002]. Accounts of his intercession are many. He has the Lord’s ear, and has given me the benefit of that closeness.

St. Josemaria emphasized the importance of the sacraments as means of grace. He placed particular emphasis on the sacrament of reconciliation, by which the human tendency to put one’s own will and pleasure before those of God is gradually rooted out. So, it’s not surprising to me that of all the things I have prayed to St. Josemaria about, the conversion of lost sheep through confession are the prayers which the Lord has answered.

As an example, let me tell you about Michael: an elderly gentleman who lived near our family when I was growing up. He was fastidious about his landscaping — lawn, shrubbery and plants were cared for meticulously. But, Michael, a fallen away Catholic, was not so meticulous in his spiritual life. He left the Church as a teen, after a bad experience with a priest in confession.

My family was so blessed with the riches of the Faith. Why, I thought, couldn’t Michael share in this? He would be so much happier! Why couldn’t he see?

After Msgr. Escrivá died in 1975, I saw my big chance to help bring about a change of heart. Convinced of St. Josemaria’s closeness to God, I immediately began to pray through his intercession for Michael’s conversion.

Three years later, on the first Sunday of August 1978, my parents were having one of their rare conversations with Michael and his wife. Ironically, they were talking about the Church, the pope and the line of succession. Later that day, Michael’s wife told my father she had just heard in a special news bulletin that Pope Paul VI had died. My father told her, “You know, Michael is going to die one day too.” Shortly afterward, Michael told my father he wanted to go to confession. My father arranged for Father Ron Gillis, a priest of Opus Dei, to come to Michael’s home and hear his confession — seventy years after that bad experience as a teen. A few months later, Michael died at the age of eighty-seven.

Because I had prayed for Michael, the effect of his conversion on my own faith was profound. I had prayed for this intention, believing that it would happen, and it did! Indeed, that conversion is my insurance policy that faith is real. The Lord does work in our lives; and those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, can intercede for us.

I have also prayed for the conversion of other souls — with equal results. Currently, I am working on the toughest nut of them all. Another priest of Opus Dei — Fr. C. John McCloskey — told me he “will be here waiting” for my friend, that my prayers “will bring him in.”

Michael’s conversion convinced me of the truth of those words.