Opus Dei

At 54, Fernando cares for his father, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, while working for the Post Office, after years working as a chauffeur for high society. Between kilometres of cycling, the pages of his books and his daily rounds, Fernando has come to realise that the most urgent and valuable delivery a person can make will never fit into any envelope: it’s time spent caring for others.

“Invoking the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Josemaría,” Pope Leo XIV sent his apostolic blessing to the participants in the fourth edition of the Navarro-Valls Award. The event took place on Tuesday 23 June in the Sala della Protomoteca at the Capitoline Museums.

This instalment explores the proper autonomy of temporal realities and the Christian value of secularity. Saint Josemaría’s teaching helps us understand that work, civil life, and professional commitments have laws of their own, and that the Christian is called to sanctify them from within, with freedom and personal responsibility.

José Luis González Gullón outlines the historical background to St Josemaría’s arrival in Italy in June 1946. The founder of Opus Dei had two very specific objectives on his agenda. The first was to obtain the “Decretum laudis” (decree of praise) from the Holy See, which would facilitate the spread of Opus Dei throughout the world. The second was to find a place in which to establish the Work’s headquarters.

Homily by the Prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, on the liturgical feast of Saint Josemaría, delivered at the parish of Saint Eugene (Rome).

Hugo is a supernumerary living in Denmark where there are no centres of Opus Dei. Originally from Brazil, we ask him here about his adopted country.