Ex-member: It was completely my decision

By John Allen in Opus Dei

Virtually everyone agrees that for supernumeraries, exiting Opus Dei poses less risk of turbulence. Matthew Collins of Baltimore was an Opus Dei supernumerary for twenty-six years before leaving in 2003 and becoming a cooperator.

Here’s how he described his experience: While many people in the Work do not understand my decision, and perhaps even believe I “lost my vocation,” I have been treated with the utmost charity and respect.

Not a single person in the Work has in any way made me feel unwelcome. I was very open with the directors when I was considering leaving the Work, and my freedom was always respected. It was a very difficult decision for me, and at times I would have almost welcomed pressure from them to stay in. They never did so. On the contrary, the consistent message I received from them was that it was their opinion that I had a vocation to the Work, but that it was completely my decision, and that if I chose to leave the Work, I would continue to be welcome at Opus Dei activities.

Ex-member: I was shocked

By John Allen in Opus Dei

Elizabeth Falk Sather is a Chicago-area numerary who left Opus Dei in early 1983 after roughly five years.

“I went on the Opus Dei Awareness Network Web site,” she said, reading accounts by former members such as Moncada about what happened when they left. “I was shocked. I didn’t experience any coercion, anyone locking doors on me.

My director said, `This has to be your free choice.’ I didn’t feel hounded. They saw I was being open and honest.”

Vocation to Opus Dei is to bring forth the "I" of Christ

By Fr. Robert O'Connor in The Truth Will Make You Free

Divine filiation as an ontological reality, and not necessarily humility, is the grounding truth of Opus Dei.

This makes sense since Opus Dei is “a little bit of the Church.” And since the Church is the “I” of Christ, it would make sense that the vocation to Opus Dei is to bring forth that “I” and raise it to act.

As then-Joseph Ratzinger remarked: “(C)onversion in a Pauline sense is something much more radical than, say, the revision of a few opinions and attitudes. It is a death-event."

"In other words, it is an exchange of the old subject for another. The ‘I’ ceases to be an autonomous subject standing in itself. It is snatched away from itself and fitted into a new subject. The ‘I’ is not simply submerged, but it must really release its grip on itself in order then to receive itself anew in and together with a greater ‘I.’"

Learning fine art of heart and hearth

by Becca Manning in the Pembroke Express Hidden back in the woods of East Pembroke is a cluster of beautiful old buildings typically reserved for spiritual retreats and seminars. But last weekend, the Arnold Hall Conference Center on Randall Street was overrun by about 60 teenage girls, all there to learn a variety of skills from giving facials to preparing Russian cuisine — and to compete against their peers from Chicago, New York, Houston, Toronto and Puerto Rico.

“It’s kind of like an Olympics for homemaking,” said Kelly O’Leary, a member of the executive committee and one of the creators of The Art of Living conference. “Our original idea was that there are a lot of women out there in the world today who would love to be terrific cooks and who would love to be great homemakers but lack the skills, and they find it really frustrating.”

To help young women fill that gap in their education, O’Leary and her coworkers decided to start the conference and hold it at Arnold Hall, where O’Leary used to work. She is now a chef at a women’s dorm in Boston.

“At first, the conference wasn’t a huge success because all we had were seminars and teaching classes. So one of us came up with the idea of having a competition, and that made it much more exciting for the girls,” O’Leary said.

The Art of Living conference is now in its sixth year, still held at Arnold Hall, and brings together women from all over the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, for a weekend of learning and celebrating those home arts. Among them are teams from the South Shore, Boston and New Hampshire that meet at Arnold Hall once a month during the school year to prepare for the annual event.

The girls, all high school age, stay the weekend in rooms at the conference center and attend seminars and compete in events centered around five basic themes: culinary art, home health, fashion, event planning and interior design.

“It really kind of resonates with them, the idea that someday, no matter what you do with your life, you’re going to have people that you love that you’re going to want to be able to take care of,” O’Leary said. “It’s a part of life, and you want to be able to do it well, with confidence, with artistry … and not to have to start from scratch when you’re 35.”

On Saturday afternoon, the main hall was bustling with activity, as teams of girls competed in two cooking events. In the Meals to Go event, teams had to prepare a portable meal for six, arriving with a plan and ingredients, and being judged on both the final product and preparation skills.

For the culinary competition, girls arrive knowing the meat — this year, it was flank steak — but are given a “mystery basket” on Friday night.

“With their coach, they have to make up a menu, how they’re going to cook it, and a theme. They have to put a whole meal together for four people,” said Tracy Vendetti, who helps coach the New England teams. “They’re judged on how well they work as a team, if they’re sanitary, if they keep to their space [within the kitchen], on their culinary skills and, if problems come up, how they deal with the problems.”

Her Meals to Go team from New Hampshire prepared a meal with items that represent their home state, including pumpkin soup, apple chutney, sharp cheddar and bacon from local farms.

“They’ve been working intensely on this mini meal for about two or three months,” she said.

In the kitchen, the team from Boston was turning their mystery basket — which included soy sauce, pomegranates, grapefruit, leeks, potatoes, brussels sprouts and bacon — into a cohesive meal.

“It was kind of eclectic, and it was hard to find a theme for it,” said coach Margarita Reyes, who lives and works at Arnold Hall. The girls finally decided on an early fall dinner and planned to marinate and grill the flank steak.

During the Dare to Repair competition, girls used their interior design skills to reupholster a chair, refinish a tabletop and install hooks, hardware and other items to a brightly colored door, using given tools and materials, according to Tricia Kelly, business manager at Arnold Hall.

The girls also can prepare a project fitting one or all of the Art of Living themes to be judged in a project gallery.

“The thought behind it is to think about your home and other people that you live with and to put care — and your heart — into those things, with an artistic flair and professional preparation,” Kelly said.

The weekend also includes a special Saturday night presentation — last year, it was an international fashion show, and this year, the executive committee planned a trip through the origins of Western civilization, with stations set up as “the seven hills of Rome,” Kelly said.

Though Arnold Hall is part of the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei, and most of the retreats held there are affiliated with that group, the Art of Living program is nondenominational and open to any young woman who is interested, Kelly said. Coaches are professionals who work in Opus Dei facilities around the country.

“There’s perhaps a supernatural undertone in the sense that there’s a purpose for being here. It’s not just self-seeking but really looking for the meaning in life,” she said.

Ana Buckley, a senior at Montrose School in Medfield, has been involved in The Art of Living since she was in eighth grade.

“It’s really cool to see girls that are trying to do the same thing, to make a difference in … the simple things you can do every day, like making a meal or just fixing a light-bulb — all the little things you can do to make other people’s lives better,” she said.

‘Mundane’ benefits of being religious

Manila Times Editorial

A New York Times article By John Tierney on December 29 led us to the Psychological Bulletin’s first 2009 issue, which has “Religion, self-control, and self-regulation: Associations, explanations and implications” by Dr. Michael McCullough and co-researcher Brian Willoughby. Both are with the University of Miami.

We learn from both articles that what Christian and Jewish spiritual guides—as well as Indian yogis—have been saying is true, despite the doubts and mockery of Western-influenced secular opinion leaders. Religious practices, going to church, meditation, and being committed to religious ideals and convictions also produce temporal benefits in believers.

In other words being religious does not only win rewards in the afterlife but also “mundane” benefits. (We put the word “mundane” in quotes because the most rigorous Christian spiritual directors—like Saint Josemaria Escriva—do not scoff at things of the world but instead see them as the material that must be “divinized” or made holy by the believer through his work, sacrifices and prayers. And doing that is what will also “divinize” him.

Dr. McCullough and his fellow scholars and psychologists have reviewed the past 80 years’ research and found that religious belief and practices promote self-control. And internal strength.

Dr. McCullough’s “professional interest,” Mr. Tierney writes, “arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.”

Mr. Tierney reports that Dr. McCollough “has no evangelical motives” in devoting himself to religion and its effects for his research. He told Tierney: “When it comes to religion, professionally, I’m a fan but personally I don’t get down on the field much.”

Dr. McCollough et al. discovered, writes Tierney, that “as early as the 1920s, researchers found that students who spent more time in Sunday school did better at laboratory tests measuring their self-discipline. Subsequent studies showed that religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers, and that religiosity repeatedly correlated with higher self-control among adults. Devout people were found to be more likely than others to wear seat belts, go to the dentist and take vitamins.”

The scientists then asked: Which came first, the religious devotion or the self-control? Aren’t children who have the will to sit through Sunday Masses or chapel services innately self-disciplined while those who drop out are not? Dr. McCulough and fellow researchers took that factor into account. Then they still found that religion does influence the development of human virtues that lead to success and doing work well.

“Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” Dr. McColough told Tierney. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”

Should nonbelievers now start going to church and going through the rituals— to get the practical benefits of well-being, self-control and inner strength?

Dr. McCullough told Tierney that studies have shown that people who go to church for “extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections” were found not to have the higher self-control that sincere believers—“intrinsically religious people”—have.

Dr. McCullough and associates have also done researches showing the good effects on health of forgiveness, thankfulness and other virtues associated with piety and religious belief.

------

New York Times Article: For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It

Original Research Study: McCullough, M. E., & Willoughby, B. L. B. (in press, 2008). Religion, self-control, and self-regulation: Associations, explanations, and implications. Psychological Bulletin.

The purpose of the Church is to make saints

By Zenit

Pope John Paul II canonized more saints during his pontificate (480) than were canonized in the preceding 1,000 years of Church history (450).

Commenting on his predecessor's enthusiasm for making saints, Benedict XVI responded, "There cannot be too many saints."

In the March issue of the journal First Things, writer Philip Zaleski contextualizes the late Pope's understanding of the role of the saints in the life of the Church.

He concludes that the canonizations of John Paul II were a reversal of the "stripping of the altars" -- the invasion of secular ideology into Catholic life -- as well as a marking of the saints as signposts of a new civilization.

Zaleski draws on the insights of Hans Urs von Balthasar's 1954 book "Thérèse of Lisieux: The Story of a Mission."

Balthasar suggests that the purpose of the Church is to make saints. Put another way, the Church works to sanctify each person to fulfill his or her unique individual role in building the kingdom of God. Thus, no two saints are alike.

Zaleski notes that traditional Christian thought understood canonization to have a number of purposes. It glorifies God by whose grace the saints are sanctified, and it honors the saints, reflections of God's glory.

Models

Furthermore, canonization provides models for holiness and gives us some insight into the citizenry of heaven, instructing us to whom we can ask to intercede on our behalf. This last aspect is particularly important as popular devotions and cults have developed around saints with dubious merit.

The recent canonizations, Zaleski argues, have renewed interest in the saints as models of holiness, particularly in places like Malta, whose first native saints were canonized during John Paul II's pontificate.

The enthusiasm for saints is not limited geographically, as Christians such as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (not yet canonized) have a global following.

Zaleski highlights the fact that opposition to the sheer number of John Paul II's canonizations usually fell back on criticisms of particular saints. In particular, much criticism came from circles that feared that particular canonizations marked the return of an outmoded, retrograde Catholicism.

But, contrary to these critics, even John Paul II's most controversial saints actually embodied the principles outlined in "Lumen Gentium." Furthermore, according to Zaleski, opposition to saints such as Juan Diego and Josemaría Escrivá may even undercut efforts to enhance the role of the laity in the life of the Church.

The future

In his best-selling book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," John Paul II alluded to the saints, particularly the 20th-century martyrs, as a "foundation of a new world, a new Europe, and a new civilization."

This echoes the famous axiom that the best apology for the faith is its saints. Zaleski writes: "To canonize is to renew the bond between heaven and earth; every canonization, in a sense, re-consecrates the world.

"We should never underestimate the power of holiness.… Most people cold-shoulder ecclesiastical structures, but they all embrace saints. They love the saints. The saints appeal to everyone, for they show us life as it could and should be."

Primarily because they are little

By Jeff Vehige. Jeff is married and has four children. He runs the St. Peter Canisius Apostolate.

From In Conversation with God, Volume 3:

[Christ] chooses us where we are, and leaves us — the majority of Christians, lay people — just where we were: in our family, in our own job, in the cultural or sports association that we belong to . . . so that in the very environment in which we are found we should love him and make him known through family ties, through relationships at work and among friends. From the moment that we decide to make Christ the center of our lives, everything we do is affected by that decision. We must ask ourselves whether we are consistent with what it means to turn our work into a vehicle for growing in friendship with Jesus Christ, through developing our human and supernatural virtues in it.

Ideas like these are what attract me to Opus Dei spirituality. Christ doesn’t call us to live apart from others, just to live differently. And what does that mean? To be a better friend, a harder worker, a more loving spouse, and more self-giving parent.

But it’s not as serious as all that. Being a good friend means taking time to spend with one’s friends — even if that means watching a B-movie. Working harder doesn’t mean doing more, but, rather, doing what needs to be done with more focus. Becoming a more loving spouse may mean taking some extra minutes to clean the bathroom sink, and letting your kids picking the Friday-night movie may be a way of being a little more self-giving. Little things go a long way to holiness primarily because they’re little: They don’t attract the eyes of others, only the eyes of God.

Indigenous Lumad people find God through brightly colored beads

By Patricia Torres

A group of Lumad women in Marilog, Davao City in South Philippines are learning how to lift their hearts and minds to God in daily prayer through a prayer card in the local dialect to St. Josemaria Escriva and some brightly colored beads.

Most of them are not Catholics, since most indigenous peoples of the Philippines do not have any formal religion. But through St Escriva, these women are slowly learning to entrust their daily work and concerns to God.

Lumad Women

The Lumad People

There are 18 indigenous groups in Mindanao, southern Philippines. Lumad, which means “native” or “indigenous”, is the collective name for the non-Muslim indigenous peoples of Mindanao.

According to the Lumad Development Center Inc., there are about eighteen Lumad groups in 19 provinces across the country. They comprise 12 to 13 million or 18 percent of the Philippine population and can be divided into 110 ethno-linguistic groups. Considered as “vulnerable groups”, they live in the hinterlands, forests, lowlands and coastal areas.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the area controlled by the Lumads covered what is now 17 of Mindanao’s 24 provinces, but by 1980 they constituted less than 6 percent of the population of Mindanao and Sulu. Heavy migration to Mindanao of people from Central Philippines, spurred by government-sponsored resettlement programs, has pushed back the Lumads into the mountains and forests and turned them into minorities.

Jessa Mae

Outreach in Sitio Ladian

In one of these mountain villages, St. Escriva has found a place in the everyday lives of the Lumads.

Sitio Ladian, which is part of Barangay Marilog, is about 50 km from Davao City, (946 km from Manila). Ladian, which covers 79 hectares, has a population of about 426, most of them Lumads. Most of Barangay Marilog is agriculture and pasture land. Basic services are poor. Only one health center services Barangay Marilog’s entire population of 14,255 and there is no nutrition post. There are only four public elementary schools, but no secondary and tertiary schools in the area.

Last summer, a group of young people from Cebu and Davao visited the Lumads and stayed with them for a week. The girls painted some of the public school’s classrooms while volunteers from an urban poor-based livelihood cooperative in Cebu, an island in Central Philippines, taught the Lumad mothers how to make simple fashion accessories from colored wooden beads which they can sell to tourists. The volunteers also taught the Lumad mothers how to make simple native snacks to sell to neighbors.

Four young professionals, two college students, eight high school students, and two mothers from the livelihood cooperative also participated in the outreach program. A medical mission was also organized participated by 14 doctors and nurses and more than 10 volunteers.

The outreach program was organized by the Banilad Study Center in Cebu and the Lamdag Foundation in Davao. It was their first outreach program in the area and there are plans to hold such activities twice a year starting next year.

A Lumad student bead

Favors
Among those who attended the livelihood classes was Linda Laglagan, 29, mother of two children. Linda works as a village health worker while her husband is a migrant banana farm worker. Linda was given a prayer card of St Escriva during one of the classes.

Since then, she says in the local dialect, she has been praying to him twice a day. “I pray for everyday needs. In God’s mercy, my family hasn’t starved. I also pray that my husband find a regular job soon. He has applied to dig canals in the city but still has to wait for a call. We don’t earn enough for our needs. I earn P350 (US$7.08) a month as a health worker while my husband earns P120 (US$2.43) a day when he finds temporary work at the farm.”

Linda taught her friend and neighbor Mary Jane Galleto how to make the bead necklaces. Mary Jane, 29, a mother of three, is homebound because her eldest child, Jessa Mae, 10, has cerebral palsy. Jessa Mae has spent most of her life lying still on a hard wooden bed in their small one-room hut. Her father, a migrant farm worker, currently has no work, and there is often not enough food to eat.

Last summer, volunteers who took part in the medical mission brought Mary Jane’s daughter to a doctor. Somebody taught her to pray for her child to St Josemaria Escriva. She has been saying the prayer card twice a day since summer.

She happily relates that her child’s condition has improved. Jessa Mae can now kick her legs and move her body across the bed. She can also sit up and put her feet on the dirt floor.
Dorotea Soldia is a Catholic who lives among the Lumads. She is grateful for the additional income from making and selling beads. She makes about 20 necklaces a day and earns more than P100 a day ($2.00) from selling them. She also earns extra money from working as a manicurist. “Things are not so tight anymore. At least we have some money to buy rice. I pray to St Josemaria for the good health of my six children. He has helped so much.”

She also says she has changed. She now goes to church on Sundays. “Before, I was lazy about going to church. But St. Escriva has led me back to Church and to prayer.”

Inspired by their rekindled faith, the Lumad women have also rediscovered their creative genius. They have now introduced their indigenous art into the bead-making they learned and are making exciting and exotic pieces.

Fervent Christians capable of acting directly in society

An excerpt from a dossier on Opus Dei of Agenzia Fides, the press agency of the Vatican. Fides is a part of the Congregation of Evangelization of Peoples and is one of the first press agencies in the world, having been established in 1927.

In its early days, Christianity was spread through common people who lived the faith in a fervent manner, within their state in society. They were farmers, merchants, soldiers, widows, and others. Nothing distinguished them from the others, except for the fact that their entire existence was permeated by an authentic relationship with God.

They made the effort to live virtuously and were capable of bearing the weight of others. So much was this the case, that the pagans were impressed by how they loved each other. The spread the Gospel among their colleagues, their family members, and their comrades, through their example, friendship, and personal initiative.

When the married couple, Aquila and Priscilla, meet an intellectual of the time period named Apollo, who shows an interest in Christianity, they don't send him to a priest or a theologian. They form him themselves. They show that they are a living part of the Church and know well the fundamental message.

This is what the Work promotes: turning every Christian into a fervent Christian capable of acting directly in society and spreading Christianity through his example, with his work, with his life.

Thus, each one becomes an apostle in his own environment: with their colleagues, their friends, their relatives. It is an apostolate that becomes like an infinite ocean, because any human activity, from professional commitments to entertainment, can become an occasion to come in contact with God.

Richard John Neuhaus: There are some things eminently worth being controversial for

By Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in First Things, November 1995. Fr. Neuhaus died last 8 January 2009. He was one of the most influential Catholics in the US.

The Ku Klux Klan, the Michigan Militia, and Scientology. To hear some folk tell it, Opus Dei (The Work of God) belongs to that company, except it is bigger and more dangerous. Opus Dei is, they say, a secretive, cult-like organization that is running a vast international conspiracy with unlimited funding and tentacles reaching into the most unlikely centers of power. In short, Opus Dei is "controversial."

So how does one go about making up his mind about a movement such as this? I have no connections with Opus Dei, but over the last ten years I have developed friendships with a number of people, priests and laity, who are involved in The Work. For example, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the communications director for the Vatican. He is an extraordinarily personable gentleman, and we have had long conversations about, inter alia, the importance of Opus Dei in his life. He does not push the movement, but speaks in a matter-of-fact and utterly persuasive manner about how Opus Dei has helped him to understand and sustain his vocation as a Christian layman. And there are others in Opus Dei who speak in a similar vein. But in making up one's mind there is no denying that a privileged witness is Pope John Paul II. He has been publicly and consistently supportive of Opus Dei, granting it in 1982 the singular status of a "personal prelature," which means the jurisdiction of its bishop is not limited to a region but includes everyone in Opus Dei. In 1992 he beatified the founder of Opus Dei, Msgr. Josemaria Escriva, who died in 1975. The Pope has spoken of Opus Dei as an instrument of energetic orthodoxy that is a great gift for the renewal of the Church and its mission in the world. Of course that does not mean that Catholics must agree. Orthodox Catholics who otherwise have the greatest respect for the Pope have had bad experiences with Opus Dei and think that maybe he does not always know what the organization is actually doing. Be that as it may, in forming one's approach to Opus Dei, the strong and consistent affirmation of John Paul II cannot help but carry very considerable weight.

Since it was established in Spain in 1928, there have been a slew of books attacking Opus Dei, and we are told that more are in the works. For those of a leftist disposition, it is sufficient damnation that Opus Dei members were prominent in the government of General Franco. It is seldom mentioned that those same Opus Dei members were key players in Spain's successful transition to democracy. Today Opus Dei has about seventy-seven thousand members in eighty-three countries, including fifteen hundred priests and fifteen bishops.

One cannot emphasize too strongly that Opus Dei understands its mission to be the revival of the lay apostolate. While priests do the things that priests do in their capacity as spiritual directors, Opus Dei members frequently describe themselves as anticlerical. Not in the sense that they are opposed to clergy, but in that they oppose the old clericalist notion that lay people are second-class (at best) members of the Church. Opus Dei members sometimes suggest that the movement is responsible for Vatican II's lifting up of the dignity of the lay vocation, which is undoubtedly going one claim too far. But it is ironic that some of the harshest critics, who think of themselves as great champions of the laity, have not recognized the similar inspiration in Opus Dei.

The Work became active in North America about twenty years ago, and now has approximately three thousand members and runs sixty-four centers (often residences near major universities), five high schools, and several retreats. The Opus Dei presence has not always been welcomed by Catholic ministries on campuses, and this has occasioned some notable controversies. The cause, it seems, is sometimes personality conflict, sometimes a too aggressive approach by Opus Dei, and, in a number of cases, resentment by super-progressive priests of a movement that proposes a different, and deeply conservative, way of being Catholic. The charge heard again and again is that Opus Dei is secretive and cult- like in recruiting new members.

The Disillusioned

These and other charges were again aired in a major article this past year in America, the Jesuit magazine (February 25, 1995). The issue had a lurid red cover with nothing but the words "Opus Dei" in sharp relief, and I approached it with the expectation of reading another slash-and-burn attack on the movement. It turned out, however, to be a reasonably temperate and balanced treatment-in comparison, that is, with the usual stuff on Opus Dei. A great deal of attention was given to the testimony of people who had had unhappy experiences with Opus Dei, and to the views of Kenneth Woodward, religion reporter for Newsweek, often a fair-minded fellow, who has a long-standing hostility to Opus Dei.

Every movement has people who left for one reason or another, and, as is the case with jilted lovers, it is hard to know how to evaluate their testimony. They complain that they were recruited under the guise of friendship, that they were not told at first what they would be getting into, that women are separated from and subordinate to men, and so forth. What it apparently amounts to is that some people discovered that Opus Dei was not for them and were disappointed and embittered about that. Certainly Opus Dei is demanding. A full-fledged "numerary," for instance, makes a commitment to celibacy, lives in an Opus Dei center, and follows a rigorous daily schedule of prayer and spiritual discipline. Clearly, it is not for everyone. But the critics say it is more than that, that Opus Dei is a cult. A few parents unhappy with their children's association with Opus Dei have even formed an Opus Dei Awareness Network, and make the usual claims about "brainwashing" and the like.

I know some of these parents and cannot help but feel considerable sympathy. One wonders, however, if in some cases they are not experiencing, in intensified form, the pain of recognizing that their children are growing up and therefore, in a certain necessary sense, away from them. The mother of a young man I will here call Billy relates in tears how he went away to university, came into contact with Opus Dei in his third year, and now has decided to commit himself as a numerary. "He's completely alienated from us." "His father and I had such plans for him." "He's not my Billy that I knew four years ago." Sympathy yes, but tempered sympathy. He strikes one as a sensible young man, mature for his years, and enormously grateful for the life he has found with Opus Dei. He insists he is not alienated from his parents, but every contact with them, especially with his mother, is an ongoing and ugly hassle over Opus Dei. "She can't accept that I must do with my life what I believe God wants me to do."

It is an intergenerational conflict that has been around from the beginning of time. Innumerable young people, including recognized saints, have caught a vision of radical discipleship and pursued a course vehemently opposed by parents and family. This should come as no surprise to people who follow the One who said, "He who loves father or mother more than me . . ." It is especially odd that this conflict should figure so large in a Jesuit magazine, for it is within living memory that a more demanding Society of Jesus was frequently accused of recruiting young men to a pattern of discipleship that pitted them against parents who had other plans for their children's lives.

The America article also highlights the fact that the formal "constitutions" of Opus Dei are available in Latin and Spanish but not in English. This is taken as evidence that the organization is concealing something from outsiders, and even from its own members. Opus Dei responds that the Holy See, for some unknown reason, does not want the constitutions translated into English, although some members have told me that they are being translated. They add that the constitutions are merely legal stipulations, and that they contain nothing that members and prospective members are not told. In any event, the constitutions are readily available in Latin, and we know that there are still Jesuits who can read Latin. If there is anything they find objectionable in the constitutions, the critics of Opus Dei have ample opportunities to publicize their objections.

So why the intense, sometimes venomous, attacks on Opus Dei? In my experience, the members of Opus Dei are not secretive, but they are sometimes very defensive. That is perhaps understandable, given the nature and persistence of the attacks, but it is still a problem, and Opus Dei members with whom I have spoken generally recognize it as a problem. Then too, Opus Dei sometimes presents itself as the saving remnant of orthodoxy in a Church that is largely apostate. This is unattractive and, if not entirely untrue, greatly exaggerated. But such exaggeration is not surprising among people who feel that they are part of a rare, comprehensive, and commanding vision of what it means to serve Christ and his Church with the entirety of their being. Of course there is the danger of fanaticism, but it seems to me that Opus Dei is keenly aware of that, and its program of spiritual direction assiduously guards against it. People who think that the way to avoid fanaticism is never to surrender oneself to a commanding truth live desiccated lives and end up breeding their own, and usually less interesting, fanaticisms.

The opposition to Opus Dei cannot be explained without at least some reference to jealousy. Competition and jealousy among religious movements in the Catholic Church is nothing new, and some Opus Dei members are not hesitant to suggest that theirs is now the role in the Church once played by the Jesuits. The Jesuits, who were once viewed as the elite corps of the papacy, have in recent decades had a sharply attenuated relationship to the hierarchical leadership of the Church. The famous "fourth vow" of allegiance to the pope is now frequently understood by Jesuits as a vow to the papacy in general-meaning the papacy as they think it ought to be. (The articles on Jesuits and Jesuit spirituality in the new Encyclopedia of Catholicism, edited by Richard McBrien, make no mention of obedience to the pope.)

It is not surprising that this pontificate has looked with particular favor on Opus Dei, Focolare, Legionaries of Christ, and similar movements that have sprung up to champion the magisterium's understanding of the renewal called for by Vatican II. As for Opus Dei itself, it is, as the Catholic Church views things, still a very young movement, and in this country its work has hardly gotten underway. From the general media and from liberal Catholics, it is not going to get a fair shake for a very long time, if ever. Opus Dei has, as they say, a big image problem, and it will have to learn to live with that without being intimidated by it. Over time, as more people became acquainted with the people who are Opus Dei, and as Opus Dei members engage in works that are generally respected, the day may come when Opus Dei will no longer be routinely described as "controversial." And maybe not. There are some things eminently worth being controversial for. Meanwhile, one cannot help but be impressed by the people who believe that they have found in Opus Dei a way to make an unqualified gift of their lives to Christ and his Church.

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.

The secret of something so great and new

By The Young Mother: Adventures in wifery, motherhood, and life.

I'm waiting for my diploma in the mail. There's no commencement for December grads, but I don't mind. I do miss some sense of finality, some gesture of completion. Really, I just finished that last exam and walked away to find my husband and baby, playing on a rug waiting for me. Then we drove home.

I half expect to go back to school in a week or so. I barely remember the days before school, before following schedules. I am happy, but dazed. It's a fantastic idea that all these dreams are actually true.

I am a mother, and my little son is so healthy and strong. He crawls passionately-- if you saw him do it, you would recognize his excited zeal. He has six white teeth, and he giggles and smiles broadly, showing all of them in an open mouthed grin.

My husband works hard for us, and I love him. We are very happy, and he has been working days now for almost three weeks. We prayed for this for so long... The house we bought is perfect for us, and even our dog is nice. Big, slobbery nice. Life is good. We have so many blessings.

I've been cooking a lot lately, now that I'm home. Really, it's exciting. I haven't had time to do that sort of thing, and I LOVE the way the house looks when I can get everything tidy. My husband doesn't know how much time I spend on little things, like wiping away the smudges on the door frame, then nursing the baby, then playing with the baby, then kneading some dough, then getting him to nap... In such a small, peaceful way, life is beginning to take on this peaceful rhythm.

It is quiet during the day in the house, and I sometimes listen to the radio to news or stories on public broadcast. Other times I hum to myself or talk to Toby or tell him stories. All the while, our dog is nearby, following us from room to room.

In the evenings I am always happy to see my husband, and after sharing a little something to eat and talking about the day, I get a little time to read or write letters, journal, or tinker. He'll talk to me while he develops film or makes prints with his enlarger, and we listen for the baby to wake up on the monitor. All the while, the dog sleeps at the threshold. It is simple, but it is beautiful.

I think St. Josemaria Escriva said it best:
"It is in the simplicity of your ordinary work, in the monotonous details of each day, that you have to find the secret, which is hidden from so many, of something so great and new: LOVE."

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.

Working for a holier world

By Katie Bahr in Catholic Herald. Reston Study Center director Daryl Glick dedicated his life to helping others become better Catholics.

(Note to readers: Sorry I tried removing the ad but it is integrated into the article. Raul)

As an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Daryl Glick didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his life. He was an idealist though, thanks to his Catholic upbringing in Michigan, and believed he could make a difference in the world.

“I felt like God wanted me to do something with my life and I thought it might involve a vocation, but I was very tentative about what specific kind of vocation it might take,” Glick said.

While he was trying to discern God’s call, Glick attended activities organized by Opus Dei, an organization of the Church that encourages lay people to seek holiness in their day-to-day activities.

Through Opus Dei, Glick began to think about the ways in which he could spread the word of God and make the world a better place simply by living out his faith in every aspect of his life.

“The ideal of Opus Dei is that you have dedicated men and women who, through their interaction with others in the workplace — ordinary human pursuits — will promote an awareness of the calling to holiness through their friendships, work relationships, family life, involvement in society and their efforts at leadership,” Glick said. “That was a big discovery for me to recognize that my studies and my future career could be the substance of a vocation of serving God.”

While Glick felt strongly that he was making the right choice in joining Opus Dei, his family was a little wary of the organization, which they weren’t familiar with, but has come under suspicion many times since its inception in 1928. Opponents have criticized the group, calling it secretive, extremely right-wing and overly strict on its members.

Glick believes the criticisms of Opus Dei are false and that the group is a “fully proved and established part of the Church.” He didn’t let his family’s misgivings stop him from joining.

“My family said, ‘don’t do anything you can’t get out of,’ but I never had any doubts,” Glick said. “It’s been a great vocation.”

Glick joined Opus Dei as a celibate lay member 45 years ago.

He continued school, eventually earning his doctorate in philosophy from Notre Dame. From there, he taught philosophy for five years at the college before being invited to work for the Opus Dei national office in New York in 1972. Ever since, he’s been working full time for the organization, doing administrative and pastoral work in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

During this time, Glick met St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

“Can you imagine what it’s like being with a saint? It’s like being with Christ,” Glick said. “It was like getting an energy charge, touching a live wire almost, leaving a feeling like you could do anything.”

Three years ago, Glick came to Virginia to become director of the Reston Study Center, a men-only Opus Dei center in the Arlington Diocese. At the center, he spends his time offering spiritual direction, coaching and encouragement to men looking to deepen their spirituality and bring their faith into all parts of their lives.

“Our focus is on sanctifying the ordinary life, bringing God into the events of everyday and trying to deepen our prayer lives and draw others closer to Christ,” Glick said.

To do this, Glick and his coworkers meet with Opus Dei members regularly — usually weekly — to get acquainted and suggest readings and classes for them. They also plan seminars, retreats and conferences to strengthen their members’ spiritual practices.

“Someone said once, Opus Dei is like a spiritual Weight Watchers,” Glick said. “You can be in the program and you can more or less do it on your own, but eventually you poop out and you have to come back and be re-energized and recommitted and checked against your resolutions so they can get you going again.”

The goal of all the classes and seminars is for members to begin taking their faith more seriously.

“We want them to realize God is a player in their life,” Glick said. “He’s not just kind of out in the distance somewhere and you’ve gotta make sure you give Him His due every now and then on Sundays. That’s not the Catholic life really. The Lord should be in all aspects of your day — keep Him present while you’re working or relaxing, entertaining or socializing.”

For Glick, the most rewarding aspect of his job is his work with college and high school students. Reston Study Center has members from several colleges, including George Mason University, University of Virginia and William and Mary. The center also works with students from The Heights, an Opus Dei boys’ school in Potomac, Md.

“We try to organize activities for them to keep them nurturing their faith life and their prayer life and we challenge them so they don’t get too comfortable in the Faith,” Glick said. “I really enjoy that — sticking it to these college students — asking, ‘What are you doing? What are you reading? How are you deepening your faith?’”

To people looking to deepen their own spirituality, Glick suggested that they hold themselves to a higher standard of Catholicism.

“The good enough Catholic concept doesn’t cut it anymore,” he said. “That’s not God’s plan for us just to get along with the minimum.”

To do this, Glick said that people should start by engaging in a minimum of 10 minutes of free-flowing mental prayer a day, using a guide if needed.

“Get up close and personal and be real,” he said. “Oftentimes our worship and our prayer life is sort of a façade — official and formulaic — where we’re going through the motions, but our minds are somewhere else. We need to be real and let our guard down and put it all out there. If people do that and stick with it, it will change their life.”

A long tradition of anti-Catholic and anti-Papal sentiment

By William O'Connor in Opus Dei: An Open Book, a Reply to Michael Walsh. Here is the conclusion of William O'Connor.

The list of inaccuracies and accusations goes on and on, ranging from the trivial to the outrageous. To answer them all would require another hundred pages. Discerning readers of this present book, or of The Secret Worldof Opus Dei, may perhaps have experienced the feeling that he or she had encountered a similar ragbag of charges and vagaries of method somewhere before.

One hundred and fifty years ago Cardinal Newman had to deal with an almost identical catalogue of accusations and array of specious arguments in his role as one of the most distinguished apologists in the English language. The similarities to be found between the efforts of Michael Walsh in his book, and what Cardinal Newman recounts in his 1851 Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, seem almost uncanny. Cardinal Newman too, encountered 'the Prejudiced Man' who 'takes care to mix only in such society as will confirm his views.' His to face were the bitter charges of disgruntled former members of the body he belonged to. Here were the 'newspapers, magazines, reviews, pamphlets'; the anonymous writers; the cases 'given in detail in some manuscript or other, contained somewhere or other'; the parents unhappy with the religious choices made by their grown children; the "proselytising"; the supposed domination by clerics who withheld information from the ordinary faithful; the slurs on the discipline of the Confessional; the innuendo about murder and sexual abuses; the end seeming to justify the means; the peculiarities of architectural and decorative detail.

The polemical techniques are the same: the 'sweeping charges', the 'simple assertion' and the 'imputation.' There is the conviction 'of all manner of crimes on the simple ground of our being notoriously accused of them'; 'the burden of proof ... thrown upon the accused'; the hostile 'assuming the point in debate ... in the very principles with which they set out.' Pilloried is 'the system of judging any body of men by extracts, passages, specimens, and sayings – nay even by their documents, if these are taken by us to be sufficient informants, instead of our studying the living body itself'; and the 'stringing together of certain sentences without any notice of the context.'

Cardinal Newman noted that 'the rhetoric in request' was 'something which will cut a dash, something gaudy and staring, something inflammatory', and the consequent production of 'the prodigious, the enormous, the abominable, the diabolical, the impossible.' It is usual, then as now, to find 'a crime charged ... with such startling vividness and circumstantial finish as to seem to carry its own evidence with it, and to dispense, in the eyes of the public, with the references which in fairness should attend it. The scene is laid ... in the high table-land of Mexico.' (Peru is Michael Walsh's Mexico. It is far enough away to serve the same purpose).

What is the accused to do when faced by an attacker who 'has picked up facts at third or fourth hand, and has got together a crude farrago of ideas, words, and instances, a little truth, a deal of falsehood, a deal of misrepresentation, a deal of nonsense, and a deal of invention'? The author of old deals at length with the virtual impossibility and probable ineffectiveness, as regards public opinion at large, of answering the complex of shifting charges. In all humility he concludes:

'Good is never done except at the expense of those who do it: truth is never enforced except at the sacrifice of its propounders. At least, they expose their inherent imperfections, if they incur no other penalty; for nothing would be done at all, if a man waited to do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.'

It would appear that Michael Walsh's work follows in a long tradition of anti-Catholic and anti-Papal sentiment over centuries, found in certain streams of British life and literature, arguably even approaching the notorious ravings of such as Maria Monk, but focussing the charges on the smaller target of Opus Dei. There is nothing new under the sun. The reader would do well to return to Newman's Lectures for a most perceptive and amusing debunking of the 'arguments' and polemical techniques used in The Secret World of Opus Dei.