The Barbastro and Logroño Years

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás was born in Barbastro (Huesca, Spain) on January 9, 1902. His family on both sides was steeped in the cultural and Christian traditions of Spain, as well as colored by the personality and traditions of Aragon. In his parents -José Escrivá y Corzán and María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc- he had clear examples of faith, and of robust and sincere piety. Josemaría was a student of the Piarist Fathers of Barbastro, where he received his primary education. He also began his high school studies there, but finished them in the National Institute of Logroño, to where his family had moved in 1915.

José Escrivá and Dolores Albás had their first child, Carmen, in 1899; she was followed by Josemaría and later, by three other girls. The beginning of the 1910s was a period of trials for the family, marked by the deaths of the three younger daughters and a severe economic setback that resulted in the family leaving Aragon and settling in the neighboring province of La Rioja. All this affected Josemaría, who nonetheless remained a young boy with a cheerful and open personality, who continued to apply himself diligently to his studies. One harsh winter's day, when Josemaría was only sixteen, contemplating the footprints left in the snow by a barefoot Carmelite friar walking through the streets of Logroño, he felt a calling that he likened to a loud knock in the depths of his soul.

He began to feel that God wanted something from him, though he did not know what it was. In this frame of mind, Josemaría decided to give up the professional ambition he had been considering, a career as an architect, in order to become a priest, convinced that this way he could be an instrument for the fulfillment of God's will. A long period of faith and intense prayer followed, during which Josemaría asked God to manifest what this wish was that he had "felt" but as yet was unable to perceive. "Lord, make me see! Lord, may it be! Our Lady, may it be!" were the aspirations he repeated for many years. They well express his life of prayer and his firm determination to put into practice what God wanted.