Madrid: The Founding of Opus Dei

Having obtained his degree in law, Fr. Josemaría wished to continue these studies to obtain his doctorate, which was at that time only possible at the University of Madrid, which had the status of a Central University. This, together with other factors, led him to move with his family to the capital. In the spring of 1927 he settled definitively in Madrid, where he carried out unflagging priestly work, attending to the poor and helpless in the outskirts of Madrid, and especially the incurable and dying patients in the hospitals. Fr. Josemaría became chaplain of the chapel of the Foundation for the Sick, a charitable institution run by the Congregation of Apostolic Ladies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Preparing thousands of children for their first Confession and first Holy Communion and his visits to the poor quarters of a Madrid in full expansion, with its consequent social problems, occupied many hours in Fr. Josemaría's intense dedication to his ministry. The need for an income with which to maintain his family led him to become a teacher in an Academy, specialized in tutoring university students in juridical studies. All this, together with constant prayer and very exacting mortification and penance, made these years a real "prehistory" of Opus Dei, that is, a period of spiritual profundity that prepared St. Josemaría to receive what God has prepared for him.

On October 2, 1928, during a spiritual retreat, the Lord clearly revealed to St. Josemaría what until that moment He had only hinted at. At this moment Opus Dei was born, as a reality branded by fire on the soul of a young priest who from then onwards dedicated all his energy to this end. At first, Josemaría's natural humility and a certain caution in the face of the proliferation of religious foundations, led him to investigate as to whether an institution such as the one God revealed to him already existed. However, from that October 2, he also began seek people who would understand this manifestation of God. He soon perceived that nothing existed similar to what God was requesting of him. Guided always by the Lord, on February 14, 1930, St. Josemaría also understood that he had to extend the apostolic work God had indicated to include women.

A new way was thus opened in the Church, directed at promoting, among people of all social classes, the struggle for sanctity through ordinary secular life and the need to be an apostle in the midst of the world. It was also in 1930 when a casual question put to him by a friend ("How is that Work of God getting on?") led him to think that this could be the name of this apostolic enterprise. The expression "Work of God" manifests, on the one hand, St. Josemaría's profound conviction that he was fulfilling a divine wish, and at the same time expresses clearly what Opus Dei means in practice: ordinary life, professional work, converted, through prayer and personal generosity, into the work of God, into Opus Dei, work done in God's presence, for the service of all humankind.

The nucleus of the message transmitted by the Founder of Opus Dei was the announcement of a universal call to sanctification in the performance of ordinary professional work. Thirty years before the Second Vatican Council, St. Josemaría, speaking on the plenitude of Christian life, pronounced this judgment with supernatural daring: "You have the obligation to sanctify yourself. You too. Who thinks that this is the exclusive task of priests and religious orders? To all, without exception, the Lord said 'Be perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect'" (The Way, 291). The universal call to sanctification in one's own work does not mean, as St. Josemaría often repeated, a decrease in the demands and of the horizons evoked, in the Christian conscience, by the word "sanctity". On the contrary, it implies reminding each and every one of the sons and daughters of the Church that, no matter where they are, no matter what their qualities are, the words of the Gospels are addressed to them. They have all received the baptismal invitation to follow Christ. The plenitude of Christian life has to be reached by the ordinary faithful in the place and condition they have in human society, making their ordinary work an occasion of sanctity, at the service of God and of their fellow human beings, in imitation of the hidden life of Christ.

This was the message which from October 2, 1928, the Founder of Opus Dei spread and which drew to him a group of people, small at the beginning, but which was destined to grow. Meanwhile, the social context of St. Josemaría's life underwent changes and tensions. The economic situation of his family continued to be difficult. His pastoral ministry also changed. In 1931, St. Josemaría left the Foundation for the Sick and assumed the task, first as Chaplain and later, in 1934, as Rector of the Royal Foundation of St. Elizabeth. There, in the sacristy of St Elizabeth's, after especially intense personal prayer, St. Josemaría put into writing what was one of his first books: some commentaries on the mysteries of the Rosary, which were published in 1934, under the title of Holy Rosary. St. Josemaría also began writing in his notebooks some conclusions or snippets of his personal prayers, with accounts of experiences that had arisen in his apostolic work. Gathering together some of these intimate notes, in 1932, he composed a collection of thoughts or points for meditation which he entitled Spiritual Considerations; these, first published with the help of a duplicator and later in printed form (1934), were helpful in his apostolic work and that of those who followed him. Revised and completed with other points, these meditations were published as one of St. Josemaría's best known works: The Way (Camino). First published in 1939, it has been translated into numerous languages and has sold millions of copies.