part0021

n 1942 Father Escrivá was the target of many accusations, insults, and calumnies. The attacks he called “the opposition from good people” had begun. One night, in the student residence hall on Diego de Leon Street, he went to the oratory. Alone on his knees beside the tabernacle, he sobbed. But after a while he said, “Lord, if you don’t need my good name, what do I want it for?”

Later he confessed, “It was hard, it was very hard because I’m very proud, and huge tears were running down my face … but from that day on, I couldn’t care less about anything!” 1

He often repeated a kind of litany of lowliness: “I am worth nothing, I have nothing, I can do nothing, I know nothing, I am nothing … nothing!” 2 When his children in the Work wished him a happy sixtieth birthday, his response was, “Sixty years, Josemaría: sixty brays!” 3 And again: “I’ve drawn a line under all these years, and they add up to a burst of laughter!” 4

On occasions he recalled an inner locution he had heard: “A donkey was my throne of glory in Jerusalem.” He said, “Can’t you see? Jesus is satisfied with a poor animal as a throne. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t humiliate me to recognize that I’m a donkey in our Lord’s eyes.” 5

Canon Joaquin Mestre, secretary to Bishop Marcelino Olaechea of Valencia for years, one day asked Monsignor Escrivá for a picture of himself.

“Certainly, certainly!” replied Monsignor Escrivá. “I’ll get you one right away.” He went into the next room and returned carrying a small wrought iron donkey. “There you are, there’s your picture of me. That’s me: a little donkey. And I hope I’ll always be a little donkey before God, his beast of burden, bringing peace.” 6

In May 1975, the last time he went to Torreciudad, he beamed with delight on discovering a picture of a donkey in a small oratory. It was in a picture of the Flight into Egypt. He went to it and kissed it, saying, “Hello, brother!” 7

In his office in Rome he also had a simple, roughly carved statue of St. Anthony, patron saint of domestic animals. Half-joking, yet wholly in earnest, he celebrated St. Anthony’s feast day every year as if he were his own patron saint.

Toward the end of his life, during a brief stay in Madrid, while he was chatting with three or four of his sons, one of them, Francisco Garcia, several times heard Monsignor Escrivá quietly murmur words from Psalm 72: “ut iumentum factus sum apud te !—I have become like a donkey before you!” 8

“Look, my daughter, I have three doctorates and I’m an old man, so I must know something; but when I come before God I recognize that I’m just a donkey. Before God I know nothing, I’m worth nothing, I can do nothing. On the other hand he is wisdom and omnipotence—and he is my Father! Without him I have a great inferiority complex, but with him, with his help, I can do everything! I’m his son, and I have the resources of his wisdom, his power. And I say with St. Paul: omnia possum in eo qui me confortat , ‘I can do everything in him who comforts me.’”

“I have this ‘superiority complex’ in order to serve, to serve others without their noticing this service, this work; to do it for love of God. The ‘superiority complex’ is a clear manifestation of humility: without God I can do nothing, with him I can do everything that is beautiful, bright, and great!” 9

He considered himself to be “a deaf, blind, and clumsy instrument,” “a sinner who lives among saints,” “a big fool who has not yet learned the lessons God tries to teach him,” “a beginner,” “a babbling child,” “a zero,” “nothing … nothingness!”

One night in 1957 he saw a famous scientist on television presenting a large number of books, the fruit of many years’ work. Next day Monsignor Escrivá said to some of his children, “When I saw that old man, looking so natural and straightforward, I felt very ashamed in God’s sight, because after so many years of vocation I can’t say the same—I can’t present this or that completed work. I’ve done nothing. I know nothing. I’m still learning the alphabet in the spiritual life. I feel like a beginner.” 10

One day in Madrid in 1941, Jose Ramon Madurga came upon Father Escrivá reading and making notes in a notebook. Father Escrivá showed him what he had been writing: a phrase from Jeremiah (1:6) where the prophet argued with God that he did not know how to preach, that he was like a child, awkward at expressing himself. “Look, read this,” he said. “‘Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!’ I often use these words as a prayer, an aspiration, when I’m preparing to preach or give a talk.” 11

Seeing himself as an instrument for contact between others and God, he tried not to distract people or get in their way. In 1948 he preached a retreat for professional men in Molinoviejo. Aware that the people attending were fired up with enthusiasm and when the retreat was over there could be an explosion of praise for him, he organized a quick getaway. The director of the retreat was a law professor, Amadeo de Fuenmayor; Monsignor Escrivá told him, “Amadeo, when the last talk is finished, stay in the oratory with all of them. Give me a few minutes to get into the car and set off for Madrid. Don’t say the final aspiration until you hear the engine start!” 12

In 1964, after a stay in Pamplona during which he preached to many people, he said how ashamed he felt at the demonstrations of affection he received. “They carried me around like a statue in a procession!” He added, “Later on I heard that there had been many conversions, lapsed Catholics going to confession … and I remembered the clay our Lord used to open the eyes of the blind man in the Gospel.” 13

A Rhodesian journalist, Lynden Parry, insisted on thanking him for her conversion to Catholicism and the discovery of her vocation to Opus Dei. Without hesitation, he said, “All of us have so much to thank our Lord for! Don’t thank me. God writes a letter and puts it in an envelope. You take the letter out of the envelope and throw the envelope away.” 14

On countless occasions he said that in the Work he was “a disproportionate instrument” God had chosen “so people can see that the Work is his.” On October 2, 1971, doing his prayer aloud with the general council of Opus Dei in Rome in the light of a stained glass window depicting the descent of the Holy Spirit on a group of early Christian men and women, he turned slightly toward the altar and said, “Thank you, Lord, for your continuous protection and for having intervened, sometimes very obviously—I didn’t ask for it, I don’t deserve it!—so there could be no doubt that the Work is Yours, only Yours, totally Yours.” 15

At other times he put it more bluntly: “I am a filthy rag, I am trash, and God has chosen me so everyone can see that the Work is his.” 16 When his children wished him a happy feast day on any October 2, he would turn their praise back on themselves, in the words of an Italian proverb: Il sangue del soldato fa grande il capitano !—“The soldier’s blood makes the captain great!”

Told some visitors had gone away comforted and strengthened by their conversation with him, he said, “Of course! They are excellent people and whatever you give them, they turn into good wine. On the other hand, if they were bad, they would turn even the good wine of the wedding feast of Cana into vinegar.” 17

After receiving visitors, he was often visibly moved. “What good people!” he would say. “Our Lord is constantly teaching me lessons! I’m always learning!” One day he had had more than the usual number of visitors. Far from showing any sign of tiredness, he displayed admiration and gratitude. “Those who come are so good, and it’s so difficult to be good! To be even half-good requires such an effort! I see myself as very small indeed, a mere pigmy, beside them.” 18

One evening in Villa Sacchetti, Giuseppina Bertolucci read aloud a letter from her family telling how happy they all were after being in Rome with the Father. She started reading some words of praise—“every time they remember him, their eyes shine”—but Monsignor Escrivá would hear no more. “All right, all right. ‘With my fondest love,’ and let’s go on to something else!” 19

Another of his daughters started to tell him how she had been to see Cardinal Casariego, and the cardinal said, “Pray for me, so that I may be half the saint Monsignor Escrivá is.”

“No, my daughter! Don’t take any notice of what he said on that point!” 20

Returning from the Vatican after what was to be his last meeting with Pope Paul VI, Monsignor Escrivá looked very serious, even upset. Only later did he say what had happened. In the middle of their conversation, Paul VI had suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “You are a saint!” Monsignor Escrivá’s spontaneous answer was, “Here on earth there is only one saint: the Holy Father. All the rest of us are sinners.” 21

An army general and his wife came to visit Monsignor Escrivá in Villa Tevere in October 1964. Monsignor Escrivá confided, “From the little balcony of my office I can see the tabernacle in the oratory. And there, in the evening, I often say to our Lord, who is my general: ‘I am a soldier, your little soldier in this war of peace. And as a soldier, although I have fought hard today, Josemaría is not pleased with Josemaría.’ 22

Attacks did not overwhelm him, and praise did not make him vain. He had an exact sense of who he was. In July 1950, speaking of good and bad stories circulating about him for some time, he declared, “Some people have said that I’m a saint, and it isn’t true: I’m a sinner. Others have said that I’m a devil; and they’re not right either, because I’m a son of God.” 23

On February 25, 1947, when he and some of his children were living in the Città Leonina apartment, Vatican Radio broadcast news of the Decretum Laudis , the first solemn approval of the Holy See for Opus Dei. Father Escrivá borrowed a radio, wishing to listen to the news with his daughters: Encarnita Ortega, Julia Bustillo, Rosalia Lopez, Dora Calvo, and Dora del Hoyo, the only women of Opus Dei then living in Rome. The speaker praised the founder of Opus Dei and his work to the skies. Father Escrivá had not expected that. He became withdrawn and silent, standing with head bowed and eyes half-closed. He was praying intensely. 24

The following year in Madrid, at the opening of the beatification process of Isidoro Zorzano—an Argentinian engineer, one of the first people of the Work—Father Escrivá sat among the public; Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, Bishop of Madrid, had to urge him to sit beside him on the podium. 25 Also in 1948 at the ordination ceremony of several men of Opus Dei in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Madrid, Monsignor Escrivá, wearing dark glasses, came in discreetly by a side door and took a place in a corner of the chancel. 26

Professor Carlos Sanchez del Rio recalled when Monsignor Escrivá was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Saragossa in 1960. “He was very humble. I saw how moved he was when we gave him his honorary doctorate. He was grateful for the affection, but at the same time he listened to the glowing homage which we read about him as if against his will—as if he was not being given it for any merits of his own.” 27 Returning to Rome, Monsignor Escrivá took the ring he had been given during the ceremony and hung it on the ear of one of the small ornamental donkeys in his office.

In October 1960, when the University of Navarre, founded by Monsignor Escrivá himself, was formally constituted, several public functions were held. A journalist, Joaquin Esteban Perruca, observed him closely. He recalled how by popular demand Monsignor Escrivá had to appear on the balcony of the town hall. People were cheering and applauding. The journalist wrote, “The Father remained deeply recollected all the time, as if the applause were not for him.” 28

One day in Rome in 1955, two women of the Work visited a prelate called Father Pedro Altabella. He made a prediction: “I assure you, the day will come when the name of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer will be known in the farthest corner of the world.” Back at Villa Tevere, they told Monsignor Escrivá what was said. He commented, “It is true; Father Pedro is not mistaken. It will happen…. That’s why I pray Psalm 50, the Miserere , every day prostrate on the ground, with my forehead touching the floor.” 29

In Madrid in April 1970, he stayed in the center of the Work on Diego de Leon Street. One morning he came into the dining room for breakfast with his sons and noticed some of the decorations. He recalled how the lamp had been bought in the early 1940s. “It came from a billiard room, and as it’s made of bronze, it is very heavy; every time my mother saw it she was afraid it would fall on someone.” Then he noticed some small gilded wooden pedestals that had been placed under a clock and under a set of ornamental candlesticks on the mantelpiece. He had suggested this touch on an earlier trip. “You’ve done it very nicely,” he observed. “That makes them stand out more. In civil life, people also need a kind of pedestal so that their worth can be seen. On the other hand, I’ve always preferred to go unnoticed and disappear…. ‘He must increase and I must decrease.’ And even then…!” 30

In a letter from the 1930s he told the vicar general of the Madrid diocese, “I see more and more clearly that God’s will is for me to go unnoticed and disappear.” 31 More than forty years later, he expressed the same idea in almost the same words, on the eve of March 28, 1975, the golden jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood: “I wish to spend this jubilee in my usual way: to go unnoticed and disappear is my part, so that only Jesus shines forth.”

Every year Opus Dei ordains a new batch of priests. Generally speaking, Monsignor Escrivá did not attend the ordination ceremonies, but stayed at home and prayed. When people asked why he was not there, he answered firmly, “My way is to go unnoticed and disappear.”

At the beginnings of Opus Dei, well-meaning people advised him to take a university professorship or some honorary post so as to have more influence and make himself heard, and not be just “a plain priest.” Invariably he answered, “If I limit myself to being a priest 100 percent, there will be many other 100 percent priests, and there will be many good Catholics who will be professors, employees, or peasants, who will faithfully serve the Church as 100 percent Christians.” 32 In those first years in Madrid, a priest outside his own diocese, he wanted a way of being incardinated into the Madrid diocese. It was arranged for him to meet Father Pedro Poveda, founder of the Teresian Institute and secretary to the Patriarch of the Indies, someone very well situated who could help solve his problem. When they met, Father Poveda suggested, “Maybe you could think about the post of honorary Palace chaplain.”

“And what’s that?” asked Father Escrivá.

“Well, now, you would dress more or less like me, and you would get a benefice.”

“But, Father Pedro, would that give me the right to be incardinated in the Madrid diocese?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Then I’m not interested.” 33

Father Poveda was surprised and impressed. To be part of the clergy attached to the Royal Household was a much sought after honor; but Father Escrivá turned it down because it was not what he needed to carry out his mission. From that point on, a deep friendship developed between Father Poveda and Father Escrivá.

Around the same time, Bishop Cruz Laplana of Cuenca, a relative of Father Escrivá, offered him a canonry in Cuenca Cathedral. Father Escrivá rejected the offer. Leaving Madrid and moving to Cuenca when Opus Dei had just begun growing would place obstacles in the mission to which God had called him. 34

In the same way, on February 11, 1933, he rejected an interesting proposition made by Father Angel Herrera, recently appointed president of Catholic Action in Spain. Father Herrera offered to appoint him director of the house of the counsellor of Catholic Action, where he was planning “to bring together the most outstanding of the secular Spanish clergy.” Besides apostolic influence on these priests, it was clear that this post could be a springboard to the episcopate.

“Think it over, Father Josemaría,” urged Father Herrera. “I’ll be bringing the best priests in Spain together in this house, and what I’m proposing is for you to be their director.”

“No, indeed,” he replied. “I’m very grateful, but I cannot accept. I have to follow the path chosen for me by God. Besides, I can’t accept for the very reason you yourself give: because the best priests in Spain will be gathered here, and I’m obviously not capable of directing them.” 35

It has been said, without foundation, that Father Escrivá wanted to be a bishop. But actually he took steps to avoid the possibility. After the Spanish Civil War he spent a great deal of his time preaching retreats to bishops, and his standing and reputation grew. No doubt he heard comments about the possibility of being made a bishop, so he asked his confessor (at the time, Father José María García) for permission to “make a vow never to accept the burden or dignity of being made a bishop.” Father Garciá responded that without the permission of the Bishop of Madrid, he could not allow such a vow. Father Escrivá then presented the problem to Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay of Madrid, on March 19, 1941. Among his notes is: “The Bishop has not given me permission. I am really upset.” 36

During the 1950s he was awarded a civil decoration. At a get-together, one of his sons, an army man, congratulated him. Monsignor Escrivá smiled and said, “For you military people this business of getting medals is an important affair, but not for me. I—and you, too, at the bottom of your heart—am only interested in one cross: the Holy Cross.” 37

He explained that the worst thing that could happen to anyone was to receive nothing but praise. He was grateful when people corrected him, and took note of the corrections to improve. He had to struggle with the Holy See not to be deprived of “fraternal correction,” a fundamental means of formation in Opus Dei. The Vatican notified him that according to traditional custom, “a superior cannot be corrected by his subordinates.” But Monsignor Escrivá insisted that he not be deprived of this help. In the end, approval was given to his having two custodes , guardians or aides, to live close to him and advise and correct him. Don Alvaro and Father Javier Echevarria had this job for years.

He was grateful to them for pointing out things to improve on or make amends for. He said this one day to a group of women of the Work. “They point out things to me too, and I receive them with my head bowed down. If ever I think they’re wrong, I stop and correct myself—and I see that the one who’s wrong is myself.” 38

He was chatting one day while the construction at Villa Tevere was going on with several of his daughters, showing them how the work was progressing. Don Alvaro was there. Monsignor Escrivá, leaning on a bar of the scaffolding, confided, “Don Alvaro corrected me today. It was hard to accept. So much so that I went to the oratory for a moment. Once there, I said, ‘Lord, Alvaro’s right and I’m wrong.’ But after a second, I said, ‘No, Lord, this time I am right. Alvaro doesn’t let me get away with a single thing, and that doesn’t seem like affection but cruelty.’ And then I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for placing my son Alvaro near me, who is so fond of me that he doesn’t let me get away with a single thing!’” He turned toward Don Alvaro, who had been listening in silence, smiled at him, and said, “God bless you, Alvaro, my son!” 39

He corrected himself quickly. He said once, “I’m not a river, which can never turn back. It would be foolish and stubborn not to change your mind when you have new data.” 41 And he said, “I assure you that correcting yourself rids your soul of bitterness.” 42

One day in Madrid in 1946, he went into the catering department of the Diego de Leon residence in mid-morning. It looked a mess: a cupboard door half open, another cupboard untidy inside, groceries and supplies not put away but still in baskets and bags, and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Much upset, Father Escrivá called for the director, but she was not in. Flor Cano, another woman of the Work, came instead and received the full flood of protest. “This can’t be allowed! It just can’t! Where is your presence of God while you’re working? You have to do things with much more sense of responsibility!”

Without realizing it, he had been raising and hardening his voice. Suddenly he stopped. Then, in a completely different tone, he said, “Lord … forgive me! And you, my daughter, forgive me too.”

“Father—please—you’re absolutely right!” said Flor.

“Yes, I am, because what I’m saying is true,” he responded. “But I ought not to have said it in that tone of voice. So please forgive me!” 43

On another occasion in Rome he reprimanded Ernesto Julia over the intercom for neglecting an important job. Ernesto did not protest or make excuses. Shortly afterward, someone informed Monsignor Escrivá that Ernesto had not known about the matter because he had not been asked to do it. Without delaying a second, Monsignor Escrivá picked up the intercom and asked Ernesto to come to where the two buildings, Casa del Vicolo and Villa Vecchia, met. When Ernesto got there, he found Monsignor Escrivá waiting for him with arms wide open. With an engaging, affectionate smile, he said, “My son, I’m sorry. I beg your forgiveness and restore your good name to you!” 44

He was quick and generous whenever he needed to put something right or ask forgiveness. One day in January 1955, while students of the Roman College were chatting with him in a corridor in Villa Tevere, Fernando Acaso came by. Monsignor Escrivá asked if he had collected some furniture which was to be placed near some stairs. Fernando gave an evasive reply without making it clear whether the furniture was in the house. Monsignor Escrivá interrupted: “But have you brought it home, or not?”

“No, Father,” said Fernando. Monsignor Escrivá then told all of them there always to be “sincere and direct, unafraid of anything or anybody” and “without making excuses, because no one’s accusing you!”

At that moment Don Alvaro came along, looking for Fernando Acaso. “Fernando, you can pick up the furniture whenever you like; there’s money in the bank for it now.” Here was the reason for Fernando’s evasive explanation. In front of everyone, he apologized. “Forgive me, my son, for not listening to your reasons. I can see that it wasn’t your fault. With your attitude you’ve given me a splendid lesson in humility. God bless you!” 45

In the summer of that same year, 1955, Monsignor Escrivá was in Spain and spent a day in Molinoviejo with a big group of his sons who were doing a course there and having a rest. Among them was Rafael Caamaño, who had just come back from Italy where he had taken a three-year course in naval engineering. Monsignor Escrivá beckoned him and Javier Echevarria over to a stone fountain among the trees. “Rafael, I have to beg your pardon for maybe having scandalized you that time by not giving money to the beggar. I needed to tell you that that’s not my spirit. Although I never carry any money, I could have—I ought to have—asked one of you to give some coins to that poor man. Now you know: the Father did wrong and begs your forgiveness.”

Rafael said nothing. Only much later he managed to recall the event. Months back, he had gone with Monsignor Escrivá and two other people on a drive in the outskirts of Rome. They stopped to have a coffee in one of the castelli . A beggar came up asking for alms, and they gave him to understand they had no money for him. Caamaño realized that this commonplace event had touched Monsignor Escrivá. 46

One day in Villa Tevere Monsignor Escrivá went into the office of the secretary general of the Work and corrected some errors which two or three of the people working there had introduced into a document that misrepresented the spirituality of Opus Dei. Having made plain the far-reaching consequences such mistakes could have, he left. After a while he came back, looking peaceful and joyous. “My sons,” he said, “I’ve just been to confession to Don Alvaro, because what I said to you before was something I had to say, but I shouldn’t have said it the way I did. So I went to our Lord to ask him to forgive me, and now I’ve come to say sorry to you.” 47

Another time he was hurrying along a corridor when one of his daughters tried to stop him with a question for which it was neither the time nor the place. Hardly slowing, he shrugged and said, “How should I know? Ask Don Alvaro!” Later that day the same girl was tidying things in the hall of Villa Vecchia as Monsignor Escrivá and Don Alvaro passed. Monsignor Escrivá said, “I’m sorry, my daughter, for having answered you as I did earlier on. Those of you who live with me have so much to put up with!” 48

In his pocket diary he copied a phrase from St. John’s Gospel every year: Numquid lex nostra iudicat hominem, nisi prius audierit ab ipso ? “Does our law judge any man without first giving him a hearing?” (John 7:51). He meditated on that, put it into practice, and recommended it to others. 49

He also corrected himself or changed his mind if he could do someone a service. In 1970 Monsignor Escrivá was making a stopover at the Madrid airport on his way from Rome to Mexico. There was a big group of media in the international departure area, hoping to get photographs of the founder of Opus Dei, and the photographer of the newspaper Nuevo Diario , Eduardo Caliz, could not get a shot. A big, heavy man, he pushed through the crowd to Monsignor Escrivá and said, “Let us have a few photos!”

Monsignor Escrivá answered cheerfully, “Look, I’m not Concha Piquer” [a famous singer], “I’m only a poor man!”

The journalist replied, “I don’t care at all for myself, but I have to do my job. This is my children’s bread and butter.”

At that he stopped short and, turning toward Eduardo Caliz, looked him in the eye and smiled. “If you have to do your job, and earn your children’s bread and butter, I’ll stay here and pose until you tell me to stop!” 50

A part of Monsignor Escrivá’s humility less generally known was his voluntary submission, in apparently insignificant things, to Don Alvaro, who was, for want of a better word, the “guardian” of his soul. Although Monsignor Escrivá ranked above Don Alvaro there is evidence that in questions of a personal nature, he obeyed him unhesitatingly, determined to seek “a golden opportunity to be able to obey.”

One day in the print room he was examining type fonts and layout options for a certain text. Instead of deciding there and then, he specified, “This is fine, but don’t do it yet: wait till Don Alvaro comes back and see what he thinks. He’s out right now.” 51

His breakfast was always a roll and a cup of lukewarm white coffee, without sugar. One day, he saw some fried eggs on a dish all ready for him and Don Alvaro. He asked that they be taken away “so that someone else can have them, because we’re not going to.” But Rosalia, waiting at table, told him “Don Alvaro asked for them,” and he accepted them immediately. 52

On January 9, 1968, his birthday, he had a short get-together in the morning with the women in La Montagnola; Don Alvaro was there. They chatted animatedly. Suddenly Monsignor Escrivá looked searchingly at all of them and said confidentially, “My daughters, I’m going to tell you something, because you are all grown up here, so you can pray for something for me.”

There was an expectant silence. Monsignor Escrivá turned to Don Alvaro and asked, “Alvaro, shall I tell them?”

“Father, better not,” replied Don Alvaro.

“Shan’t I tell them?”

“I think not, Father.”

“Well, my daughters,” said Monsignor Escrivá, “there’s nothing more to say. You’ll find out about it in due time. And now you can offer up this little curiosity to our Lord.” 53

Although especially in his last few years he woke up before dawn, he remained in bed until Father Javier Echevarria, his other “guardian,” said it was time to get up, because he had been told to rest more. If at a get-together Father Echevarria told him it was time to finish because he had work waiting for him, he always got up without delay, no matter how interesting the conversation was.

One day in 1961 at Christmas, Monsignor Escrivá had been talking with some of his daughters in the laundry of Villa Sacchetti. On his way through the Galleria della Madonna, Helena Serrano said, “Father, now that you’re here, why not come and see the crèche we’ve set up in the print room?”

Monsignor Escrivá turned toward Don Alvaro and Father Echevarria. “Shall I go?”

When both assented, he smiled happily and said, “Let’s go.” 54

He practiced this docility also toward doctors and dentists, to the point of voluntarily suppressing the slightest complaint when he put himself into the doctor’s hands. His dentist, Dr. Kurzio Hruska, a Protestant, was very impressed. He often treated Monsignor Escrivá in his office at 10 Via Carducci, in Rome.

“Whenever possible,” recounted Dr. Hruska, “he preferred to have an appointment early in the morning so he could work without interruption afterward, even though he knew that after the treatment he would not be feeling well.

“He always arrived early for his appointment. And if I was running late and kept him waiting, he would enter the examination room with the same good humor. He did not like making people wait for him because, he said, ‘I respect your work very much.’

“As a patient Monsignor Escrivá was a very disciplined, humble person. I was amazed, because it’s not often one finds people like that: he was humble in all his gestures. Humble, in spite of his tremendous energy and dynamism. It was strange: first of all he looked at you, he looked into your very soul. You could almost say that he X-rayed you! And then straight away he became a docile patient. Whatever I said or did was fine by him. This was an added difficulty for me, given his delicate dental situation. Sometimes I’d say, ‘Tell me if this hurts.’ And as he did not complain, I would interrupt the operation in some surprise and say, ‘I’d prefer you to tell me everything and not just put up with the pain, because it isn’t possible that I’m not hurting you right now.’

“My medical treatment was not always ‘friendly.’ Sometimes I’d say, ‘I’ll have to give you an injection.’ And he would reply, ‘Doctor, do whatever you have to do!’ So I did. I had to do a lot of hard, painful work on his mouth. And I asked him, ‘How can you stand it?’ ‘Man has to get used to everything,’ he said. Even if I’d nailed a spike into his gums, he would have accepted it. I think I would have been able to crucify him and he would have put up with it. As a man and as a patient he was very humble; but it was not a mean-spirited or offensive humility. The fact is, he was always content, balanced, cheerful and serene. He felt himself to be a son of God. ‘God will cure me,’ he used to say, and this made him unconcerned about his body, and any physical discomforts or illness.” 55

Sometimes it is easier to give way than exercise rights. Monsignor Escrivá experienced this when, in 1968, he decided to revive the title of Marquis of Peralta, which had belonged to his ancestors centuries before. He wanted to be able to pass it on to his younger brother Santiago and his descendants, in compensation for supporting the development of the Work from the beginning at the cost of a small family inheritance.

Although he had no intention of making use of the title himself, he knew he would be criticized by people who would see his action as proof of worldly vanity and snobbishness. He thought it over carefully in his prayer and consulted several people within and outside the Work—Cardinal Dell’Acqua, Cardinal Marella, Cardinal Larraona, Cardinal Antoniutti, Cardinal Bueno y Monreal, and the Archbishop of Madrid Casimiro Morcillo. All agreed. On the civil side, he had the favorable report of the Council of State and the Deputation of Grandees of Spain. Some, like Cardinal Larraona, a famous canon lawyer, argued that from the viewpoint of lay mentality it was not only a right but an obligation. “It’s your duty. You have always taught your children to fulfill their civil obligations and to exercise their rights as citizens. Therefore if you did not do so, you would be setting them a bad example.” 56

He was not mistaken in thinking this would be a new opportunity for people to insult him. The affair stirred up a controversy in the press. At one point, alone with Don Alvaro, Monsignor Escrivá declared, “My son, it is often much more difficult to exercise a right than to carry out a duty!” 57 He never used the title himself, but in the shortest possible time transferred it to his brother, who became the Marquis of Peralta.

On one occasion he was given an antique tapestry of red velvet. In the center was the heraldic shield of the family who had owned it. Someone suggested replacing the emblem with Monsignor Escrivá’s family crest. He refused, and proposed the inscription Iesus Christus, Deus, Homo —“Jesus Christ, God, Man.” “It makes me so happy to put those words there!” 58

In April 1969, on a trip to Madrid, he visited the crypt in the Diego de Leon residence for the first time. In two sarcophagi on either side of the altar lay the mortal remains of his parents, Jose Escrivá and Dolores Albas. Monsignor Escrivá explained to those with him, “I have allowed you to bring my parents’ bodies here to represent all your parents. They fulfill the role of the ‘unknown soldier’ who lies buried in so many monuments to the war dead.” And he added, “The first thing I did on coming into the crypt was to pray for all the parents of the people of the Work, living and dead.” 59

While still a young priest, Father Escrivá had accepted being called “the Father” in the most natural way, but he was reluctant to be called “the founder.” This unsought charism, far from conferring a privilege, obliged him to have a greater sense of responsibility. In molding and forming the spirit of Opus Dei, his word was not just decisive but was the only one divinely authorized. He did not share this work or delegate, but carried the load alone. He alone had seen the Work, whole and entire, and he responded with the faithfulness of an instrument who had received a command.

In some aspects, including the juridical form of the Work, which did not depend exclusively on him, he was capable of waiting as long as necessary and putting up with red tape, rather than take a false step. When people called him “the founder,” he responded, “Well, my children call me the founder of Opus Dei, and indeed I am; but I am a founder without foundation . The foundation is Christ alone. When he comes for me it will be seen straight away that I’m not at all indispensable. I am a founder who is not needed.” 60

At times he spoke of himself as “a hindrance.” On a piece of paper, yellowed with age, undated, written in his own handwriting and signed Mariano—one of his Christian names which he began using during the Spanish Civil War—the following confession can still be read:

In a Work of God I am nothing more than a hindrance. Mariano.

On September 24, 1968, at an evening get-together in Rome, after recalling episodes from the early days of Opus Dei, Monsignor Escrivá explained, “It was very hard in the beginning. With you men, things worked out at the first attempt: however, there were some people who came to the Work and then left without even saying good-bye. And I spent many hours praying in front of the tabernacle. Now I pray everywhere, but then I thought that I was not praying unless I was in front of the tabernacle. Anyway, when I go to Spain now, and see the marvelous development of the Work, I have palpable proof that it is God who has done everything, because he made me see how powerless I was.” 62

Another day in the spring of 1967 in Pozoalbero, Spain, Manuel Pedreño told him an amusing story about a boy from Seville who said: “When I’m big I want to be one of the men in Opus Dei so I can live in a house of the Work.”

Monsignor Escrivá then told how on October 2, 1928, the day the Work was founded, he had thought that everyone would live in their own homes, as the Work was for ordinary Christians who had to be saints in their own circumstances. Soon afterward God showed him the need for some to live together to attend to formation and corporate works of apostolate. He said, “Our Lord works in the same way as a good teacher: first of all he gives a general impression, an overall view. Later on he fills in the details. You will find out about fifty percent of these things here; the other fifty percent you will find out in heaven. It’s all God’s doing, nothing is mine. You have to realize that God has even spoken through a donkey! Remember Balaam’s donkey?” 63

A month before his death in May 1975 he went to visit the almost completed shrine of Torreciudad. During the tour of the shrine, they went past an open-air altar where there was a bell with historic significance: it was one of the bells that had pealed in the belfry of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Bravo Murillo Street in Madrid on October 2, 1928. Father Escrivá had heard those bells in Garcia de Paredes Street at the moment he saw the Work.

Don Alvaro went to look at the plaque on the wall, translating the first few sentences from Latin aloud.

“On the morning of 2nd October 1928 while this bell and the others of the belfry of the Madrid Church of Our Lady of the Angels were ringing and the peals of praise were going up to heaven, Monsignor Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer received the seed of Opus Dei in his heart and mind …”

Monsignor Escrivá had been listening carefully in silence. Now he turned to the people around him and said firmly but without raising his voice, “I’m called Escrivá, which means scribe or notary. Very well then, as a ‘notary’ I testify to what you have just heard.” 64

He knew he was only the receiver and transmitter of a message “as old and as new as the Gospel,” the universal call to holiness for all men and women in all circumstances at all times and everywhere. From early on he understood that everyone in the Work ought to “do Opus Dei in the world, by being Opus Dei yourself.” In 1931, when he was twenty-nine and the Work was still very young, he was ready to hand over the baton to others. With violent religious persecution gathering strength in Spain, Father Escrivá asked a seventeen-year-old boy who had recently joined Opus Dei, “If I am killed, will you carry on with the Work?” In 1936, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, Father Escrivá summoned a few young men into the dining room of the Ferraz Street residence in Madrid, and said, “If I were to die now, for whatever reason, will you carry on with the Work?”

“Yes, Father,” each responded.

“Will you swear it?”

“Yes, Father. With all my love, I swear it.”

Don Alvaro remembered this vividly forty years later. He was one of those young men. 65

But Monsignor Escrivá was well aware that he had received the charism of founder and gave him self to it wholeheartedly. He had to remain “attentive” in case God wanted to make him aware of new details. In a get-together in the Roman College on April 23, 1959, he said, “I’m still alive, which means that the Work is young and there are still many things, customs, small points to be brought out. You will have to help me. The foundational stage will be closed when you bury me. Until then all of you are co-founders. Everything is complete, and the spirit of the Work is not just sketched out but sculpted! But the foundation will be closed only when you have the kindness and compassion to bury my body. Maybe you’ll have to wait another twenty-four years and you’ll be taking me out in the sun in a wheelchair; or I might even die tonight—and may God receive me in his mercy and love.” 66

Monsignor Escrivá did not consider himself spiritually remarkable or a model, much less a saint. When referring to himself, expressions such as “a poor man,” “a filthy rag,” “a ragamuffin,” and “a poor sinner who lives among saints” were constantly on his lips.

Speaking to his spiritual sons in Rome, he said once, “I adorn myself with the jewels of your daily self-surrender, and like that I have enough confidence to talk with our Lord. That’s my strength: your self-surrender! … My dear sons, I don’t know how I have the nerve to call myself the father of such children, who have given themselves so completely to God. For years I’ve had the impression that I’m living among saints. Lord, what sons you have given me, although I’m just a sinner!” 67

On March 27, 1975, eve of his golden jubilee as a priest, he admitted while praying aloud that he saw himself as small, awkward, and clumsy. “Fifty years have gone by, and I’m still like a faltering child. I’m just beginning, beginning again, as I do every day in my interior life. And that’s how it will be till the end of my days: always beginning anew. Our Lord wants it that way, so that none of us may ever have any reason for pride or foolish vanity.” 68

Next day he spent some time talking with his daughters. “Be really convinced there is no one in the world as happy as we are, and that we invent almost all the difficulties we meet—they are never of any real importance. I can tell you so after drawing a line under these past fifty years, adding up the sum and bursting out laughing: a laugh which means I forgive everything and ask God for forgiveness myself. I forgive everything, and I ask God for forgiveness!” 69

In 1940, he again asked some of his sons if they would carry on with the Work if he died. Finally he said, “I should hope so! It would be a poor show if instead of following our Lord, you had merely been following a poor man like me!” He stressed over and over again, “I’m not aiming for you to love me, but for you to love God and be faithful to him.” 70

Referring to his successor, he often said to the members of the general council: “You will have to love and venerate in a very special way whoever comes after me.” He also told them, “When I hear in this blessed Rome, how some institutions suffer a kind of earthquake when the founder or foundress dies … I assure you there will be no such earthquake in the Work. Of that I am certain.” Later he added, “You have to love him already, because he will govern better than I do.” 71 On December 27, 1973, he said sincerely, “I don’t want to be a despot. What I want is that on the day I die, everything should carry on as if I were still here. Otherwise I’ve been wasting my time.” 72 On March 19, 1975, he said, “I’m not necessary. I’ll be able to help you more from heaven. You’ll be able to do things better than I do. I’m not needed.” 73

Another angle on Monsignor Escrivá’s humility was this theme of “beginning and beginning again” which made him see himself as “a faltering child.” It was the opposite of bitterness, resentment or any kind of mischief-making and intrigue. Monsignor Escrivá had the dynamism of a child who was always enthusiastically beginning to read the first page of a new book, linked to a continuous act of returning to cleanness of soul. He made this act of returning like “the prodigal son returning to his father’s house,” along the paths of contrition and confession—humble, well-trodden paths which he often used.

He called acts of contrition, sorrow, and atonement “staples,” like the metal staples sometimes used to hold pieces of broken pottery together. He compared himself to an old clay vessel, “any old cheap earthenware,” cracked and needing to be held together with clips.

From the beginning Father Escrivá did his best to go to confession to the same priest for as long as circumstances permitted. When he was fifteen in Logroño, he turned to Father Jose Miguel, a Carmelite friar, for spiritual guidance. It was Father Miguel who made those footprints in the snow, and he suggested to Josemaría that he too should become a discalced Carmelite. Young Josemaría, having pondered the matter in prayer, understood that this was not what God wanted of him. But to be available for the vocation he could not yet see clearly, he decided to become a priest.

His father put him in touch with the Abbot of the collegiate church in Logroño, Father Antolin Oñate, and with Father Albino Pajares, an army chaplain, who prepared him to enter the seminary with academic and spiritual teaching. However, Josemaría received his spiritual guidance during this time from Father Ciriaco Garrido, canon of the collegiate church.

During the years in the seminary in Saragossa, he received help from the rector, Father Jose Lopez, Monsignor Miguel de los Santos Diaz, Father Antonio Moreno, and Cardinal Soldevila himself. Soon after his ordination, from 1926 on, he was guided by Father Jose Pou de Foxa, whom he always remembered as a loyal man and good friend.

When he moved to Madrid, he went to the Jesuit Father Valentin Sanchez for spiritual guidance. This began in 1930, and was twice interrupted for reasons beyond his control. The first time was in 1932, when the Republican government ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits; Father Escrivá then went to confession to Father Postius, a Claretian. The second time was during the Civil War, which forced priests to go into hiding or flee the Republican zone. Father Escrivá took refuge in the Honduran legation, which had diplomatic immunity, and went to confession every week to Father Recaredo Ventosa, who was also being sheltered there. After crossing the Pyrenees in 1937 to the Nationalist zone, he took Father Angel Sagarminaga as his confessor during his stay in Vitoria; and in 1938, while in Burgos until the end of the war, he first chose Father Saturnino Martinez as spiritual director, a very devout priest; but Father Martinez’s health was precarious and so he could not attend to him regularly. Then Father Escrivá went to the Claretian Father Francisco de Borja Lopez, whom he always remembered with gratitude. In the early 1940s, when Father Lopez came to see him in the Diego de Leon residence in Madrid during the great scarcity of the postwar years, Father Escrivá gave him a warm cape, the only one he had.

From April 1939, living in Madrid again, he sought out his old confessor, the Jesuit Father Valentin Sanchez. It was Father Sanchez who had one day asked Father Escrivá, “How is that Work of God getting on?” Without knowing it, he had conferred the name Opus Dei on an undertaking that did not have a name. He continued to receive spiritual guidance from Father Sanchez until the autumn of 1940, when he felt he was morally obliged to stop. The key factor—trust—had failed.

Don Alvaro, a witness of the last two meetings between Father Escrivá and Father Sanchez, offered the following account. “In 1940, the Father had prepared the documents for the diocesan approval of the Work at the insistence of the Bishop of Madrid (Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay). Since part of it related to the spirit of Opus Dei and was no more than an account of the ascetic way our Lord was taking him, that is to say, his own interior life, it seemed opportune to show these documents to Father Sanchez too. The Father always distinguished between what referred to the foundation of Opus Dei, which did not involve his spiritual directors, and what affected his own spiritual life. So his intention was not to ask Father Sanchez for his opinion about Opus Dei, but about his own spiritual life. I seem to remember the meeting when he gave him the documents took place in September 1940.

“A few weeks later I went with the Father to visit his spiritual director. Father Sanchez, who had always encouraged him to be faithful to his foundational charism, told him this time, in very different tones, that the Holy See would never approve the Work. And he cited the numbers of several canons of Church law to corroborate this statement. He returned the documents to him and dismissed him.

“The Father really suffered a lot in that meeting but did not lose his peace of mind. He repeated his conviction that as the Work was God’s, He would be responsible for bringing it to a safe harbor. He also added clearly and submissively that he could not continue to go to confession to Father Sanchez because he no longer trusted him.

“It was evident that Father Sanchez was being strongly influenced, almost coerced, by others. Such a sudden and radical change is otherwise inexplicable. It was a time when a violent persecution was raging against the Work.

“I made a note of the canon numbers mentioned by Father Sanchez. As soon as we got home, I checked them out with the Father, and discovered that the numbers had been quoted at random and had nothing to do with the issues at hand.” 74

Despite everything, Father Sanchez and Father Escrivá parted amicably; the founder of Opus Dei was grateful for all the good done to his soul in the past. Father Escrivá used to go to see him at a center of formation run by the Jesuits in the Chamartin district, in the north of Madrid and a long way from Atocha, the district he lived in; despite the distance, he used to walk there. Not once but several times Father Sanchez had kept him waiting a long time, sometimes hours, before receiving him. Many years later, when Monsignor Escrivá was living in Rome and was having lunch with Father Arrupe, general of the Society of Jesus, at the Jesuit headquarters in Borgo Santo Spirito, the founder of Opus Dei paid grateful tribute to the memory of Father Valentin Sanchez, who had died by then. He recalled the long walk from Santa Isabel to Chamartin and how sometimes after getting there and waiting, a lay brother would come out and tell him, “Father Sanchez cannot see you today.” His recollection was good humored. “I have always considered it a good way to form my soul,” he said. “Like that, I learned to adapt myself to other people’s circumstances and to control my impatience, not getting upset about anything.”

At this, the old lay brother serving table said unexpectedly, “Well, I know all about that! I was the one who had to give the disagreeable message, after you had been waiting for an hour or two! I remember perfectly well that it wasn’t just once or twice, but several times that this happened.” 75

From that autumn 1940 when he stopped going to Father Valentin Sanchez, Father Escrivá took Father José Mariá Garciá, spiritual director of the Madrid seminary, as his confessor. From the first he made it clear he intended to go to confession to a priest of the Work “as soon as the first priests are ordained.” And so he did, four years later on June 26, 1944, the day after the ordinations of the civil engineers Alvaro del Portillo, José Luis Muzquiz and José María Hernandez de Garnica. Father Escrivá, living in the Diego de Leon residence, went to the center of the Work in Villanueva Street, and there found Don Alvaro.

“Alvaro, my son, have you heard anyone’s confession yet?” he asked.

“Well, you’re about to hear mine, because I want to make a general confession to you! Let’s go to the oratory.”

From then until the end of his life he went to confession to Don Alvaro every Sunday, and often during the week as well. Sometimes, on a big feast day, he would say to his sons, “I’ve already celebrated today. Would you like to know how? I asked Don Alvaro to come, and I went to confession. It’s a good way to celebrate!” 76

On his last visit to Torreciudad, not yet open for public worship, he asked the architect César Ortiz-Echagüe, “César, are the confessionals in the crypt finished?”

“Yes, Father,” answered César. “Would you like to come and see them now?”

When they got there, Monsignor Escrivá said, “There will be many confessions here. That’s what I’m hoping for from Our Lady: abundant grace to move many souls to a profound conversion. And as I’ve always liked to set people a good example, as tomorrow is my day for going to confession, if one of the confessionals is ready I’d be very happy to be the first to use it!”

Thus Torreciudad was inaugurated, with a man on his knees confessing his sins. 77

He often said he was “always returning,” like the prodigal son. “That way, my sins don’t take me away from God, but rather turn me to him like a son.” 78 Like a refrain, he repeated in Latin or Spanish short phrases from Scripture: “Lord, you know all things: you know that I love you”; “I am a poor, humble servant”; “a humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.” They were acts of contrition “with which even lost battles are not lost.” 79 These “staples” of the soul did not humiliate Monsignor Escrivá because “in God’s eyes they shine like medals.” 80

Manuel Caballero, an artist, was modeling an image of Christ crucified that was to be installed in the Galleria degli Offici of Villa Tevere. Monsignor Escrivá told him, “My son, every morning before starting work you should say the Creed and ask our Lord to arouse at least an aspiration in the heart of everyone who looks at it; and pray that the Father, whenever he sees it, will be able to say with his whole heart, Domine, Tu omnia nosti, Tu scis quia amo te , ‘Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.’ “ 81

In 1972 his children in Portugal presented him with an old china soup tureen, held together with staples. Monsignor Escrivá was moved by it. Later, speaking of the soup tureen, he waxed lyrical. “It’s an ordinary thing but I loved it, because you could see it was well used. It had been broken—it must have belonged to a big family—and they had mended it with staples so as to go on using it. What’s more, it had been decorated with the words amo te, amo te, amo te before firing. I felt very akin to that soup tureen. I prayed about that old bowl, because I see myself like that too: like the broken clay tureen, stapled together, and I like to say to our Lord that, stapled together as I am, I love him so much! We can love our Lord, my children, even when we are broken.” 82

Although he saw himself like that, at the same time he said, “It is obvious that God helps needy souls like mine to mature as wine matures. I say to him at Mass: ‘Lord, let yourself be seen through my wretchedness.’ “ 83

The last Holy Thursday of his life, March 27, 1975, Monsignor Escrivá made his personal prayer aloud. “I adore the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, one God. I don’t understand this marvel of the Blessed Trinity, but you have placed in my soul a yearning, a hunger to believe. I do believe! I want to believe like the best. I hope! I want to hope like the best. I love! I want to love like the best.

“You are what you are: perfect goodness. I am what I am: the filthiest rag in this rotten world. And yet, you look at me … and you seek me … and you love me…. And when I see how little I understand of your wonder, of your goodness, of your wisdom, of your power, of your beauty … when I see I understand so little, I’m not disheartened. I’m glad that you are so great that you don’t fit inside my poor heart, inside my wretched head. My God! My God! If I can think of nothing else to say to you, this will suffice. My God!” 84

Realizing that a group of his sons were present, he said, “We must be in heaven and on earth, all the time. Not between heaven and earth, because we are of the world. In the world and in paradise at the same time! … In heaven and on earth, divinized, but knowing that we are of the world and made of clay: an earthenware pot which our Lord has chosen to use in his service. And whenever it has got broken, we have stapled the bits together again, saying like the prodigal son, ‘I have sinned against heaven and against you.’ … God has chosen to deposit a very rich treasure in us. Am I exaggerating? No, I’ve said very little! … God our Lord, with all his greatness, dwells within us. Heaven dwells habitually within our hearts. I’m not going to say any more.” 85