August 24th, 1930: Isidoro joins Opus Dei

St. Josemaria always saw Isidoro’s vocation as something providential. In a get-together with Bl. Alvaro in Manchester with members of the Work he mentioned: “Today is the 50th anniversary of Isidoro Zorzano joining Opus Dei, one of the first vocations. Our father was thinking of him since he received God’s message to start Opus Dei. He had been his classmate in high school. They hadn’t seen each other since then, but our father used to pray a lot for him. One day, in Madrid, when leaving the place where he was (The foundation of St. Isabel), our father felt this sort of force, an impulse to go back home through streets other than those he usually took. And he ran into Isidoro, who then was a young railway engineer who was working in the south of Spain. Something similar had happened to him and he told our father: ‘I came here because something special brought me. I don’t usually take this way’. Our father saw that it was providential. He spoke to him about vocation to Opus Dei. And he said yes to the vocation, and he was always faithful. This happened on a day like today, feast of St. Bartholomew. Every time this date came up, our father would thank God joyfully, because Isidoro was one of the first vocations”.

August 23, 1982: Bl. John Paul II announces his decision to raise Opus Dei as personal prelature

On this date, Blessed John Paul II announced his decision of raising Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature.

However, it was also mentioned that the publication of the decree is delayed due to “technical problems”. The issue was, the Pope had already communicated to don Alvaro on November 7th of the previous year that he had taken the necessary steps to raise the Work as a personal prelature, but before making it public he wanted to see the reaction of the Bishops around the world, as it would be the first personal prelature ever. (The reaction was entirely positive).

The news was communicated only to the General council and the Central Administration (the women’s section). Don Julian Herranz once told the story that on that same day, the washing machine at Cavabianca broke down. In the middle of August, when everybody is on holidays and the chance of organising a technician is close to none, the women actually managed to get someone to repair it that same afternoon. One of them, a bit outraged, referring to the prelature’s “technical problem” said, “Is it possible, that in the whole of the Vatican, they can’t get someone to get them out of that trouble and fix the “technical problem?!”. The documents were published on the eve of the First Sunday of Advent, November 27th, 1982.

August 23rd, 1932: "hoc est praeceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos".

On this date, St. Josemaria writes that he would like: "In all our houses, in a visible place, to place the verse from John 15: hoc est praeceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" (This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.)

August 23rd, 1971: Adeamus cum fiducia ad thronum gloriae, a joyful coincidence

Panoramic view of  Caglio (Italy)

Rarely would St. Josemaria talk about supernatural events. Neither would he publicly disclose events of this sort, unless if he considered it necessary for the good of the Work and his children. So much so that, as expected, little do we know of the many extraordinary graces he received, but we do of some of them, like what happened on August 23rd, 1971.

He was spending some days in Caglio, a small town close to Como, in northern Italy. That morning, after celebrating Mass, he was reading the newspaper when he felt, with great clarity and irresistible force, a divine locution imprinting in his soul: Adeamus cum fiducia ad thronum gloriae ut misericordiam consequamur*. Let’s go with trust to the throne of glory to obtain mercy.

The difference in comparison to the text in the letter to the Hebrews 4, 16 is: “throne of glory”, instead of “throne of grace”. The founder would explain that Our Lady is throne of glory in virtue of her constant and inseparable intimacy with the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit. Through her intercession we go to God, appealing humbly to his mercy (cfr. Álvaro del Portillo, Sum. 1130).

The founder had the custom to go to the intercession of Our Lady and this locution “confirmed to him the necessity to always go to her” (Javier Echevarría, Sum. 3276).

Santuario de Campoè (Caglio)

The founder got don Álvaro to communicate this locution in writing to the general council; Ernesto Juliá Díaz says that such was the only occasion he can remember that our father would proceed in this way.

It is interesting what Cardinal Julian Herranz comments, who heard the event from St. Josemaria himself once he returned from Caglio. Back then, works had already started on Cavabianca and the father asked for a stone low-relief of Our Lady, enthroned and crowned by the Most Holy Trinity. At the base, the words of the locution were to be written. During the wait for the juridical solution regarding the institutional problem of the Work, the father suggested that such words should be recited as an aspiration to obtain from Our Lady the desired solution to the problem. His children did so for years.

“Therefore -comments Cardinal Herranz- great was our joy and our gratitude to the Most Holy Virgin when the Pope (who didn’t know anything about all this) made public his decision to set up Opus Dei as a personal prelature on August 23rd, 1982: anniversary of that special divine light received by the founder eleven years before” (Sum. 4030).

Andrés Vázquez de Prada, El Fundador del Opus Dei, (III): Los caminos divinos de la tierra, Ed. Rialp, Madrid, 2002

August 15, 1951: Feast of the Assumption. St. Josemaria consecrates the Work to the Most Sweet Heart of Mary, at the Holy House of Loreto

St. Josemaria had been preoccupied, fearing that something serious was being plotted against the Work: “I’m ‘tamquam leo rugiens’, like a roaring lion, watching, guarding, but I feel like I’m stabbing in the dark: I don’t know what’s happening, but something’s happening”. The day before (14th) he had stopped by at Castelgandolfo where those from the Roman College were doing a course, and asked them to pray for his intentions. The director of the Roman College, Don Jose Luis Massot, told everyone to intensify prayer and mortification during the father’s trip. St. Josemaria arrived in Loreto on the 14th in the afternoon and he prayed for some 20 minutes. On the 15th he celebrated Mass on the altar of the Holy House and, during the Mass, without any prepared formula, made the consecration of the Work. Don Alvaro mentioned in a meditation on August 15th, 1976: ‘when he made that consecration, our father had been restless, anxious, for a few months. Our Lord was making him understand that something serious was happening, but the father didn’t know what it was”. After the Mass he renewed that consecration “with those of us next to him, in the name of all the Work, and the tangled mess was undone”.

In January 1952, Cardinal Schuster told Don Juan Udaondo and Juan Masia to tell st. Josemaria: “to remember his countryman Jose de Calasanz… and to get moving!” (Saint Jose de Calasanz was evicted -with slander and lies- out of the congregation he had founded himself, the piarists. Later on he was proven innocent). In fact, after looking more into it, st. Josemaria found out that, people outside the Work, but with influence with the roman Curia, were trying to get P. Pius XII to sign a document through which St. Josemaria would be evicted from Opus Dei and the men and women sections would remain erected as two completely separated institutions. St. Josemaria then wrote up a letter to Pius XII asking to stop that. When reading the letter, he commented to Cardinal Tedeschini (who had brought the letter to him): “But who has thought to take such action?!” and he untied everything immediately.

August 9th, 1936: st Josemaría’s whereabouts during the war

1936: st Josemaría had been hiding at his mother's house for 3 weeks during the civil war, after having had to leave Ferraz 16 residence as the assassinations of priests and religious had started. On the 9th, again had to flee, this time from his mother's house as they were informed that searches in that area would start soon. During this time he would have been wearing his father's wedding ring and hiding in different places until a doctor they knew allowed him to hide in a psychiatric hospital in October. the doctor was Dr. Suils, who had been a schoolmate of his in Logroño. 

August 6th, 1939: Blessing of the Jenner St. apartment

Jenner st. was the new residence as the previous one - Ferraz st. #16 - was completely destroyed after the war - the house and all the furniture was lost.

Since his return to Madrid (March 28th) till now, Saint Josemaria and those first members of the Work (with St. Josemaria’s mother, sister and brother) were living in the rectory house of the Foundation of St. Isabel. St. Josemaria had asked his mother to help with those first centres, so that these would have that family environment and ambience, so in this residence there were some rooms set up for his mother and siblings to live. That centre’s decoration was the target of calumny from those who didn’t understand many things, for example latin (there were some inscriptions on some places of the house) or iconography (loaves/wheat/vines etc.) as well as a wooden Cross that stood in the oratory (elsewhere is described how some people started gossiping that some members were nailing themselves to it!). There were about 40 students living in that residence, and St. Josemaria’s mother and sister (“the grandmother” and “aunt Carmen” as they were called and still are known affectionately) were in charge of the administration. It was the post-war period and groceries were scarce, everything was rationed.

In this residence is where many customs practiced by members of of the work started:

• Including in the Preces the prayer for the bishop of the diocese. (The "Preces" are a series of prayers taken from Holy Scripture which members of the Work say daily).
• Prayer of the memorare for the one (member of the Work) in most need: The founder was in a get-together with the residents of that house and suddenly interrupted and asked everyone to pray one (memorare) for one of his sons who really needed it at that moment (It was don Alvaro, See furrow 472)
• Devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist on the 1st friday of the month
• Outlines for the circles of studies, as st. Josemaria needed the others to start giving circles, they had between 15 to 20 already
• From here trips started to Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia and Valladolid

In the summer of 1940 they looked for two new locations in Madrid. They found the house at Diego de Leon and the house at Martinez Campos street. In October 1940 St. Josemaria moved to Diego de Leon, where the following year would start the first ever centre of studies. Jenner functioned for 4 years. In 1943 the residence was moved to the centre at Moncloa.

August (5th or 7th, unclear), 1958: "you can't, but I can!"

The date is not certain but, either the 5th or the 7th, St. Josemaria finds himself walking around in London and notices there are so many people coming and going. People "walking in silence, without looking at each other, isolated from each other" and in his prayer says to God "this has gotten out of our hands... London is too... London!... I can't Lord, I can't!" then he experiences an inner locution, telling him "you can't, but I can!". Don Alvaro said in a getogether in London in 1980 how after that, it was at once the decision to start in London, and to obtain a place that would be like a duplicate of the headquarters in Rome. So they came to buy Wickenden manor , now operating as a conference centre).

Wickenden Manor