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.