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
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