Rafael de Mosteyrín, priest of the prelature of Opus Dei and chaplain of CEC Torrealba, offers this article on the preaching of Saint Josemaría on marriage.
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Pope Francis named 2022 the Year of the Family. His desire was to highlight the practice of Christian life in the family, and from the family. Precisely every June 26, the feast of Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer is celebrated.
We think it is an opportunity to remember the importance of his preaching on marriage, encompassed within his central message.
The spiritual doctrine of Saint Josemaría, on marriage and family life, has enormous depth and richness. Saint Josemaría’s message is very innovative in several specific aspects, and one of them is that marriage is a true vocation, a path of holiness.
An immediate consequence is, therefore, the relevance of the theological-spiritual thought of Saint Josemaría for the pastoral care of family life. Since the founding of Opus Dei, his preaching has consisted of spreading the universal call to holiness. The sanctification of temporal realities stands out as the core of his message and includes, centrally, marriage and family life.
Saint John Paul II described Saint Josemaría as the saint of the ordinary in the homily of October 6, 2002, the day he was canonized. This is praiseworthy of consideration for the founder of Opus Dei who shows us, with his own life, the greatness of ordinary life.
In this sense, we highlight the following ideas.
- Saint Josemaría began his preaching almost a century ago. Thanks to the analysis of the critical editions of Saint Josemaría’s publication, and other studies, we can affirm that from the beginning of his pastoral work he preached marriage as a vocation to holiness. The clarity of this idea has an indisputable root: October 2, 1928, when Saint Josemaría saw the Opus Dei.
- Saint Josemaría stood out in his time with a bold way of approaching marriage and family life, as a path full of holiness. Marriage grants the grace to sanctify that state of life. It is an authentic path of holiness because God gives the necessary graces through the marital vocation. At the same time, it requires the development of theological and moral virtues in the family home.
The theological foundation of the doctrine of Saint Josemaría, on the sanctity of married life, is in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and the incorporation of the baptized into Christ, through Baptism.
Saint Josemaría spread a message of permanently young holiness that proposes to seek, know and love Jesus Christ. For the vast majority of people this holiness is developed through family and work. Each of us is offered a personal response to this universal call – remembered by Saint Josemaría since 1928 – to holiness and apostolate.
