Crazy in Love With the Mother of God

“Don't imitate me in anything, except for my devotion to Our Lady.”

St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer

Many who knew St. Josemaría in the early days of Opus Dei have testified to his love for Our Lady . Recently, I came across another example of this in an article in Studa et Documenta by Gloria Toranzo, “Los comienzos del apostolado del Opus Dei entre mujeres (1930-1939)” (http://www.isje.org/setd/2013/Toranzo-setd-7-2013.pdf).

Our Lady of Torreciudad
Another craziness of St. Josemaria

From the moment in 1930 that God showed him that there were to be women in Opus Dei, St. Josemaría set about looking for women who could understand a life of dedication to God in the middle of the world. One by one, a cousin of someone or a friend of someone else, he began imparting this spirit to women in Madrid. By the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, there were 18 in all plus María Ignacia García Escobar who had died of tuberculosis in 1933. None of these others continued in Opus Dei after the war as explained in the essay.

In interviews with those who were still living after St. Josemaría died in 1975 these women all related, in one way or another, that the founder of Opus Dei “amaba con locura” the Mother of God. The author gives as an example a statue that St. Josemaría had commissioned in 1934 “describing all the details, with the intention that the statue would accompany the path of the women of Opus Dei from its beginnings.” The result was a beautiful image of polychrome wood, about one foot tall. Our Lady is carrying the Child in her arms; at her feet are two doves that are not simple decorations but, as St. Josemaría explained in 1961, “they are a symbol of goodness, of fidelity, of purity.” On another occasion, he described it as “Muy sympatica.”

Escrivá de Balaguer had each woman keep the statue in her home for a few days and then pass it on to the next woman. He most likely got the rotation idea from a similar custom in his native region with an image of the Miraculous Medal.

All the women affirmed that this practice had a great benefit for their interior life and forty years afterwards they could still affectionately describe the image, its origins and the rotations. One of the women remarked, “Never have I seen an image of Our Lady that provoked so much piety,” and another sighed, “The Virgin was ours.”

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, “it was in my home,” noted Ramona, “later it was moved to the home of Hermógenes.” St. Josemaría asked Hermógenes to keep it safe during the hostilities and afterwards it was returned to him. Since then, it has accompanied the apostolates of Opus Dei with women and today presides over the conference room of the Central Advisory in Rome, the governing body of women of Opus Dei. A photograph of the image can be found on the last page of the article.

Feb 9: the 99th Anniversary of the Anti-War Edition of The New York Call

Here is an excerpt from my book on Dorothy Day's months at The New York Call:

Throughout 1916 the prospect of joining the war against Germany was not popular with Americans, as can be gathered from by the success of Wilson’s slogan. The 20,000,000 casualties, the fields of corpses and leveled villages astonished and sickened the public who, for the first time, were seeing the carnage on the newsreels at their local motion picture theater. At least 15% of the population was German or of German origin, and most of the Irish had no desire to fight for Britain, which had so ruthlessly crushed the Easter Rebellion. Yet, by December, despite the repugnance to war on the part of many Americans, Wilson was urging Congress for a law that would suppress domestic opposition to the war,  another to require compulsory military service for all men and yet another forbidding strikes against munitions companies (labelled the “slave” law by The Call).

Additionally, Wilson created a public relations department within the White House to popularize the war, demonize the Germans and define “patriotism.” The director was a well-known, seasoned journalist, George Creel, who had written for The Masses and other radical publications.

 On the copy desk of The Call there was a guy named Norman Watson, a pretty good writer. At intervals when there was nothing to do, we would discuss theoretical matters of socialism and I thought he was very intelligent and very well aware of socialism and one night, we worked at night, he said you know Mike I want to ask your advice. I said go ahead. He said “I have a letter here. I’ve just been offered a good job by George Creel.” The government had formed a staff of ex-radicals for the purpose of propaganda to win over the intellectuals and trade unionists to the war. See, they had to pump it up all the time. So Norman Watson had gotten the offer, I forget what they paid, but they paid well, and he said “Should I take it? It would be a turning point in my life.” I was always a little too easy and I helped him off the hook by saying, “Well, no one can advise you. It is your own life…You have your own conscience. You must be honest with yourself.” Sure enough the next week he was on the staff of George Creel. (Mike Gold Papers)

George Creel and Norman Watson openly turned on their friends. Others did it more covertly: