June 26-St. Josemaría Escrivá: Priest

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Is Opus Dei a secret cult?  Does it exert control over its members?  Does it promote physical penances?  Who is the man who founded it and why?  If we just recently read or watched The DaVinci Code these could be worthwhile questions.  That is, if we accept that it is a historical documentary, which it isn’t; it is pulp fiction and much of what is portrayed about Opus Dei is fiction.  

Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Catholic Church, meaning it is an institution under the direct governance of the Vatican, rather than under a local bishop or head of a religious order.  Its members include about 93,000 laypersons and about 2,000 priests with about 70% of members living in private homes, leading family lives with secular careers and 30% living celibate lives in Opus Dei centers.  Self-mortification is an ancient Catholic practice—think fasting and abstinence for Lent—but it is promoted as a part of a person’s total life.  

St. Josemaría Escrivá, who founded the society in 1928 in Madrid, Spain, wrote, “Choose mortifications that don’t mortify others.”  In other words, do penance that will lead oneself and others to love of God.  St. Josemaría founded Opus Dei to help people become holy through sanctifying ordinary life.  “Saint Josemaría explained that Christians working in the world should not live ‘a kind of double life.  On the one hand, an interior life, a life of union with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life.’  On the contrary:  ‘There is just one life, made of flesh and spirit.  And it is this life which has to become, in both soul and body, holy and filled with God.”  This is the essence of the Catholic life; what we are called to be and do! 

* https://www.flickr.com/photos/opus-dei/13599152113

June 6—Bl. Maria Laura Mainetti, Religious and Martyr

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Sr. Maria Laura Mainetti was declared Blessed on June 6, 2021, the anniversary of her murder in 2000 by three teenage girls, former catechism students of hers. She was stabbed 19 times, the intent being for each one to stab her six times to represent the number 666. They originally told investigators they wanted to kill her for a game, but later said it was a satanic sacrifice. All three girls were convicted and sentenced as juveniles and released by 2008. They have since changed their names and relocated to other cities, starting families. 

 Sr. Mainetti was the superior of the Sisters of the Cross convent in Chiavenna in the Italian Alps, north of Milan. She was well known for her ministry to youth and poor people. She was lured to a park because one of the girls claimed to be considering an abortion. They made her kneel, beat her with a brick and pushed her head into a wall and stabbed her to death. Throughout the attack Sr. Mainetti prayed for them and asked God to forgive them. Her last words were, “Lord, forgive them.” She was declared a martyr by Pope Francis. 

 One of the girls later wrote a letter to Sr. Mainetti’s religious community: “I can have of her only a memory of love. And in addition to this, it also allowed me to believe in something that is neither God nor Satan, but which was a simple woman who defeated evil. Now in her I find comfort and the grace to endure everything. I always pray and I am sure she will help me become a better person.” This is as enduring a testimony as any to the power of God’s love as shown through God’s witness and martyr, Bl. Maria Laura Mainetti.

*https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-maria-laura-mainetti/

Second Friday after Trinity Sunday—Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

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The heart is a common symbol of love in our day, used in song and poetry, as well as everyday speech. So, it should be no surprise that the Church has a feast day dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the one who loves us beyond love. The most significant promoter of the devotion to the Sacred Heart was St. Margraret Mary Alacoque of France in the 17th century. She received apparitions of the Sacred Heart and promoted its devotion. 

The first papal approval came from Pope Innocent VI in 1353 when he instituted a Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart. Pope Pius IX authorized the feast for the whole Church in 1856. Pope Leo XIII decreed a consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1899 as well as First Friday Devotions. Pope Pius XII wrote a letter instructing the Church on the devotion to the Sacred Heart in 1956 and Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the importance of this devotion in 2006. 

Pope Benedict wrote, “When we practice this devotion, not only do we recognize God's love with gratitude but we continue to open ourselves to this love so that our lives are ever more closely patterned upon it. God, who poured out his love ‘into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’ (cf. Rom 5: 5), invites us tirelessly to accept his love. The main aim of the invitation to give ourselves entirely to the saving love of Christ and to consecrate ourselves to it is, consequently, to bring about our relationship with God. This explains why the devotion, which is totally oriented to the love of God who sacrificed himself for us, has an irreplaceable importance for our faith and for our life in love.”

*https://live.staticflickr.com/2327/2317894926_8585f50d6b_c.jpg