July 16--Bl. Guadalupe Ortiz, Holy Woman and Member of Opus Dei

 

https://catholicreadings.org/catholic-quotes/blessed-guadalupe-ortiz-de-landazuri-fernandez-de-heredia-saint-of-the-day-july-16/

Is there a conflict between science and religion? Many who believe science can answer every question (scientism) say yes and “that science alone can give us complete and reliable knowledge of reality.” Those who believe religion can give us truths say no because, as Pope St. John Paul II says: “Truth cannot contradict truth.” Truth can be found in both science and religion! Today’s saint is a witness to that truth!

Bl. Guadalupe Ortiz was both a scientist and a member of Opus Dei, a personal prelature composed of priests and laity who “spread the Christian message that every person is called to holiness and that every honest work can be sanctified.” She was born in Spain in 1916 and became a teacher in 1939. She met St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, who admitted her to the movement. She then moved to Mexico to share the message of Opus Dei and began her doctorate. She also helped found a school for girls and a mobile medical clinic for the poor. She then moved to Rome to help St. Josemaría and at the same time worked on a research project, for which she received an award, and completed her doctorate. She died in 1975 after years of heart problems and was declared Blessed in 2019.

Pope Francis wrote for her beatification: “With the joy that came from knowing she was a daughter of God, as she had learned from Saint Josemaría himself, Guadalupe Ortiz placed her many human and spiritual qualities at the service of others, helping in a particular way other women and families in need of education and development. She did all this not with a proselytizing attitude but simply through her prayer and witness.” Science and religion are both true as Bl. Guadalupe Ortiz demonstrated!

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