Showing results by author "John F. Coverdale" in All Categories

By John Coverdale St. Josemaría preached emphatically that God calls us all to the fullness of Christian life that is holiness while simultaneously and passionately loving the world in which we live. He liked to say that, with Opus Dei, God had “opened up the divine paths of the earth.” In other words, God invites men and women of all walks of life to seek holiness as members of Opus Dei. Some are young and others old, some married and others single. Among them are brick layers and college professors, entrepreneurs and civil servants.

Putting Down Roots by John Coverdale (author of Uncommon Faith) is the exciting story of the beginnings of Opus Dei in the U.S. It tells how Fr. Joseph Muzquiz came to America in 1949 to begin Opus Dei with very little money and only a rudimentary command of the language. At the time, only a handful of Americans had ever heard of Opus Dei. But by the time he passed away in 1983, Opus Dei had put down deep roots in this country.

Saxum - the Latin word means rock - is a term that St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, sometimes used in letters to Alvaro del Portillo to describe him. Don Alvaro, as he came to be known, was for many years the founder's closest associate as well as his successor and first Prelate of Opus Dei after it became a personal prelature-a foundational rock for this dynamic international Catholic group devoted to promoting sanctity in ordinary life.

Alvaro del Portillo fue el colaborador más cercano y primer sucesor de San Josemaría Escrivá, el fundador del Opus Dei. La Iglesia Católica lo beatificó el 27 de septiembre de 2014. La beatificación es el paso previo a la canonización con la que se declara la santidad de una persona. Saxum recoge la vida de Del Portillo: sus aventuras durante la Guerra Civil Española, su colaboración con Escrivá, su participación en el Concilio Vaticano II y sus años como prelado del Opus Dei.