The monthly recollection

The members’ plan of life foresees a monthly recollection. Each monthly recollection covers a specific theme. The day of recollection (for celibate members) lasts from early in the morning to mid-afternoon. The evening of recollection (for married members) lasts three hours in the evening.

As occurs during the annual retreat, silence is observed for the length of the recollection, except during practices of piety. Celibate members take turns reading a spiritual book out loud during the meal as a way to remain silent.

A day of recollection for celibate members is held in an Opus Dei house and is made up of

• A meditation preached by a priest,
• Mass,
• Breakfast (in silence, no reading out loud),
• A talk delivered by one of those in assistance (or a Director who comes for that purpose),
• An examination of conscience (a list of questions read out loud in the chapel; with a different list of questions every month),
• A second preached meditation before the mid-day meal and
• A third mediation in the afternoon.

The recollection ends with a Eucharistic benediction. At some time during the day, individuals or little groups will pray the Way of the Cross, usually using the founder’s book of the same title. (Source: “Internal” document on the life and activities of celibate members, Rome, September 29, 1987 [original in Spanish])

The evening of recollection for married members consists of a meditation preached by a priest, a talk delivered by one of those in assistance, an examination of conscience (a list of questions read out loud in the chapel; with a different list of questions every month), and a second preached meditation. The recollection ends with a Eucharistic benediction.

Evenings of recollection are held either in Opus Dei houses or in local parishes. Contrary to recollections for celibate members, evenings of recollection are open events: members invite outsiders to attend. Once a quarter they are for married members only.

Members are encouraged to formulate specific resolutions from what they have heard during the monthly recollection. They will report those resolutions (and account for their progress) in the following weekly spiritual direction chats.

Pedro Poveda: Escriva’s precursor

Escriva says that he “saw” Opus Dei in 1928 in a divine inspiration. Its mission was to remind all Catholics of the universal call to sanctity. Escriva says he “founded” Opus Dei after carrying out an exhaustive search of existing Catholic institutions that might embody what he had “seen”.

Meet Saint Pedro Poveda, a Spaniard like Escriva:

On detecting the de-christianizing of culture and of education in his own time, Poveda understands the responsibility of all believers in this matter.
He is aware of the need for training well-formed professionals, ready to be present in the structures of society.
His idea, strong and daring, is for true Christians to become like yeast in the dough. The old and new idea of a spirituality lived in the midst of the world, as the first Christians, inspires the start of the Teresian Association in the year 1911.

To opt for holiness, to respond to God who wants us holy: What is so new about it? The fact that the Founder of the Teresian Association was speaking, half a century before Vatican II, to groups of lay people who were investing their lives in evangelization and in human development by means of education and culture.

It was new then, in the year 1911, to see ordinary lay people committed to the call to true holiness not only as individuals but also as an organized body.

“The work of evangelization we intend to do must be identical to that started by the first Christians, and the means are to be the same they used” (1920). This is what gave way in 1911 to the Teresian Association. It was a Work for our times, approved as a civic organization in Jaén and recognized among the diocesan associations of the local church in 1917. In 1924 it received Vatican approval as a Pious Union. (Pedro Poveda)

In Covadonga, he devoted much time to prayer and reflected particularly on the problem of education in Spain. He understood that the Lord was inviting him to open new paths in the Church and in the society of his time. He began to publish articles and pamphlets on the question of the professional formation of teachers and was also in contact with other persons who felt the need for the presence and action of Christians in society.

He believed that a solid faith and professional qualifications were both needed to keep the Gospel message alive.

In 1911 he opened the St Teresa of Avila Academy as a residence for students and the starting point of the Teresian Association, dedicated to the spiritual and pastoral formation of teachers. The following year he joined the Apostolic Union of Secular Priests and started new pedagogical centres and some periodicals.To further his work Fr Poveda moved to Jaén, where he taught in the seminary, served as spiritual director of Los Operarios Catechetical Centre, and worked at the Teacher Training College. In 1914 he opened Spain’s first university residence for women in Madrid.

It was during the religious persecution in Spain that Fr Poveda would be called to the martyrdom he so desired. At dawn on 28 July 1936, when told by his persecutors to identify himself, he said, “I am a priest of Christ”. He died a martyr for the faith. (Pedro Poveda Castroverde (1874-1936))

See also Newman ahead of Opus Dei by 120 years and Frank Duff earlier than Escriva.

Opus Dei sues French publisher

The organisation is targeting the book “Camino 999”. The author, Catherine Fradier (…), lives in the vicinity of Valence (south of France) and was for a time a police officer. This is her seventh novel.

On May 31, author and publisher were taken to a Parisian court and given a 15-day deadline to find an attorney due to a suite filed on behalf of the personal Prelate Association (also called Prelat[ure] of the [Holy] Cross and Opus Dei).

The plaintiff claims that the novel is “calling into question the honour of the Opus Dei Prelate”: “This novel, which must be presented as completely libellous (…) narrates a police investigation in Lyon where a murder is orchestrated by Opus Dei”.

Another criticism levied at the novel is the “interconnected mix of fiction and reality, truth and falsehood, without giving the reader adequate distance needed to appreciate the related fact and without ever inviting readers to make the difference between fact and fiction”. Indeed, the novel brings up the Matesa Affairs, a Spanish political/financial scandal which, at the time, implicated then French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Finally, “the title ‘Camino 999’, is clear reference to the works of José -Maria Escriva El Camino [The Way], composed of 999 spiritual maxims.” (source)

State will not fund private Opus Dei school: Germany

Read about it in the following posts:

Opus Dei to fund school in Potsdam near Berlin

Potsdam replies to Opus Dei’s plans

Brandenburg rejects Opus Dei’s plans for new school

Newman ahead of Opus Dei by 120 years

A quote from John Henry Newman (1801-1890) that precedes Escriba/Escriva’s “vision” by 120 years:

It is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection — short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are sure ones.(…)

He, then, is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly, and we need not go beyond this to seek for perfection. You need not go out of the round of the day. I insist on this because I think it will simplify our views, and fix our exertions on a definite aim. If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first — Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect. (Laity, Priests, and Holiness)

See also Frank Duff earlier than Escriva.

Frank Duff earlier than Escriva

Words from Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, published 12 years before Escriba/Escriva claims to have “seen” that God was asking him to found Opus Dei as a reminder that sanctity is not only for the religious but for the laity also:

There is another definition of what a Saint is. It is this: One who, with the object of pleasing God, does his ordinary duties extraordinarily well. (index)(…)

Every person that is born is called to be a Saint. Take it as most certain that you - no matter how unfitted your life may seem for holiness - are being given graces sufficient, if corresponded with, to bring you to sanctity. (…) [N]othing beyond our strength is expected; neither is sanctity the exclusive property of any grade or manner of life. Among the Saints canonised by the Church are kings and beggars, and representatives of every trade, slaves, hermits, city people, mothers of families, invalids, soldiers, and persons of every race and colour.

(…)

As half of our waking day is spent in toil, the need for rightly understanding the dignity and sanctity of labour is evident. It comes to this, that our work, whatever it may be, as seamstress, labourer, teacher, doctor or farmer was given to us by God as a means of sanctification and as a penance for our sins. Thus it is the foundation of our spiritual life. He who neglects his work and yet thinks, because he says many prayers, that he is leading a holy life, deludes himself. (Can we be saints by Frank Duff)

What every member must perform

We are starting a page (see the tab at the top of the blog) that will present an exhaustive list of all the things that members must perform every day, week, month, and year.

We will let the reader judge just how such a laundry list of prescribed activities correspond to “ordinary Christians in the middle of the world” as Opus Dei is fond of describing its members.

Psalm 2

All members recite this prayer every Tuesday before or after their morning time of prayer. They invoke their guardian angel and kiss their Rosary before the recitation. The text of this Psalm is the subject of the evening time of prayer every Tuesday.

Members are not required nor are they encouraged to recite or pray on any other of the Bible’s 150 Psalms.

(source)

_____

¹ Why do the nations protest and the peoples grumble in vain?

² Kings on earth rise up and princes plot together against the LORD and his anointed:

“Let us break their shackles and cast off their chains!”

The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord derides them,

Then speaks to them in anger, terrifies them in wrath:

“I myself have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD, who said to me, “You are my son; today I am your father.

Only ask it of me, and I will make your inheritance the nations, your possession the ends of the earth.

With an iron rod you shall shepherd them, like a clay pot you will shatter them.”

And now, kings, give heed; take warning, rulers on earth.

Serve the LORD with fear; with trembling bow down in homage, Lest God be angry and you perish from the way in a sudden blaze of anger.

Happy are all who take refuge in God!

Footnotes

¹ [Psalm 2] royal psalm. To rebellious kings (Psalm 2:1-3) God responds vigorously (Psalm 2:4-6). A speaker proclaims the divine decree (in the legal adoption language of the day), making the Israelite king the earthly representative of God (Psalm 2:7-9) and warning kings to obey (Psalm 2:10-11). The psalm has a messianic meaning for the Church; the New Testament understands it of Christ (Acts 4:25-27; 13:33; Hebrews 1:5).

² [2] Anointed: in Hebrew mashiah, “anointed”; in Greek christos, whence English Messiah and Christ. In Israel kings (Judges 9:8; 1 Sam 9:16; 16:12-13) and high priests (Lev 8:12; Numbers 3:3) received the power of their office through anointing. (source)

 

McKinsey consulting and Opus Dei very similar, new book says

The author of a book on management consultants compares them to Opus Dei. Thomas Leif calls them secretive societies that wield “power without responsibility.”

A journalist for public television in Germany, Leif lays out a blistering case against management consultants in a book that reaches stores May 15, Advised and Deceived.

In his book, Leif describes them as shadowy background operators who use jargon to fudge meaning and feed struggling corporate managers with little more than recycled information. On writing the book, he told Bloomberg:

I’ve been working on the book for three years, and it’s not easy to get access to partners for interviews. As you know, this industry is closed, a kind of Opus Dei. Intelligent, very skilled in cultivating a strategic public image, but not very open.

The subtitle of the book is McKinsey & Co. — the Big Bluff by Management Consultants. It discusses other consultancies,

but McKinsey is a symbol of efficiency as an end in itself and of radical reforms — job-cut recommendations made rather casually and one-dimensionally, only considering the economic impact and not the social impact.

His written request to interview the head of McKinsey in Germany got a written rejection.

I was directed to the company’s home page for information. That is ridiculous. There is an extreme PR machine. Economic newspapers report what the company wants to be made public. At the same time, McKinsey blocks information and there is the utmost secrecy about what they do. It’s part of the McKinsey myth. That’s why I compare it with Opus Dei — a kind of secretive society.

Plan of life: a formal list

The person “presiding” a weekly meeting of members called the “study circle” reads the following “plan of life” with all attendees standing:

Daily: Morning offering, Mental prayer, Holy Mass, Communion, Visit to the Blessed Sacrament, Reading of the Gospel and some spiritual book, Preces, Holy Rosary, Examinations of conscience, Angelus or Regina Coeli.

Weekly: Confession, a corporal mortification and recitation of the Salve or Regina Coeli on Saturdays.

Monthly: A day of recollection.

Yearly: A spiritual retreat.

Always: Presence of God, Consideration of our divine filiation, Spiritual communions, Acts of thanksgiving, Acts of atonement, Ejaculations, Mortification, Study, Work, Order, Cheerfulness.