St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer was a Roman Catholic priest born in Spain in 1902. He founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to teaching people how to respond to God's universal call to holiness. He preached ordinary life as the path to sanctity, and St. John Paul II referred to him as “the saint of the ordinary” when he canonized St. Josemaria in 2002. St. Josemaría Escrivá’s books and writings, all filled with his wit and easy to read, assert that holiness is possible in the day-to-day with sanctifying grace. We’ve rounded up our three favorites on the blog today in honor of St. Josemaría’s feast day on June 26th.
- The Way, Furrow, The Forge - This trilogy of spiritual reading is a St. Josemaría classic and packed with bite-sized nuggets of wisdom for meditation. It offers a starting point for prayer and for finding Christ in all of life’s experiences. In all, this volume contains 3,054 short points—a few sentences each—for personal reflection and mental prayer.
- Friends of God - Friends of God is a collection of homilies by St. Josemaría Escrivá about developing a strong, lasting friendship with the God who is close to us. St. Josemaría gives a broad picture of the basic human and Christian virtues so the reader closely follows in our Lord's footsteps, establishing a filial dialogue with God. Each homily is a heartfelt conversation with the Christian who is immersed in ordinary life and a prayerful conversation with God. With a masterful pastor's hand, St. Josemaría combines theological depth with evangelical clarity. Simple, compassionate, and profound, these homilies are a full expression of St. Josemaría's passionate, expansive love for God.
- Christ Is Passing By - This is the first published collection of St. Josemaría’s homilies and a perfect option for individual spiritual reading. In these homilies for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and other highlights of the Church year, St. Josemaría consistently emphasizes the great truth that your most ordinary, human interests can and should reflect the presence and transcendence of God, and that you should strive always to sanctify every detail of your daily life.
More reading from St. Josemaría is available at scepterpublishers.org.
