Customer Reviews

The Founder of Opus Dei: The Life of Josemaria Escriva : The Early Years

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Several biographies of the founder of Opus Dei have been published in the past. None, however, provides as complete a picture as this one. Its author, Vasquez de Prada, in addition to having personnally known Blessed Josemaria, was able to tap sources that became accessible only recently. This new biography will eventually include 3 volumes. Volume II is to be published in 2002.

Volume I relates the story of Josemaria from his birth in January 2002 to 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out. A remarkable feature of the book is the way in which the author has managed to develop two distinct ideas about Blessed Josemaria and the Work (as he use to call Opus Dei before he gave it that name)without really separating them. The first is that his life was one of total dedication to the birth and development of Opus Dei. The second is that the origin of Opus Dei cannot be explained in strictly natural terms: it clearly involves a supernatural element.

But the most interesting aspect of this biography is the additional light it sheds on the spiritual life of Blessed Josemaria. The extensive quotes from his diary and personal notes reveal some of the most intimate aspects of his interior life. There now is probably more information about the personal life of Blessed Josemaria than almost any other well-known figure of the 20th century.

Blessed Josemaria dedicated his whole life to proclaiming the message that there is real grandeur in ordinary life if we offer it to God. In doing so, he probably exerted more influence on the day to day life of modern Christians than any other figure of the XXth Century.

One final point. Although translated from Spanish, the English edition reads as if it had been written in American English.

I enjoyed this book very much for two reasons. First, it is a well researched book with copious footnotes to flesh out the historical period in which this man grew up. Second, I found the style to be easy to read and interesting in spite of the copious detail. If one has read books about this period of Spanish history then reading this biography will add a human face and interesting character to the sometimes dry study of political and economic history.

History comes alive when the basics of the subject are combined with a biography of a real person with a family and how their lives kept changing as the world changed around them, and yet, also how their lives remained the same during many of the events of history. A regular person going to school, with parents and siblings, who is not a political figure experiences living through upheavals quite differently than do the people who are political figures with temporal and civil power.

I'm eager to read the other two books in the series.