Saint Josemaría Escrivá in 1902-1936
Epoch of Barbastro and Logroño
Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás was born in Barbastro (Huesca, Spain) on 9 January 1902. His family is connected, through both branches, with the cultural and Christian tradition of Spain, as well as with the personality and traditions of Aragon. His parents were José Escrivá y Corzán and María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc. From them he received a clear example of faith and piety. He was baptised in Barbastro and completed his Christian initiation there. He went to studentat the high schoolof the Escolapios Fathers in Barbastro, where he studied at teachingprimary school and began his programs of studystudies. high school diplomawhich he completed at the high schoolNacional in Logroño. The family moved to this city in 1915.
José Escrivá and Dolores Albás had a first daughter, Carmen (born in 1899), followed by Josemaría and then three other sisters. testThe early 1910s were a difficult period for the family, with the death of the three youngest daughters and a severe financial setback that caused them to move from Aragon to the nearby Rioja region. All this left its mark on Josemaría, but did not sour his character.
He remained a spontaneous and open-minded young man, who pursued his programs of study with application. At the age of 16, when he saw the footprints left by a barefoot Carmelite as he walked through the snowy streets of Logroño on a harsh winter's day, he felt as if he had been struck by a blow to his soul.
He then began to sense that God wanted something from him. But he did not know what it was. So he decided to abandon projectto study architecture and become a priest. He was persuaded that in this way he would be availablefully prepared for whatever God wanted from him. A long period of intense faith and prayer followed. For years he repeated: "Lord, may I see! Lord, may I be! Lady, may I be! These were ejaculations that showed his confident prayer life and his firm determination to do what God wanted.
Questions of interest
It depends on the times. In 1902, when Saint Josemaría was born, his father, José Escrivá, was co-owner in Barbastro, a small town in Aragon, in the north-east of Spain, of a weaving business called "Juncosa y Escrivá".
statusThe family was in a relatively comfortable economic situation, typical of the classaverage of that time, relatively well off. This statuschanged in 1912, with the threat of the bankruptcy of the business, and became particularly critical after the liquidation of the establishment in 1915.
From then on and for several decades - until well after the civil war - the Escrivá family suffered serious financial hardship, aggravated by the death of Don José Escrivá in Logroño in 1924.
That death made the young Josemaría - who had not yet been ordained a priest - the head of the family, and his mother Dolores Albás, his older sister Carmen and his little brother Santiago, who was five years old at the time, were left to look after him at position.
The hardships and burdens Materials , which the Escrivá family tried to bear with dignity, are well reflected in the writings of the young Founder.
For an understanding of the socio-economic and cultural context:
-IBARRA BENLLOCH, M., El primer año de vida de Josemaría Escrivá, in "Cuadernos del Centro de Documentación y programs of studyJosemaría Escrivá de Balaguer", vol. VI (2002), University of Navarre, pp. 37-74.
-GARRIDO, M., Barbastro y el Beato Josemaría Escrivá, Ayuntamiento de Barbastro, Barbastro 1995. Especially: Chap. I: Barbastro at the beginning of the century and Chap. II: A biographical sketch of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá and Opus Dei.
-VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, let him see, Rialp, Madrid, 1997, Chap.
source: www.opusdei.es
The Escrivá family lived in Barbastro, a town of about 8,000 inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in commerce and agriculture.
During St. Josemaría's childhood, the small town - like other urban enclaves in Navarre, Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, Lérida, Gerona, etc. - did not suffer great tensions, thanks to its social structure, which was largely made up of small landowners and merchants; and it enjoyed a certain prosperity, which contrasted with the statusof other cities in the country, overwhelmed by the recent loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
Barbastro had a bishop's see, several cultural societies and two schools - the Piarist and the Daughters of Charity - where Josemaría Escrivá studied.
St Josemaria's memories of that time - those of a close-knit family in which Christianity was lived in a climate of freedom and naturalness - were particularly pleasant to him:
"And I remember those white days of my childhood: the cathedral, so ugly on the outside and so beautiful on the inside... like the heart of that land, good, Christian and loyal, hidden behind the abruptness of the Baturro character.
Then, in the middle of a side chapel, there was the tumulus where the recumbent image of Our Lady rested... The people passed by, with respect, kissing the feet of the Virgin of La Cama...
My mother, my father, my brothers and I always went together to hear Mass. My father would give us the alms, which we would joyfully take to the lame man, who was standing near the bishop's palace. Then I would go ahead and take holy water to give to my family. Holy Mass. Then, every Sunday, in the chapel of the Santo Cristo de los Milagros, we prayed a Creed. And, on the day of the Assumption, as I said, we were obliged to adore (as we used to say) the Virgin of the Cathedral".
(Apuntes íntimos, n. 228 and 229, 15.VIII.1931, quoted in VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., El Fundador del Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, let him see, Rialp, Madrid 1997, pp. 36-37).
source: www.opusdei.es
On the one hand, there were bad harvests during the years 1912-1915, which led to a decrease in the consumption of textiles throughout the region.
Added to this was the fact that a former partnerof the businessformed by Juncosa and Escrivá failed to fulfil a commitment he had made to them. This breach gave rise to a long legal process, first in the Zaragoza High Court and then in the Supreme Court. They won the trial. The judgement agreed with them, insofar as it recognised that the other partnershould compensate them for the damages caused; but it did not agree with them as to how this compensation was to be made. Juncosa and Escrivá wanted him to return the amount of certain promissory notes, and the judgement established that there was not sufficient basis to affirm that this amount was the amount that the former partnershould pay, and so another way of calculating the damages caused had to be found.
The costs of the trial, added to the economic damage already received, led to the ruin of Escrivá and Juncosa, who had to liquidate the business in 1915.
source: www.opusdei.es
They had agreed with their former partnerthat as long as they maintained their business, he would not set up a textile shop in Barbastro that could make them skill. And they agreed to compensate him with 40,000 pesetas payable in 68 promissory notes. In fact, they paid him the full amount between 1902 and 1908. The former partnerdid not fulfil his part, as he set up a business with the same characteristics.
The young Josemaría appreciated the attitude of his father, who preferred to pay off his debts not only with the company's assets, but also with his own wealth. He preferred to suffer ruin rather than harm third parties by bankrupting business.
source: www.opusdei.es
Zaragoza: priestly ordination
In 1918 he began the ecclesiastical programs of study , as external student of seminar of Logroño. In 1920, as an internal student , he continued his studies in Zaragoza. There he resided in the seminar of San Francisco de Paula and attended the classrooms of the seminar conciliar, which then had the rank of Pontifical University. The Cardinal Archbishop of Saragossa, Juan Soldevila, perceived his qualities and conferred on him in 1922 the position of Inspector in the seminar of San Francisco de Paula. Those years of priestly preparation cemented his theological and spiritual training , with frequent reading of the classics of spiritual literature and, above all, with his prayer staff. More than one night he spent long hours before the tabernacle of the church of seminar. His visits to the Virgin of Pilar, so closely linked to the piety of Zaragoza, were practically daily.
programs of studyOnce he had advanced his theological programs of studyhe obtained the appropriate authorisation from his superiors to begin his Law studies at the University of Saragossa in 1923. He took advantage of the summer holidays and the time he had available after his pastoral duties. He studied law at the request of his father, years before, when he made known to him his decision to become a priest. The contemporaneity between the ecclesiastical and civil programs of study, his presence in the classrooms of the Law School Schooland the attentionwith professors and students of that centre professor, were circumstances that enriched his personality and prepared him for the direction he would later give to his life and activity.
Ordained deacon on 20 December 1924, he received the priesthood on 28 March 1925. Shortly before, in November 1924, his father had died. His mother, his sister Carmen and a younger brother, Santiago, born in 1919, were left at positionand moved to Saragossa. Josemaría began his priestly ministry in the parish of Perdiguera (in the diocese of Zaragoza), continuing it later in the city of Zaragoza.
Madrid: the foundation of Opus Dei
When he finished licentiate degreein Law, the desire to obtain the doctorate-something then reserved in Spain for the University of Madrid- led him to move to the Spanish capital, together with his family. In the spring of 1927 he settled in Madrid. There he developed a tireless work of care for the poor and destitute of the extreme neighbourhoods, especially for the incurable and dying in the hospitals of Madrid. She became positionof the chaplaincy of the board of trusteesde Enfermos, a welfare work of the Damas Apostolicas del Sagrado Corazon. He devoted many hours to preparing thousands of children for their first confession and first communion and to travelling through the working-class neighbourhoods of a Madrid in full expansion, with the resulting social problems, to care for the sick and dying. statusHe taught at a university academy, specialising in the juridical programs of study, in order to earn some money to support his family, which was going through a very precarious economic situation. His activity and his persevering prayer, mortification and penance made those years a true "prehistory" of Opus Dei. That is to say, a period of spiritual deepening that prepared him to accept what God was preparing to manifest to him.
On 2 October 1928, during a retreat, God showed him clearly what he had only intuited until then. Thus Opus Dei was born, as a reality marked by fire in the soul of a young priest who devoted all his energies to that end from then on. At first he wondered whether there was not already an institution that would realise the ideals that God had shown him. But he soon realised that there was nothing similar to what God desired of him. Always moved by God, on 14 February 1930 he realised that he should also extend the apostolate of Opus Dei among women.
A new path was thus opening up in the Church, aimed at promote, among people of all social classes, the search for holiness and the exercise of the apostolate, through the sanctification of the ordinary work, in the midst of the world and without changing status. It was also in 1930 that a comment from his confessor - "How is this work of God going?" - prompted him to call the apostolic initiative he was promoting by this name. The expression "Work of God" manifested, on the one hand, his deep conviction that he was fulfilling a divine wish. On the other hand, it reflected very well its content: ordinary life, the professional workmade for God and for the service of all men, converted by personal prayer and submissioninto the work of God, into Opus Dei.
The core of St. Josemaría's message was undoubtedly the advertisementof the universal call to holiness in exercising the ordinary professional work. Thirty years before the Second Vatican Council, speaking of the fullness of Christian life, he wrote: "You have an obligation to sanctify yourself. -You too. -Who thinks that this is the exclusive task of priests and religious? To all, without exception, the Lord said: 'Be perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect'" (The Way, n. 291). Many times he repeated that the universal call to holiness in his own workimplies reminding each and every Christian that Jesus Christ invites everyone to follow him, wherever they are, whatever their qualities may be. The ordinary faithful must attain the fullness of Christian life in the place and condition they have in society, making their ordinary work- in imitation of the hidden life of Christ - an occasion of holiness and service to God and to their brothers and sisters. From 2 October 1928, the founder of Opus Dei spread this message, which attracted around him a small groupof people in the early days.
Meanwhile, the context was undergoing changes and tensions. statusThe family's financial situation continued to be difficult. His pastoral duties changed: in 1931 he left board of trusteesfor the sick and took on the role, first as chaplain, and from 1934 as President, of board of trusteesof St. Elizabeth. In the sacristy of St. Elizabeth's, after a particularly lively prayer staff, he wrote one of his first works: a commentary on the mysteries of the Rosary, which he published with a few additions in 1934 under the title Holy Rosary. From 1930 onwards he wrote down ideas from his prayer staffand experiences from his apostolic work. Some of these notes formed in 1932 a collection of thoughts or points of meditation which he entitled Spiritual Considerations, and which constituted an effective support for his apostolate and that of those who followed him. Revised and completed, these points of meditation gave rise to one of his best known works: The Way. Since its publication in 1939, it has been translated into numerous languages and has reached a circulation of almost five million copies.
Questions of interest
The term foundation can be understood in different ways.
It can be understood from a legal-canonical perspective. In the associative field, or in the field of religious institutes, the verb "to found" is usually understood as the establishment of a seat in which several members of a community reside. It is in this juridical-canonical sense that Saint Teresa speaks of her "foundations". From the same juridical perspective, the term " foundation" is also used to designate the signatureby the founders of the certificatefoundation of an entity.
But it can also be understood from a spiritual perspective, which is the one used by some saints, such as Saint Josemaría. When he said that "Opus Dei was founded on 2 October 1928" he was underlining the divine origin of Opus Dei, because it was on that day that God made him "see" the Work (Opus Dei) in his soul.
Although successive canonical recognitions came with the passing of the years, St Josemaría always considered 2 October 1928 as the date of the beginning of the founding era; an era which he considered open while he was alive.
Three years ago today," wrote St. Josemaría on October 2, 1931, "in the Convent of the Vincentians, I compiled with some unity the loose notes that I had been taking until then; from that day the mangy donkey [by this expression he meant himself] became aware of the beautiful and heavy burden that the Lord, in his inexplicable goodness, had placed on his back. That day the Lord founded his Work: from then on I began to treat the souls of lay people, students or not, but young people. And to form groups. And to pray and to make others pray. And to suffer...".
And he added: "I received enlightenment about the whole Work while I was reading those papers. I was alone in my room, between talks, and I gave thanks to the Lord, and I remember with emotion the ringing of the bells of the parish of Our Lady of the Angels" (CEJAS, J.M., Life of Blessed Josemaria, Rialp, Madrid 1993, p. 60).
On the foundation of Opus Dei, see, among others:
-DIEGO-LORA, C. de, 2 October 1928: commemoration of a jubilee date, in "Ius Canonicum", Pamplona 1978, pp. 21-51.
-REDONDO, G., El 2 de octubre de 1928 en el contexto de la historia cultural contemporánea, in "Cuadernos del Centro de Documentación y programs of studyJosemaría Escrivá de Balaguer" vol. VI (2002), University of Navarre, pp. 149-191.
-ILLANES, J. L., Dos de octubre de 1928: alcance y significado de una fecha, in VV. AA. Josemaría Escrivá and Opus Dei. En el 50 aniversario de su fundación, Eunsa , Pamplona 1985; and data para la comprensión histórico espiritual de una fecha, in "Cuadernos del Centro de Documentación y programs of studyJosemaría Escrivá de Balaguer" vol. VI (2002), University of Navarre, pp. 105-149.
-VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Vida de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Señor, que vea!, Rialp, Madrid 1997, Ch. V.
At first, in some Catholic circles the novelty and originality of the spiritual message proposed by Escrivá was not understood.
In certain civil circles of the time, the freedom and full responsibility enjoyed by the members of Opus Dei was not understood either, and they judged them by categories that were alien to their nature. workThe men and women of Opus Dei are lay faithful who live the Christian vocation they have received at baptism, striving to find God in their daily life, in their family, professional and social environment, and who enjoy the same freedom as any other baptised person.
Various adverse social circumstances followed one after the other, such as the Spanish civil war, marked by violent religious persecution, and the Second World War.
statusIn addition, there was a lack of material resources to carry on the work, for two fundamental reasons: the founder was in a critical economic situation, with his mother and two brothers at position; and in the early days of Opus Dei - from 1928 to the early 1940s - with very few exceptions, the members of the Work were young students who would take several years to finish degree programand to establish themselves professionally.
To all this was added the logical absence of an adequate juridical channel in the canonical order of the Church, since Opus Dei was a new reality from the juridical-canonical point of view.
-Cf. VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Vida de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Señor, que vea!, Rialp, Madrid 1997, Ch. VIII.
-BADRINAS AMAT, B., Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Sacerdote de la diócesis de Madrid, in "Cuadernos del Centro de Documentación y programs of studyJosemaría Escrivá de Balaguer", offprint of "yearbookde Historia de la Iglesia", vol. III (1999), high schoolde Historia de la Iglesia, Schoolde Teología, Universidad de Navarra, pp. 47-76.
-MONTERO, J. and CERVERA GIL, J., Madrid en los años treinta. Ambiente social, político y religioso, in "STUDIA ET DOCUMENTA", Rivista dell'Istituto Storico San Josemaría Escrivá, vol. 3 (2009), Rome, pp. 13-39.
source: www.opusdei.es
He treated many people from different social backgrounds as a priest. He dedicated the best hours of his youth, as chaplain of the board of trusteesde Enfermos de las Damas Apostólicas, to the care of many sick and helpless children in the poor neighbourhoods of Madrid.
positionAsunción Muñoz, an Apostolic Lady, explained in her testimony for the Cause of Canonization of Josemaría Escrivá, "He did not have to attend to the extraordinary work that was being done at board of trusteesamong the poor and sick - in general, with the needy - in Madrid at that time. However, D. Josemaría took advantage of his appointment as Chaplain to give himself generously, sacrificially and selflessly to a huge issueof poor and sick people who came within the reach of his priestly heart" (VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., El Fundador del Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, may I see, Rialp, Madrid 1997, p. 262).
He cared for needy people who lived in substandard housing, in shantytowns or in the popular "corralas" of the so-called "slums" of Madrid, and also for hundreds of sick people, many of them with no hope of cure, in hospitals.
José Ramón Herrero Fontana recalls: "I keep that image engraved in my soul: the Father, kneeling next to a sick person lying on a poor mattress on the floor, encouraging him, telling him words of hope and encouragement... That image is not erased from my mind report: the Father, next to the bedside of those dying people, consoling them and talking to them about God... An image that reflects and sums up what those years of his life were like" (CEJAS, J.M., José María Somoanoen los comienzos del Opus Dei, Rialp , Madrid 1995, p. 96).
-GONZÁLEZ SIMANCAS Y LACASA, J., San Josemaría among the sick in Madrid (1927-1931), in "STUDIA ET DOCUMENTA", Rivista dell'Istituto Storico San Josemaría Escrivá, vol. 2 (2008), Rome, pp. 147-203.
At the same time he dealt with many other people: university students and teachers, workers, shop assistants, artists, etc.
His preaching was always priestly. This was surprising to many in an environment so prone to mixing political and religious matters. St. Josemaría was publicly known as a priest who spoke only of God, encouraging forgiveness and mutual understanding. He encouraged people to work side by side to build noble ideals, even with people who thought differently. This made his preaching even more attractive.
source: www.opusdei.es
They were mostly young students of different degrees, of varied geographical origins and of different political tendencies and sensibilities. Each one, like any other Catholic, chose a political option in conscience or simply kept to himself. St Josemaría never spoke about politics, nor did he ask about the political leanings of those who came to him.
At residency programDYA, which St Josemaría had set up in Ferraz Street, respect for the opinions of others was encouraged. Nothing prevented, therefore, that among the first members of Opus Dei and among the people who took part in the apostolic work there were sympathisers of various political formations, such as the Basque nationalists (PNV), the Popular Action Youth (JAP), the first Falange or the associationTraditionalist School.
The peculiar political circumstances of the Second Republic - with the growing anticlericalism of left-wing groups, the ideological seed of religious persecution - made it very difficult at that time for Catholics to join left-wing political groups.
François Gondrand writes in his essayThe Founder of Opus Dei and his attitude to established powerwhich can be found at www.opusdei.org:
subjectWith his arms open to all and always respectful of the freedom of each person, Father Josemaría did not make any partisan statements about the political statusaround him. The young people who followed him had very diverse and sometimes antagonistic political affiliations: there were among them nationalists, monarchists who were increasingly at odds with the established government, Basque Catholics with a strong sense of republicanism and defenders of their "national liberties", and so on.
The "Father", as they all called him, made no allusion to the free temporal choices of each person, although he did ask them not to talk about political matters in the centre where they went for their Christian formation. He explained to them that the apostolic work he was carrying out was in no way a response to the politico-religious statusthat the country was going through. The Work of God", he said, "was not imagined by one man to resolve the lamentable statusof the Church in Spain since 1931". "We are not a circumstantial organisation", he stressed, (...) "nor do we come to fill a particular need of a particular country or a particular time, because Jesus wanted his Work to be universal and Catholic from the very beginning". The bond that unites you", the founder insisted, "is of an exclusively spiritual nature (...) which rules out all political or partisan ideas or intentions".
Escrivá limited himself to teaching - and that was already a lot - the message of Opus Dei, which summons ordinary Christians to sanctify themselves in the midst of the world and to strive to live the Gospel call with all its consequences, reminding them of the Lord's words: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect". He did not offer them a recipe book for social reform, nor a particular political programme. He knew - and reminded them - that the effort to transform society to make it more faithful to Gospel values is a task for each individual Christian faithful. It is the ordinary Christian who must formulate and propose, with full responsibility, the concrete social consequences which, in his opinion staff, are implicit in this message".
source: www.opusdei.es
issueThe Founder of Opus Dei's attitude to the Second Republic was similar to that of a large number of Spaniards at that time, of different hues. At first he remained in expectation of the course that events would take.
Naturally, he was upset when he saw the anti-clerical nature of many of the decrees-laws that were being promulgated, together with the passivity of the authorities in the face of some abuses.
The Founder wrote in 1931, after the burning of churches on 11 May: "The persecution began. On the 11th, Monday, accompanied by Don Manuel Romeo, after dressing as a layman in a collotype suit, I received communion in the Form of the virile and, with a ciborium full of consecrated hosts wrapped in a cassock and papers, we left the board of trustees[of Santa Isabel (of which St. Josemaría had been chaplain since 1931 and which included two communities of nuns)], through a door that had been exempted, like thieves.... That night and the nights of the 12th and 16th (the latter due to a false alarm by the nuns) I had the Lord in Pepito's house"(Apuntes íntimos, no. 202, 20.V.1931, quoted in VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., El Fundador del Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, let him see, Rialp, Madrid 1997, pp. 358-359).
On 13 May 1931, in view of the danger of the masses setting fire to the building at board of trustees, he moved with his mother and brothers to a nearby flat at 22 Viriato Street. "On the 13th, we heard that they were trying to burn down board of trustees: at four o'clock in the afternoon we went out with our junk to 22 Viriato Street, to a bad room -interior- which I providentially found"(Apuntes íntimos, n. 202, 20.V.1931, quoted in VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, let him see, Rialp, Madrid 1997, p. 359).
An example of his attitude is a letter St. Josemaría wrote to Isidoro Zorzano on May 5, 1931, in which "besides insisting that he not give up meditation and Communion and that he have a regular confessor, he refers to the new statusin the country. Opus Dei has no political preferences and each member, always in a manner consistent with the Christian vocation, freely forms his personal opinions. "Don't be too hot or too cold about political change: you only care that they don't offend God" (PERO-SANZ, J. M., Isidoro Zorzano Ledesma, 2nd ed., Palabra, Madrid 1996, p. 126).
In the midst of that social context dominated by extremism, he always behaved in a serene and priestly manner; and when he saw how social coexistence was deteriorating in a climate of hatred, resentment and desire for revenge, he gave this committeeto those who followed him, a committeewhich he repeated many times throughout his life: "pray, forgive, understand, apologise".
Among his friends were Republican militants, such as Cándido Baselga, a Barbastrian who after the war was severely punished: he spent several years in prison in two successive phases in the 1940s, accused of having been a leader of the Republican Union party and of having been a member of Freemasonry. St Josemaría visited and consoled him in prison and took an interest in his fate. The relationship between the two (epistolary, after St Josemaría's departure for Rome) was only interrupted with Baselga's death in 1972.
source: www.opusdei.es
He was not in favour of violence: "violence does not seem to me to be suitable either to win or to convince", he recalled (cf. RODRÍGUEZ PEDRAZUELA, A., Un mar sin orillas, Rialp, Madrid 1999, p. 65). And he always tried to ensure that the people he accompanied spiritually would sow peace and harmony around them. However, not all of them followed his advice.
In August 1932, three university students known to St. Josemaría who had taken part in a monarchist military coup against the Republic were locked up in the prison model. They were Adolfo Gómez Gómez, Adolfo Gómez, Adolfo Gómez, Adolfo Gómez, Adolfo Gómez and Adolfo Gómez. They were Adolfo Gómez Ruiz, José Antonio Palacios López and José Manuel Doménech de Ibarra, who had accompanied the Founder on visits to the sick who had been evicted from the General Hospital.
In spite of the fact that in that environment the figure of a priest was not always well received, St. Josemaría went to the prison to attend to them spiritually; and even in that statushe continued to ask them to make an effort to live together, to understand and to excuse everyone. As usual, he never made any judgments of a temporal, partisan or political nature. He knew that his mission statementas a priest was to keep his arms open to all to bring them closer to God.
Several anarchists were in prison with these three students, and St. Josemaría asked them to treat the men with respect and understanding. They told him that they sometimes played football with them in the prison yard, of course on opposing teams. On hearing this, St Josemaría spoke to them of another logic: that of charity; and he advised them to play together, which they did, in order to foster respect, forgiveness and mutual understanding, something they surprisingly achieved.
José Antonio Palacios recounted:
"We organised football matches mixed with each other. I remember that I played goalkeeper and my defenders were two anarcho-syndicalists. I never played football with more elegance and less violence" (VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., El Fundador del Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. I: Lord, let him see, Rialp, Madrid 1997, p. 484).
Josemaría Escrivá faithfully followed Pius XI, who in his encyclical Dilectissima nobis (3-VI-1933) had said of Spanish Catholics: "with the Episcopate was of agreementnot only the clergy both secular and regular, but also the secular Catholics, that is, the great majority of the Spanish people; who, notwithstanding personal opinions, notwithstanding the provocations and vexations of the enemies of the Church, have been far from acts of violence and retaliation, remaining in calm subjection to the constituted power, without giving rise to disorder, much less to civil wars."
There is not a single document in the magisterium of the Popes which justifies insurrection against a legally constituted government.
source: www.opusdei.es
The insurrection of 18 July 1936 took him by surprise. During those days he was preparing the beginnings of the apostolic workin Valencia and Paris; and he was in the middle of setting up a new headquarters for the students' residency program, which was being moved during those days from issue50 to issue16, Calle de Ferraz.
At that time residency programHe was surprised by the rebellion and the subsequent assault on the Cuartel de la Montaña, the focal point of the uprising in Madrid, which was very close by. This forced him to stay there for two days. On 20 July he was finally able to take refuge at his mother's house.
Then, in the face of the declared religious persecution, he began a period of clandestinity that lasted until the end of 1937, when he was able to cross the Pyrenees on foot to the part of Spain where he could freely exercise his priestly ministry.
source: www.opusdei.es