Hundreds of people came together in Sydney to celebrate the first feast day of Blessed Alvaro del Portillo with a Mass at Our Lady of Dolours church in Chatswood.
Many of those who attended the Mass on Friday, May 15, had travelled to Spain last year for Blessed Alvaro’s beatification in Madrid on September 27.
The Church was filled with individuals and young families who came to give thanks for a humble pastor who demonstrated a deep affection for Australia when he visited the “Land Down Under” on a pastoral visit in 1987.
Principal celebrant of the Mass, Fr Inigo Martinez-Echevarria, paid tribute to the love of God, the Church and all souls which inspired the life of service of Blessed Alvaro, the successor to the founder of Opus Dei, St Josemaría Escrivá.
“Guided by that love, pushed by that love, he followed the footsteps of St. Josemaría in a life of very intense and demanding pastoral work,” he said in his homily.
Fr Martinez-Echevarria said both priests had worked very hard together in Rome and from Rome, always very united to the Holy Father and to all the ecclesiastical authorities in the places where the faithful of Opus Dei lived.
He described Opus Dei members as “common people from many cities and countries of the world” who sought to bring Jesus Christ to their work places, to their families and social life, to their friends, to poor and lonely people in difficult areas.
This was the same mission St Josemaría and Blessed Alvaro had carried out from the very beginning of their apostolic work in Madrid.
“Those who are really in love, like St. Josemaría, like Blessed Alvaro, like every saint in the Church, leave behind them a well-traced path, with well-marked footsteps to follow,” Fr Martinez-Echevarria said.
“Their love is not theoretical: their love consists, at the end of the day, in giving in each ‘now’ the love they once gave for ever. And each of those moments of loving self-giving are the footprints God wants us to follow.
“Each one of those moments of mutual daily love are the best footprints that parents can offer to their children to guide their steps towards Heaven. Let us ask Blessed Alvaro today the grace for every Christian couple to trace well their footsteps, with a concrete, real and specific daily self-giving.”
The Feast of Blessed Alvaro del Portillo will be held each year on May 12, the anniversary of his First Holy Communion.
More information about Blessed Alvaro can be found at: alvarodelportillo.org