On the threshold of a historic milestone, Opus Dei prepares to celebrate its first centenary with its eyes on the future and its feet firmly on the ground of daily life. In this exclusive interview, Claudio Caruso sits down with the Prelate of the Work, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, for a wide-ranging conversation touching on the challenges facing the contemporary family, the institution's legacy across its first hundred years, and the remarkable vitality of the Church in Africa.
With characteristic warmth and a deeply supernatural outlook, Msgr. Ocáriz also reflects on the profound significance of Pope Leo's forthcoming visit to Spain, the motto of which is "Lift up your eyes." This is an essential conversation for understanding how the message of Saint Josemaría (finding God in work, in rest, and in the ordinary texture of human relationships) remains a living and transformative answer to the challenges of our time.
Saint Josemaría grew up in a devout family and began his apostolate among young people, many of whom came from similar Catholic homes. But during his lifetime, the Work spread to countries where the religious landscape was very different. He even spoke of an apostolate ad fidem, directed toward those not yet in the faith. What do you see as the key to evangelizing in environments where family life not only offers little support for faith, but may itself be broken? And in that context, how can families be encouraged to become what Saint Josemaría called “bright and cheerful homes”?
From the very beginning, Saint Josemaría placed great importance on friendship as a privileged setting for evangelization, because it is in friendship that we share the Gospel from heart to heart. Through those bonds, faith spreads naturally to families, colleagues, and neighbors, opening new horizons for everyone. This is how he envisioned the early Christians: people who bore witness to their friendship with Christ through a joy that was simply contagious. And this is just as true today.
An encounter with Jesus lays the foundation for a life well-lived. It helps people believe in love that lasts a lifetime, see children as a gift, and find the strength to care for the elderly and the sick. Christian families, in turn, are called to be a source of support and inspiration for many other families around them.
Saint Josemaría used to say that the Work exists to serve the Church. What do you consider to be Opus Dei’s principal contribution to the Church over these first hundred years?
The main contribution is inseparable from the very spirit that God wished to spread through the Work since 1928: a great multitude of ordinary people who want to love God in the midst of their daily lives, seeking to let the Gospel give meaning to their work and their rest, to their relationships with family members and colleagues. This shapes the way people live, humanizing and Christianizing the small and large sorrows of life, as well as its joys and its struggles, and transforming everyday work into generous service: a quiet sowing of Christian peace and joy in every corner of society.
One could approach this question from the angle of institutional achievements and point to the inspiration the spirit of Opus Dei has provided for countless educational, formative, and charitable initiatives around the world. There is no shortage of examples: Strathmore College in Kenya (the first interracial school in Africa, founded in 1961), vocational training centers across South America, a business school in Mexico, university residences in Spain. Here in Rome, the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, a center for ecclesiastical studies that has formed students from 129 countries and more than 1,200 dioceses, is well known.
Yet without in any way diminishing those achievements, what fills me with the deepest gratitude — renewed once more after hearing from more than 50,000 people in 70 countries — is that the most faithful way to serve the Church from within the spirit of the Work is to identify ourselves so completely with Christ that we share his very feelings, that we cannot remain indifferent to what happens in our world, and that we give our own lives in responding to the hopes and needs of those around us.
A centenary is a time for gratitude, reflection, and looking ahead. How do you see the Work in the years to come?
My hope is that the centenary of Opus Dei’s foundation will be an occasion for each of us to renew ourselves interiorly. From that renewal, which also includes honestly acknowledging mistakes and correcting them, we will be better able to serve God, the Church, and all people, and to play our part in the transformation of the world according to the heart of Christ.
I hope to see members of Opus Dei standing beside families that have been strengthened because they have known how to ask each other for forgiveness. I hope there will be journalists who tell the truth, teachers who teach with both humility and courage, elderly people who radiate joy and young people who show solidarity, married couples who hand on the faith to their children, sick people who bear their suffering with serenity, doctors who treat their patients with genuine humanity, and engineers who put their best skills at the service of the most vulnerable — even when it is not the most profitable option.
This is my hope for the years ahead: that the Work will be a great school of holiness, helping to make sanctity a reality in everyday life and contributing to ensuring that “Christ's love and freedom preside over all aspects of modern life” (Saint Josemaría, Furrow, no. 302).
The Pope recently completed a ten-day journey to Africa, visiting several countries. For you, what were the most significant themes of that visit?
That intense apostolic journey through Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea was a vivid expression of the care the Pope and the Church hold for all of humanity, and for the African continent in particular. It is a land of great hopes and great challenges in equal measure. It was also an occasion to renew our gratitude, our filial affection, and our constant prayer for the fruits of his pontificate.
On every journey, the Holy Father is a witness to the Gospel and to God’s closeness to the people who welcome him. He reiterated his call for peace and reconciliation as the distinctively Christian response to conflict. His pilgrimage to the land of Saint Augustine revealed something of his own identity as a spiritual son of the Bishop of Hippo and invited all of us to seek in Jesus Christ the answers to our deepest questions.
The great joyful liturgical celebrations — among them the deeply moving closing Mass in Malabo — showed the world that the Church in Africa is overflowing with vitality. The Pope reminded us that this continent is a genuine spiritual lung and a treasure of faith for the entire Church.
And what does the Work expect from its apostolate on that continent?
The short answer is: a great deal, both in terms of formative projects and in terms of personal fidelity to Jesus Christ. Both matter enormously, but in Opus Dei the emphasis always falls first on the apostolic initiative of each individual person, on their free and responsible response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Josemaría loved Africa deeply, with all the richness of its cultures and peoples, and he foresaw the immense good that its men and women would bring to society and to the building up of the Church. He often invited us to dream of great ideals.
What moves me most about the Work in Africa is the lives of the Africans themselves who live the spirit of Opus Dei. The Work is not something transplanted into Africa from outside; for nearly seventy years, Africans from many different countries have been living this spirit in their own way, within their own reality. Opus Dei is African because it is Catholic: universal, just like the message of the Gospel. And we are already seeing Opus Dei expand outward from Africa to other parts of the world, carrying a vibrant testimony of faith and joy.
This coming June, Pope Leo will visit Spain, the country where the Work was born, for the first time. How do you think the faithful should prepare for this event?
The motto of the journey (“Lift up your eyes”) is an invitation to look at our reality from beyond merely human logic, to let ourselves be drawn into the supernatural vision that God’s love opens up for us. Drawing closer to him in those who are in need, through concrete gestures and works of mercy, we prepare our hearts to receive Jesus in them: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me (Mt 25:40).
Saint Josemaría, echoing Saint Catherine of Siena, used to call the Pope “the sweet Christ on earth.” Another essential way to prepare for the Holy Father’s visit is by praying for him personally and for the fruits of the journey: that every heart may be open to hear his words, receive them with devotion, and let them resonate in every corner of society.
The Christian faith carries profound social implications, and this dimension is usually present in a papal journey, which is also, of course, a state visit. But the heart of the matter is simpler and deeper: the Pope helps us encounter Jesus Christ. And it is only in Jesus Christ, and with Jesus Christ, that life finds its full meaning, and that the challenges facing humanity can be faced with genuine hope.
The text above is our own translation of the interview. Read the text on Exaudi in English here and in the original Spanish here.