It’s been one year since Matt, Matt and Val passed from this world. I was with them that day, and they are still very much with me now.
Last June 18th, Matt Anthony and Matt Schoenecker heroically tried to save Val Creus from drowning while on a hiking trip during a workshop for numerary members of Opus Dei in California. All three drowned.
I and the others did not have a line of sight to see what happened in the water after both Matts jumped off the ledge to help Val. We suspected that things had taken a turn for the worse when they didn’t return after a few minutes. We searched the area and did not find them.
On this one-year anniversary, I want to share some of my memories of their exemplary lives, including their admirable behavior on the day they died
Although I never lived with them for more than the few weeks we spent together on workshops, I got to know all three of them over the course of thirty years, and in the days after their passing I asked some of those who lived with them to share their memories with me so that I could know them better.
Both Matts were unhesitatingly courageous in going in to save Val. Risking their lives to save him was second nature to these men who had lived lives of constant and dedicated service to God and others.
They are models for me. Now I deal with them frequently. They help me, and with these remembrances, I hope they will help you.
Remembering their generosity
All three men were models of fidelity and generosity to God, to friends and to the large and small commitments they made in daily life, including living out their vocations as numerary members of Opus Dei.
They were great friends to their friends. They were men of prayer and gifted spiritual advisers. They were magnanimous, or great-souled, corresponding to God’s grace to become their best selves in the service of others. They were excellent in their professional work. I think each in his own way was a model of good humor, maintaining joy, calm and perspective amid life’s challenges, using gentle wit and good cheer to lift others’ spirits, all rooted in humility and trust in God. People trusted them because they were very good and they cared.
Matt Schoenecker
Matt Schoenecker was always available for others, and he had a habit of perceiving others’ needs and helping them without hesitation. He was also very organized, which multiplied his capacity for service. All this was clear at the beginning of our workshop at Trumbull Manor, when Matt arrived with a prepared list of exciting excursions to propose to the others there.
He was always ready to go the extra mile for his friends, in this case literally. About a half-hour into the hike, we realized that a few of the guys were behind, so we waited for them. One of them arrived and told us that the other had received a call from his family about a distressful situation and had returned to the car where he would have phone reception to accompany his family by phone all day, so he would not join us for the hike.
We realized that the fellow had no way of charging his phone and would lose contact with his family. Matt immediately volunteered to go to the car to provide him a means of charging his phone. The round trip was about a mile over rocky terrain and he ran all the way to avoid delaying our hike.
Matt’s availability and attention to people’s needs was also evident in conversation. He had a way of attending to people that was striking. I remember being impressed at just how closely he would pay attention to me in conversation with a penetrating look of interest, really zeroing in on me and what I had to say. When I share this experience with others they exclaim, “exactly!”
In remembering Matt, friends comment on just how faithfully he directed Tilden Study Center in Los Angeles, took care of those who lived with him, planned and ran high school programs, and lived the spirit and customs that St. Josemaria taught to members of Opus Dei. Young men and parents mention his extraordinary availability to spend time with them when he lived in Southern California.
Val Creus
Though Val was a physically small person - perhaps 5’5” - you could never contain his generosity and love. Big things come in small packages!
Abundant generosity and service were Val’s way of life, even in small things. When I went outside on the morning of the excursion, I immediately realized Val had been involved in the prep work for the trip. He and Matt rented an SUV and bought food and water in abundance. I remember thinking we had more food than we could ever hope to eat, and it was great because it was part of Val’s abundance.
He was always introducing, connecting and helping people, in professional life (he was an accountant for over 35 years), mentoring youth and young professionals, and assisting in the spiritual care of members of Opus Dei and others. I have heard stories of how he helped young people to be generous in launching out in their lives.
About a half hour into the hike, Val came up alongside me and said something like, “John, so many young men are hesitant or distracted or fearful about launching out into their lives – getting married, having a family, being generous, striving for excellence. Many tend to put off the greatest and most rewarding endeavors of their lives. We need to start a program for college grads and young professionals to help them with the encouragement and practical wisdom they need to go ahead and start a family and make commitments in their lives, and to thrive personally and professionally.”
I agreed, but he was in Los Angeles and I was in Dallas, so what could we do… I responded, “How about a podcast that can reach people everywhere featuring interviews with ordinary but wise and exemplary men?” He liked it.
There we were in the wilderness, and the thing on Val’s mind was helping young men to develop as men, to be more generous, and ultimately happier, and along the way sharing his enthusiasm and inspiring me to do the same. After that day, Val was an important part of the inspiration for Paul Ybarra’s new podcast, Forge the Man.
I am always filled with joy and peace when I think of Val. He was imperturbably cheerful, even when teased, and he was good at poking fun at people in an endearing way, always with a positive tone. And he seemed to never get upset, rolling with the punches that come in life. He always maximized fun and friendship, even through the last day of his life here on Earth.
Matt Anthony
Before seeing him for the first time in over a decade, I had been more familiar with a big, boisterous, fun-loving, really competitive, and really smart Matt Anthony. But when I worked with him during a June 2025 visit to Dallas for some meetings with my team, I was deeply impressed by his excellent qualities of work and leadership and his great refinement in dealing with people.
He had shaped his highly competitive and hard driving personality into a profound capacity for professional work and leadership, while at the same time further developing his great capacity for friendship. He was an intense worker yet cheerful, refined and diplomatic. Having been naturally Type A and energetically boisterous, his calmness in dealing with people and situations was developed over time.
He developed these qualities through his life of service. He taught for some years at the Heights School in Washington, D.C. and then moved to Chicago and later to New York City to organize and direct leadership activities for young men throughout the United States. He then took his talents to Rome to do similar work for the entire world. He returned to New York after a few years as part of the leadership team for all of Opus Dei’s activities throughout the US and Canada. In seeing him again and talking with him last summer, and speaking to many people who knew him, I came to have the highest respect for Matt as someone who intentionally honed his character over time on all fronts.
People who worked with him in recent years have told me he had the qualities to be a great CEO of a large company. But he was working full-time for Opus Dei. Unseen. No big paycheck. No nice car. No public prestige. Just working to give glory to God and for the good of souls and doing it exceedingly well. And he was very happy.
Comforting Graces
I want to offer some comfort to all who miss Matt, Matt and Val. Everyone has their own experience, and I can’t tell anyone how to process their grief, but I can offer the light of faith and hope in a very specific way by sharing the grace that God gave me in the minutes following their passing. It has brought me peace and hope throughout the year.
Almost immediately after realizing that they had drowned, I experienced God’s mercy in a natural and unspectacular way. A grace so subtle that only faith confirms it is from God.
The first thought that kept coming back to me was that thanks to the holiness of their lives and the love and mercy of Our Father God, their path to heaven was quick. Already I had the confident personal conviction that they were in heaven, and that is a very, very good thing. I could have experienced many thoughts and emotions in those moments, but foremost in my mind was the confidence of their arrival in heaven.
A few minutes later, I felt the profound and consoling assurance that God would draw great good out of the events of that day and out of their lives. Not just a great good, but somehow in the mystery of God’s wisdom and providence, even though they were so talented, capable and generous in their lives on earth and could have continued doing much good, God would draw out even greater good.
After we made contact with the authorities through the emergency satellite feature of one of our phones, we prayed the rosary. Another consolation. In a very calm and unspectacular way I sensed that Matt, Matt and Val were praying the rosary together with us.
None of this is to say that I didn’t suffer sorrow and distress at their deaths. We are all human and have human hearts. But as humans, we are children of God. We are in God’s hands, and so are Matt, Matt and Val. In the communion of saints, they are closer to God and closer to each of us than they were on earth.
Reflecting on these moments and graces I see a possible pattern of healing for those struggling with pain, sorrow or bewilderment over their deaths.
First, I personally think we can be confident they are with God in heaven, which is the very best thing that can happen to a person, the best thing we can ultimately desire for ourselves and our friends as our ultimate destination.
Second, I believe we can have a confident hope that God will draw great good from their lives and their deaths. By their lives they are witnesses to the goodness of God. I think God will use their deaths as a way of shining light on their exemplary lives for the good of many people.
Third, I am convinced they are praying with us and interceding for us. We have close friends in heaven with God.
I am grateful for their lives and their friendship on earth and in heaven.
Remembering More
Over the past year and in recent days it has been profoundly helpful to me to consider the lives and characters of Matt, Matt and Val. Knowing them well helps me turn to them for specific needs, and I encourage my friends and all who knew them to join me in this private devotion. I would suggest to people, for example, they can ask Matt Schoenecker to help them be attentive to people and their needs; they can ask Val to help them be more joyful, other-centered, and abundantly generous; and they can ask Matt Anthony to help hone their character and become better professionals in the service of God and others. And I ask all of three of them to help obtain grace of complete self-giving in the service of God and souls.
I hope that at some point a good writer will turn our memories of these men into biographies of their lives for the edification of many. I’m trying to do my part by sharing my own recollections. I encourage all who knew these three men to share their recollections here.
You can listen here to an audio podcast interview of John K. with memories of Matt, Matt and Val.