Opus Dei

Saint Josemaría was a man with many good friends. He always valued friendship as one of the great treasures of life, and he left this message as a legacy to the faithful of the Work. Pablo Pérez, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Navarra, spoke of St Josemaría's lasting and deep friendship with Francisco Moreno and Enrique Giménez Arnau, two friends he met in his youth in Zaragoza. This is an English adaptation of that account.

At the end of 1937 Saint Josemaría and some of the first members of Opus Dei and friends crossed the Pyrenees to the so-called national zone, where it was easier for Saint Josemaría to continue his priestly work. During this crossing, there were some particularly risky and difficult moments. The historian José Carlos Martín de la Hoz recounts one of them.

In March 1937, in the middle of the civil war, Saint Josemaría spent four and a half months locked up with some members of Opus Dei and a dozen families in the Legation of Honduras, a building located very close to the Plaza de Emilio Castelar in Madrid, as it had diplomatic immunity. Those months of isolation were also a period of spiritual growth for Saint Josemaría and those who accompanied him.

In this podcast series, various historians speak about people and events in the life of Saint Josemaría and the history of Opus Dei. Over the next 10 weeks, a new podcast will be made available each week.

Based on the surprising story of Irene Kalpas, Pablo Pérez, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Navarra, explains how the story of Opus Dei can be told through each of the people who have found their way to God in this institution of the Catholic Church.