Blessed Alvaro del Portillo Newsletter No. 10 (2022)

Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, Saint Josemaría's first successor at the head of Opus Dei, was beatified on 27 September 2014. His feast is celebrated on 12 May, the day on which he made his First Holy Communion at the age of seven in 1921. We offer a recent Newsletter about his love for the Holy Mass.

Download Newsletter no. 10 here.

To see Blessed Alvaro celebrate the Eucharist was very impressive. The priest who normally served his Mass described him as celebrating it “with great recollection, slowly, absorbed in the mystery.” One of his biographers says: “Above all, I was impressed by his intensity at the moment of Consecration. He said the words slowly, in a way that was both natural and solemn. When he elevated the Body and Blood, he kept his eyes fixed upon the Eucharistic Species, and lifted his arms as far as he could. It made me feel as though heaven and earth almost physically came together at that moment.”

Convinced of the importance of Holy Mass, Blessed Alvaro preached and wrote a great deal about it. In this Newsletter we include three excerpts from his writings on the value of the Eucharist.