Opus Dei

Joaquin Romero has been wheelchair-bound with multiple sclerosis for almost 20 years. But he refuses to give in to pessimism and has no doubt that his disability is “a caress from God.”

It was 2004. With only 16 seconds left in our game against Real Madrid the coach finally noticed me. I was 19 at the time and more than a little nervous . . .

Dr. Sylvia Sesé is an internist at Monkole Hospital, an apostolic work of Opus Dei in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Josefina Caprile from Argentina is a widow and the mother of eight children. Even so, she manages to write novels. She writes with a basic idea: books have to be interesting or no one will read them.

Molly, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, talks about living her faith at the university and recalls how that faith was tested by the recent death of her mother.

Sergei, a 28-year-old historian, is a Russian Orthodox cooperator of Opus Dei who found St. Josemaría on the Internet in his hometown of Ryazan.

Celina, a 23-year-old Chinese, is studying to be a concert pianist in Austria. After suffering a personal tragedy, she found new friends, and the path to God, in a student residence in Vienna.

Mercé is a nurse, although at present her full-time occupation is learning Korean. Along with other women of Opus Dei, she recently moved to Korea to help begin the apostolic work there.

Dawn Ribnek is a nurse practitioner in Chicago, Illinois, and a member of Opus Dei. She was on a service project in Haiti when the country was struck by the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010.

Claudia Valbuena never dreamt she would live in a place so far from her native Chile. She arrived in Almaty more than 10 years ago to begin Opus Dei. “Becoming Kazakh” has been a long process, but she already feels half Kazakh…