Opus Dei

“Our feelings need to be formed, to mature, to learn; they tell us the truth about ourselves and about our relationships. We need to make this aspect of our being an integral part of our response to God, in order to be able to make decisions that involve our life in time.”

During the 75th anniversary year of Opus Dei coming to Britain we are posting a number of videos telling stories of lives changed by faith. This is Mary's story.

The Prelate of Opus Dei informs us that he will convoke an Extraordinary General Congress in the first half of 2023 in order to make the changes to the Statutes indicated in "Ad charisma tuendum."

The Eucharist makes Jesus Christ present. He invites us to accept the salvation that He offers us, and to receive the gift of His Body and Blood as the food of eternal life. Our Lord announced the Eucharist during his public life and instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. When the Church celebrates this sacrament, she follows the Eucharistic rite carried out by Christ at the Last Supper.

Only voluntary actions are the object of a moral evaluation properly speaking. The education of the complex world of feelings is a fundamental part of Christian formation and life. The path for ordering the passions is the acquisition of moral habits called virtues. The object, the intention and the circumstances are the “sources” or constitutive elements of the morality of human acts.

The Holy Mass makes present, in the Church’s daily liturgical life, the one sacrifice of our redemption. The Mass is a true and proper sacrifice because it makes sacramentally present the one, perfect and definitive sacrifice of the Cross. The faithful can and should participate in the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. The desire to receive Holy Communion should always be present in Christians: what food produces in the body for the good of physical life, the Eucharist produces in the soul.

Marriage is an institution foreseen by God in his wisdom, so as to carry out in humanity his divine plan of love. It is born of the personal and irrevocable consent of the spouses. The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility. This special covenant is ordered to the procreation and education of children, who are the most excellent gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of their parents.

Baptism incorporates the person who receives it into the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ and into his saving action. This sacrament leaves in the Christian an indelible spiritual seal of belonging to Christ. Through Confirmation, Christians participate more fully in Christ’s mission and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. A baptised and confirmed Christian is destined to take part in the Church’s mission of evangelising by virtue of these two sacraments.

The fourth commandment is a connecting point between the previous three and the six subsequent one: family relationships reveal the mysterious interpenetration between divine and human love that is at the origin of each person. Parents have the responsibility to create a home, a family space where love, forgiveness, respect, fidelity and selfless service can be lived.

The Statutes of Opus Dei were promulgated by Pope St John Paul II in 1982. Written in Latin, they define precisely the juridical configuration of the Prelature, its organization, and its aims.