What does God’s voice sound like when He calls young people today?

There are as many answers to that question as there are people. He speaks through the dreams and aspirations that inspire us, the provocative questions that knock us out of our usual routines, and the gift of peace that makes us confident we’re on the right path.

In this video series, young people from Australia, France, Italy, South Africa, Spain, and the United States share how they discovered their vocation to Opus Dei. Every story is different, but they all have something in common: the certainty that God still calls us today, in the middle of ordinary life, with words we can always hear in the depths of our hearts.

Transcript (abridged)

I never met my grandfather, but he changed my life. He died many years ago in an accident, and since then, every year, the family gets together on the day we commemorate his death, January 25, for a Mass in a Hall of Residence, in Bonaigua, Barcelona (Spain). 

Many years ago, at one of those Masses, almost at the end of the Mass, after I received Communion and was praying with my family, I felt this intense sense of restlessness. The feeling was at once very annoying and yet also brought me peace. From that time on, something changed in me, because without looking for anything, I felt a restlessness was just humanly unexplainable. I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

I had a good relationship with one of the teachers at my school. He is a member of Opus Dei, and I told him, “Look, I’m restless, I don’t know what's wrong with me. Now that we’re finishing high school, I'm going to Barcelona, and I’d like you to take me to a university center of the Work where I can be with people and receive formation.”

I wanted to resolve some issues because I wasn't at peace. On the first weekend of October I was invited to make a spiritual retreat in Torreciudad, a sanctuary in Aragon (Spain). And as I had this serious worry, I thought that it could be very good for me, to help me see my life more clearly. 

At the retreat, on October 2... I remember as if it were yesterday! I was praying and I saw very clearly that God was calling me to a vocation in the Work, as an associate of Opus Dei. I clearly saw that it was from God, because I didn’t really know any associates, hardly.

It would have made sense for me to have asked for admission with a modality I had seen in others, but I didn’t. I knew that it was coming from God. I had to read, and I asked a lot of questions: “What are associates? How do you live the vocation? What does it mean?” 

I decided to be an associate because I saw that God was asking me for my whole life, my whole heart, but without doing anything odd, without changing my life, still being who I was in the midst of my family, with my friends, at university, in my day to day life... without changing anything.

My grandfather was a member of Opus Dei and although I never met him, I have talked to my grandmother, who I am lucky enough to live with, and many people others who knew him, and they’ve told me that he was a busy person, a businessman, out all day, working a lot; he cared for his children and his wife; he was taking care of people all day long… He had the same ideal as I do. We share the same vocation.

I'm happy, I'm very happy. I know that God has had a plan for me specifically, for me, Santi, since the beginning of time. Realizing that I've given maybe 1%, and God has given me a hundredfold, that has sweetened my life. And being able to share that love and happiness with the people around me, at university, my family… Nothing could make me happier. I am happy.