Sunday, August 23, 2015

Today: Locution: 8/23/1971


August 5, 1982 was the date that John Paul II approved Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature and ordered it published on August 23, 1982, the anniversary of the locution received by8/23/71 by St. Josemaria Escriva: “Adeamus cum fiduciaadthronumgloriaeutmisericordiamconsequamur.

Explanation of St. Josemaria afterwards: "Voy a deciros algo que Dios Nuestro Senor quiere que sepais. Los hijos de Dios en el Opus Dei: Adeamus cum fiducia – hemos de ir con much fe – ad thronum gloriae, al trono de la gloria, la Virgen Santisima, Madre de Dios y Madre Nuestra, a la que tantas veces invocamos como Sedes Sapientiae, ut misericordiam consequamur, para alcanzar misericordia (…).

"Que lo tengais muy en cuenta en estos momentos y tambien despues. Yo diria que es un querer de Dios: que metamos Nuestra vida interior personal dentro de esas palabras que os acabo de decir. A veces las escuchareis sin ruido ninguno, en la intimdad de vuestra alma, cuando menos lo espereis. 'Adeamus cum fiducia: id – repito –en confianza al Corazon Dulcisimo de Maria, quees Madre nuestra y Madre de Jesus. Y con Ella, queesMedianera de todaslas gracias, al Corazon Sacratisimo y Misericordioso de Jesucristo.”

Footnote 55 on p. 426 of V. de PVol III: “Archbishop Julian Herranz tells us something interesting. He heard about this supernatural incident from the founder himself, shortly after the return from Caglio. At this time the work on Cavabianca… had already begun, and the Father asked that they put there a stone bas-relief which would show our Lady seated on a throne and being crowned by the Blessed Trinity. At its base would be engraved the words of the locution. The Father suggested that while they awaited the juridical solution to the institutional problem of the Work, those words should be prayed as an aspiration, to obtain from our Lady the desired solution. That was a suggestion that his children acted on for years. ‘And so,’ concludes Archbishop Herranz, ‘very great were our joy and our gratitude to the Blessed Virgin when the Pope (who knew nothing about this) made public his decision to establish Opus Dei as a personal prelature on August 23, 1982 – the anniversaryof the special divine light received by the founder eleven years earlier.” 

Opus Dei was not publically proclaimed a Personal Prelature until November 28, 1982, the first Sunday of Advent.  The reason it was not proclaimed on August 23 to coincide with the above locution (as the pope wanted)was a mistaken leak of those constitutional documents to the media which jeopardized the privileged silence of office needed for the private and free consultation with the respective bishops throughout the world for their free acceptance of Opus in their dioceses as a Personal Prelature. John Paul II, being informed of this state of affairs, for the sake of prudence, decided to delay the public notification from the Vatican until November 28 when everyone and everything would be in place and duly notified and consulted with no surprises.
cf. Vazquez de Prada Vol. III 425-430. 

After  the locutions of 1970 and 1971, consider the following flurry of apostolic activity: Summer of 1972: Two months of Catechesis is thought up and begun – interspersed with the Escriva’s three “Last Madnesses.” The building of Cavabianca, the building of Torreciudad and Morir a Tiempo [to die on time].





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