Letters to a Saint

Mar?a Del Rinc?n and Mar?a Teresa Escobar

LETTERS TO A SAINT

Letters from Guadalupe Ortiz to St Josemaria Escriva

? Copyright 2018 - Opus Dei Information Office -

List of contents

-- To the Reader. -- Preface. -- Guadalupe Ortiz: a profile. -- Timeline of Guadalupe's life. -- 1. With her feet on the ground: holiness in ordinary life. -- 2. Always close: in love with God. -- 3. A huge heart: apostolic joy. -- 4. Desire to serve: working for God. -- 5. Here I am: path and mission. -- Afterword.

To the Reader

When was the last time you had a letter from a friend? Maybe you get more excited about your email inbox or social network messages than a handwritten letter. You don't have to open an envelope or unfold a page to read what your friend is confiding to you ? just a click and you get it all converted into pixels. But whether handwritten or digital, have you ever had a message from someone who laid bare their soul in what they wrote to you?

These extracts from letters written by Guadalupe Ortiz to St Josemaria Escriva reflect the soul of a woman who learned to find God in the middle of the world. Guadalupe opened her heart and soul to St Josemaria, whom she always called "Father". The letters were written by someone who was convinced that Heaven was her destiny and the world was her path there.

In 1944, when Guadalupe, a chemistry teacher, first met St Josemaria, she discovered that God was offering her a path to holiness in the middle of the world, through her professional work. A few months after that encounter, she wrote him a letter beginning, like all her letters to him from then on, "Father," in which she asked to join Opus Dei. That was the first of 350 letters that she wrote to him, beginning on 19 March 1944, and ending on 22 June 1975, four days before St Josemaria died in Rome.

Those 350 letters containing thousands of words were written by hand to a saint. Guadalupe wrote to St Josemaria regularly for just over thirty years. She did not expect any reply, because all she wanted to do was to open her soul to him, showing herself as she was, in total sincerity and trust. In her letters she freely related everything to do with her spiritual life, very often as the outcome of a time spent in mental prayer. "In my prayer, in the letters I write to you, and when I talk to Don Pedro, I unburden myself of everything that worries me, and then I feel so much lighter and ready to take whatever Our Lord may lay on

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my shoulders,"1 Guadalupe confessed in one of her letters from Mexico. Her letters were written as naturally as a daughter writing to her father, with the simplicity that came from having shared her confidences with God in prayer. Guadalupe asked for light and prayers from the saint who had received a special grace from God to open up a new path to holiness in the world. "I write to you, Father, so that, as usual, you can continue getting to know me in depth, helping me and praying for me."2

More than 40 years have gone by since Guadalupe wrote the last of her letters to St Josemaria, and only now are we beginning to realize what a treasure they contain. From our standpoint, we can look back and read them in a new light: they are words written by a saint to a saint. St Josemaria's canonization in 2002, and Guadalupe's forthcoming beatification on 18 May 2019, confirm that the light which God entrusted to St Josemaria when he was just a young priest from Barbastro is not only for a small group of people but for all Christians, in the most varied situations of life and work.

Guadalupe understood that this path to holiness through everyday work and ordinary life was the way along which God was calling her, and so her letters are a great help for Christians who are seeking to love God in the middle of the world. In her letters, Guadalupe reveals how to live face-to-face with God amidst everyday occupations, so that the extracts collected in this book can help people to pray. As we read what Guadalupe wrote we understand that saints are people of flesh and blood, and we feel encouraged to ask for help, like her, on our path to Heaven.

This selection from Guadalupe's letters to St Josemaria is published in the hope that, like her, we may all learn to find God in the most ordinary circumstances of our everyday lives.

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