Romana

On Saturday, February 24, a high relief of St. Josemaría and Blessed Alvaro, two great friends of the Benedictine community of Santa Muntanya, was blessed in the surroundings of the monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat. The event was attended by more than 500 people from all over Catalonia.

The ceremony took place after the eleven o’clock conventual Mass. The Association of Cooperators of Catalonia, promoter of the event, invited all its members and friends to attend. It was presided over by the abbot of the monastery, Fr. Manel Gasch Hurios, and the Vicar of Opus Dei in Catalonia and Andorra, Mossèn Ignasi Pujol. St. Josemaría’s friendship with the community of Montserrat, Fr. Manel Gasch said in his homily, “began during the Civil War years with the community of monks exiled in Navarre. Several of our brothers, Fr. Abbot Gusi and especially Fr. Abbot Aureli M. Escarré, had a warm fraternal and friendly relationship with St. Josemaría over many years. We are fortunate to have within everyone’s reach the correspondence between them and a very detailed account of this relationship.”

The high relief is the work of the sculptor Rebeca Muñoz. Beneath the full-length figures of St. Josemaría and Blessed Alvaro, the pedestal on which they rest has a quote on the top from The Way: “A Jesús sempre s’hi va i s’hi torna per Maria” (To Jesus we always go, and to him we always return, through Mary).

Four months later, on June 26, for the feast of St. Josemaría, over 400 hundred people filled the parish church of Sant Llorenç, in Lleida, where Bishop Salvador Giménez celebrated Mass and blessed a bas-relief of the saint. It was the parishioners of the parish who, in memory of the stays of the founder of Opus Dei in the city, promoted the initiative and paid for it with their donations.