What really Happened on that 2nd of October 1928?

By Fr. Casmir Odundo, Kibet (St. Veronica Parish, Keringet, Nakuru)

“Domine ut Videam, Domina ut Sit!” A young seminarian, Josemaria Escriva, prayed. He was asking for   light to see. Just as the blind man Bartimaeus, in the Gospel of Mark had asked Our Lord. He continued with this aspiration (repeating it innumerable times) for over eleven years, till on that 2^nd October 1928 when he finally SAW.

According to the Positio, document presented for the Beatification of Monsignior Josemaria Escriva: "On 2^nd October,1928, while the Servant of God was alone in his room, participating in a retreat in the residence of the Vincentian Fathers of Madrid, on Garcia de Paredes St., God deigned to illuminate him. He SAW Opus Dei, as the Lord wanted it and as it would be, down through the centuries.”

He was only 3 years a priest when God granted him this vision.  As Beglar notes in his biography of the saint: “On that 2^nd October 1928, Escriva's apprenticeship ended; his mission was entrusted to him, and its fulfillment began.”  

In the silence of his room during that retreat, Escriva heard -- "in the distance"-- the bells of the church, Our Lady of the Angels. These bells rang on that Feast of the Guardian Angels,  in the church dedicated to the Queen of the Angels.

It is not clear to many what exactly Escriva SAW (he rarely spoke of it, out of humility and prudence. He understood that God, not him, was the founder of Opus Dei) but many scholars have come to conclude that it was a mystical experience. Years, later, Escriva remarked that, “he had never ceased hearing those bells.” For those of us who have been to seminaries and those in religious life, know how important the bell is. “The Bell is the voice of God.” On that day, Escriva had thus heard God’s voice.

Beglar notes: “On that day, Escriva saw not only the field that would yield so much fruit in the future, but also the way to plow this field forever.” In a figurative way, Beglar adds: “Josemaria Escriva, unable to see clearly, able only to guess in the dark, had already handed God a blank check out of love, a commitment to total self- surrender and dedication. Only now did he realize what it was that he had signed, and for what purpose the check was about to be cashed.”

That this vision happened on the memorial of the Guardian Angels with bells from the Chapel of Our Lady of Angels in the background, is not something to be taken for granted. St. Josemaria Escriva placed the whole of Opus Dei under the protection of the Angels.

He had withdrawn to his room, after Mass, to organize, reread, and pray about the notes he had been jotting down on that morning of 2^nd October 1928. "But instead of seeing his notes, he saw the Work as it would be until the end of time." 

"From that moment on," Escriva would say later, "I never knew peace, and I began to work -- unwillingly, because I did not want to be the founder of anything."

(More information can be read in Escriva’s biographies by Prada, Helming and  Beglar)