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Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, the Spanish bishop who worked as an engineer before becoming the first prelate of Opus Dei, was remembered at a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral a month after he was beatified in his native Madrid.
Cardinal Dolan served as principal celebrant and homilist at the Oct. 26 Mass. Concelebrants included Msgr. Thomas Bohlin, vicar of Opus Dei for the United States.
The organization’s national headquarters is in Manhattan. Opus Dei is Latin for Work of God.
The Church rejoices in the beatification of Blessed Alvaro, Cardinal Dolan said in his greeting to the cathedral congregation, which included numerous members and representatives of Opus Dei, and their families.
“What a great gift his example and intercession is to the Church universal,” Cardinal Dolan said.
Blessed Alvaro, who died in 1994, succeeded St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer as head of the personal prelature of Opus Dei. Beatification is a step toward sainthood.
In his homily, Cardinal Dolan said the saints of the Church teach so well how to adhere to the first commandment.
“If I understand the wisdom and the charism of Opus Dei properly—I sure admire it and I sure appreciate it— if I understand the wisdom and the teaching of St. Josemaria Escriva,” he advocated starting and ending every day with God, the cardinal said.
“Everything we do and dream and dare and say and think is under the influence of God’s grace,” he continued. “And when we err we put it under the influence of God’s mercy.”
Pablo Usandivaras, a member of Opus Dei, attended the Mass with his wife Melinda and their children Diego, 3, and Sofia Lourdes, who turns 1 in December.
The couple, who as a family attend Immaculate Conception parish in Queens, watched the beatification of Blessed Alvaro on television at home, they said.
They attended the cathedral Mass to pray for the intercession of Blessed Alvaro as a family living in New York.
“People who are on their way to become modern-day saints are so attractive to young people who are living in this city who have busy lives,” Mrs. Usandivaras said. “When we came in it was standing room only. There were so many families. It’s a beautiful representation of just how alive the Catholic Church is, and how much hope there is.”
Blessed Alvaro’s canonization cause was launched in December 2002. In July 2013, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing his intercession in the cure of a Chilean newborn, Jose Ignacio Ureta Wilson, who inexplicably revived after a cardiac arrest lasting more than 30 minutes.
“There’s also a lot of beauty in the miracle,” Mrs. Usandivaras said. “As a family, we can really appreciate and connect with the fact that he’s really interceding for the sake of other families.”
Msgr. Bohlin, who was also a concelebrant at Blessed Alvaro’s beatification Mass in Madrid, said he is grateful that the universality of the Opus Dei leaders’ message of holiness in ordinary life “is taking root.”
“In a certain sense, it’s a new call to holiness, that it is possible, in our daily lives, if we are faithful to God’s plan for each one of us, discovering what that is,” he added.
John F. Coverdale, also a member of Opus Dei in New York, has published a 2014 biography of Blessed Alvaro titled, “Saxum: The Life of Alvaro del Portillo.”
Of the Opus Dei leaders, Coverdale said he appreciates his “unusual privilege of knowing and having worked with one person who has been canonized and another who has been beatified.”
While that in itself “is a great joy, more important to me as a member of Opus Dei is to see the Church once again put its stamp of approval on the spirit of Opus Dei in saying yes, this is a path that leads to holiness and sanctity.”
Blessed Alvaro joined Opus Dei in 1935 and became one of its first three priests in June 1944. He was appointed the first prelate of the movement in 1982 and was consecrated a bishop in 1991 by St. John Paul II.
Catholic News Service contributed to this article.
