Mons. Fernando Ocáriz, Prelate of Opus Dei, highlighted that priests “do not transmit only ideas or doctrines but Jesus Christ,” in a meeting with priests in Quito, Ecuador, as part of his tour through Latin America, which has already taken him to countries like Chile, Colombia and Peru.
This tour takes place on the 50th anniversary of a similar trip made in 1974 by Saint Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei, in which he visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Guatemala.
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The meeting of Bishop Ocáriz with the Ecuadorian priests took place in Ilaloma, the Opus Dei retreat house in Quito, in which around 50 priests from various dioceses, the auxiliary bishops of Quito, Bishop Danilo Echeverría and Bishop. David Delatorre, and a group of seminarians.
In his reflection, he points out the website of Opus Dei, the Prelate highlighted the importance of the work of the priest, who must have the Eucharist as the center of his interior life.
He also said that each person is worth the blood of Christ and, in that sense, he stressed that “one soul is worth all our effort.”
Following the teachings of Saint Josemaría, Bishop Ocáriz remarked that “with the passage of time it may seem that we are going backwards, but in reality it is that we have more perspective and we see our defects more clearly. And when we see our defects to continue fighting.”
He also encouraged them not to be discouraged by the limitations, “that we will improve them but at the same time being more aware of our defects.”
Returning to the centrality of Christ, the Prelate of Opus Dei specified that if there is a desire for holiness, they will be able to improve with a greater love.
Bishop Ocáriz also encouraged them to collaborate with unity, priestly fraternity and to be united in prayer for the Pope.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.