Opus Dei

[DL82]

Anybody have any experience in Opus Dei? I have been to a retreat with them here in Glasgow, and they seem like a very sound Catholic group. The priest who hears confessions at my church is also an Opus Dei priest, and he is an excellent confessor. I’m also attracted to the fact that they have a lot of young adult members.

I have been exploring the Secular Franciscan Order, and while they are wonderful people, there is about a 20 year age gap between me and the youngest member in the fraternity.

Opus seems to share with the Franciscans a passion for social justice in the world, and a penitential charism. The one thing they definitely DON’T share with the Franciscans is the love of poverty! Apart from that, they seem like a wonderful group of people.

At the same time, I have heard some pretty awful things, even from other Catholics, about people being driven to nervous breakdowns by their exacting standards (which just sounds like poor spiritual direction to me), about Opus Dei priests who still have fascist leanings, etc. I don’t know who to believe. I know NOT to believe Dan Brown, but beyond that, I don’t know who to believe.

Anybody here have any experience with Opus Dei?

 

[Marauder]

I have been exploring the Secular Franciscan Order, and while they are wonderful people, there is about a 20 year age gap between me and the youngest member in the fraternity.

I can’t address the Opus Dei portion of your thread but I can address the SFO portion. Remember that joining a group like SFO and Opus Dei isn’t like joining a club, it’s a calling. Don’t let age differences affect your calling.

When I first started investigating SFO the first fraternity I looked at had the same situation you mentioned. Due to other issues I put things on hold and looked at another fraternity a couple years later and found that the new fraternity had a couple people closer to my age (not many but a couple). But I have also found that people of all ages in the fraternity help give a well-rounded view of spirituality. Several of the older members of the fraternity seem to live closer to the ideals of St. Francis then the younger members. It is something I hope to achieve.

See if there is another fraternity near you that may be closer to what you are looking for.

 

[DAPDN]

I think I can help you with that one.

From my (excellent!) experience with Opus Dei, I can point you out some of the best and absolutely fundamental things that Opus Dei provides to its members, cooperators and friends, in order to progreed in your spiritual life and personal relation with Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

• Spiritual Direction and Regular Confession - to anyone who is interested in having it;
• Weekly Meditation - always leaded by a Priest;
• Doctrinal Formation - to whoever needs it, including protestants, people who are not even Christian and want to learn about Christianity and Catholicism;
• Retreats, once in a year for each person (recommended) - absolutely fabulous to redefine your life, to make the balance of the past year, to set up spiritual goals for your life and to improve your Christian life and your norms of piety, by making self, objective propositions;
• Recolections (don’t really know if the term in English is this…) at least once a month - recolections are some kind of “mini-retreat” of 2 hours long;
• 100% loyalty and devotion to Rome and the Pope (needs no further description)
• Guaranteed Orthodox Catholicism
• Great emphasis on sanctifying your work/study, on apostolate in your social environment, also having voluntariate activities for those wishing to participate - also, great emphasis on discovering God and His Will in your every-day life;
• Open to anyone who wishes to frequent these means of formation and of spiritual direction, and the activities above mentioned.

Okay, I think that this makes the most important of it. There’s a lot of other things I could tell you about, but I guess this makes for the most important or essential of it. If you want further information, send me a private message or something.

Pax Christi!

 

[Cran]

Well, my experiences with Opus Dei were neither terrible nor great, so I’ll chime in.

I had spiritual direction from a female Opus Dei member, being female myself.
She took her time, was very honest and gave good advice to the point. She wasn’t somewhere between the clouds This is, imho, a big PLUS of the Opus Dei.

But:
Her adivce often stopped at: it is written in the katechism. Duh. Doesn’t help a lot when you KNOW that but are still stuck, does it? Judging from the group that was around her who received also spiritual direction, I experienced the level of theological education and such as quite low (ok, ok, I am getting a master soon…). The rather strict seperation of male/female is also quite odd for me, I saw only priests and no other males - I do not regard this as beneficial for lay people living in the world, exchange is fruitful for both sides.

At his point, I was not happy with my confessor, but didn’t want to confess to a priest of Opus Dei,either, because I was wary of the it-is-in-the-katechism-approach I did experience in spiritual direction. But she pressured me very much to confess to one of their priests, which made me uncomfortable.

All in all, they are surley faithful to the magisterium, and give good spiritual direction, but you may experience some pressure to conform to their standards - but no brainwashing to do so
Sometimens I get the impression that OD is regarded as EVIL or HOLY - and nothing between. As stated above, not my experience.

 

[mmr]

Hi There

My Experience of opus dei has been really good. But its like an earlier poster mentioned, its a vocation, so God will tell you if its for you and no-one else. I have found great friendship and support and advice amongst the people of Opus dei, and most importantly sound, non-judgemental advice both spiritually and humanly. but equally I have friends who have felt it too intense for them. I think it has a huge amount to do with your stage in life and your temperment. It you are feeling stressed, or have a tendency to be a perfectionist, or not speak up for yourself when you feel uncomfortable about something… then its probably not a good mix. Opus dei are hugely apostolic, and I don’t think they try and hide or apologise for it, its why they exist. I really don’t get how they are constantly accused of being secretive, I have never met a more assertive bunch ( in a healthy way). So if you think you are being pressurised you have to be clear and articulate that, and set boundaries. I push back all the time, But honestly I also get such and positive reaction when I do , I think its almost encouraged.I think that opus dei is a great organisation, trying to help people get closer to God and to be better people. Its just not for everyone.