20/03/2023

Saint Josemaría, the man who speaks of the holiest things, like St. Teresa or St. John of the Cross..., but in the language of Galdós

Philologist Fidel Sebastián has published an annotated edition of The Way, the magnum opus of the founder of Opus Dei, and presented it at UIC Barcelona, accompanied by Guillermo Serés, member of the Royal Spanish Academy. The event was attended by almost fifty people and offered an overview of the reasons for publishing this book and what the extensive study of Escrivá de Balaguer’s seminal text meant for the author.

As the 100th edition of Saint Josemaría’s first work is about to hit the shelves, Fidel Sebastián’s book, published by the Centro para la Edición de Clásicos Españoles, places Saint Josemaría and his text among the classics of spiritual literature. Guillermo Serés, presenter of this event, explained how “this wonderfully annotated edition has brought the first edition and rewritings, made by the saint himself, to life once more”.

Fidel Sebastián is a specialist philologist in the Spanish Golden Age and has published many works, including Santa Teresa de Jesús. Libro de la vida (‘A book on the life of Saint Teresa of Ávila’) and Introducción del símbolo de la fe de fray Luis de Granada, (‘An Introduction to the Symbol of Faith by Fray Luis of Granada’), both for the Royal Spanish Academy’s Classic Library. In order to complete his latest text, he studied the almost 100 existing editions, and as well as “discovering the mystic Escrivá”, Sebastián states that “The Way is a classic because it’s message will endure through time”.

He also assures that “Saint Josemaría speaks of the holiest things, like Saint Teresa, or Saint John of the Cross, but in a more accessible language that is much closer to the style of say, Galdós. In other words, the language of the people, neither too clerical nor too formal, just plain and simple”.

The exhaustive annotation containing 999 points about The Way helps the 21st century reader to understand the text and position each point in its linguistic, religious, historical and cultural context. As Serés says, “we are in the presence of as much a document as a monument”.