Spanish chemist and researcher, Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri (1916-1975), is the first lay member of Opus Dei to be beatified. The beatification took place in Madrid on Saturday, 18 May 2019. 20 minute summary of Beatification ceremony
Pope Francis: the new Blessed “put her many qualities at the service of others”
Pope Francis wanted to unite himself to the “joy and thanksgiving” for the beatification with a letter addressed to the Prelate of Opus Dei. In it, the Holy Father says Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri, “put her many human and spiritual qualities at the service of others, helping in a particular way other women and their families in need of education and development.” The Pontiff also noted that the new blessed “did all this not with a proselytizing attitude but simply through her prayer and witness”, “with the joy that came from knowing she was a daughter of God, as she had learned from Saint Josemaría himself.”
The new Blessed, the Holy Father writes, is a “witness of holiness lived out in the ordinary circumstances of her Christian life.” The example of her life serves as encouragement to always aspire “to this holiness of ‘normality’, which burns within our hearts with the fire of Christ’s love, and which the world and the Church are so in need of today.” Holiness, the Pontiff said, means, “opening one’s heart to God” and “going out of ourselves so as to meet others where Jesus awaits us, to bring them a word of encouragement, a helping hand, a look of tenderness and consolation.”The Pope concluded his message with the following words: “I also ask you not to stop praying for me, while at the same time I impart my Apostolic Blessing to you all. May Jesus bless you and may Our Lady look after you.”
