Macau Bishop Stephen Lee officiated a concelebrated Mass in honor of St Josemaría at the Macau Cathedral on Tuesday, 26 June at 6:45 PM. Around 300 people attended the Mass. Concelebrants included Fr Peter Stilwell; Fr Leonard Dollentas; Fr Daniel Ribeiro, SCJ; Fr Luís Manuel Fernandes Sequeira, SJ; Fr Vincentius Lam, SJ; Fr Peter Zhang, CDD; and Fr Francis Cheung, CDD.
In his homily, Bishop Lee commented on Saint Josemaría’s teaching that work is a path to holiness and is therefore possible for any ordinary Christian. He cited a point from Furrow, one of the saint’s books, where he writes about a person who is becoming a saint as she peels potatoes. All she needs to do is to do it well and raise it to God as an offering.
The bishop cited another point where St Josemaría had written: “When you started your ordinary work again, something like a groan of complaint escaped you: ‘It’s always the same!’
“And I told you: ‘Yes, it’s always the same. But that ordinary job —which is the same one your fellow workers do — has to be a constant prayer for you. It has the same lovable words, but a different tune each day.’
“It is very much our mission to transform the prose of this life into poetry, into heroic verse.”
St Josemaría Escrivá died in Rome on 26 June 1975. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 17 May 1992 and canonized by the same pope on 6 October 2002.
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