Jack Smith/Key photo A portrait of St. Josemaria Escriva was placed in front of the altar at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church at a Mass celebrating his June 26 feast day.

Bishop Finn said the 20th century saint who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002 had "a great zeal for the universal call to holiness that each one of us in our everyday lives can find a pathway to Christ and become messengers" of his Gospel.

Describing how St. Josemaria first brought this message to men, particularly students, and then women, Bishop Finn said that God lastly "made it clear to St. Josemaria that diocesan priests had a special need to be engaged in the work." While order priests "might have the formation and support of their communities," St. Josemaria saw the need to call diocesan priests "to establish a structure and plan for their life much like that of other working people in the world."

Opus Dei now counts nearly 90,000 members in 60 countries. Ninety-eight percent of members are laypersons and most are married. Separately, about 4,000 diocesan priests, including Bishop Finn, belong to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, who, while remaining incardinated in and solely responsible to their dioceses, they also seek sanctity according to the spirit of Opus Dei.

That spirit, Bishop Finn said in his homily involves "a simple way to carry in our work a deep sense of God's presence and providence calling each one of us to become holy, not despite our work, but through and in our work."

Whether involved in "a highly complex, technical task or manual labor," Bishop Finn said, "when we offer these things to God, when we make of them a gift of ourselves to Almighty God, then we can grow in holiness . and find a way of joy and living for him."

Describing how the readings for the feast day "have a particular closeness to some of the beautiful understandings that our Lord himself gave to St. Josemaria," Bishop Finn demonstrated and later said, "The teaching of this holy priest was not some kind of extraordinary notion or foreign to the Gospel."

Bishop Finn explained that St. Josemaria was "very insistent that at the very heart and soul of this simple way . is to realize our divine filiation; that we are a son or a daughter of the Father." This realization, Bishop Finn said, "gives us great dignity and great hope and excitement - it changes everything."

Turning to the Gospel reading where Christ visits the apostles as they've spent a fruitless night fishing, Bishop Finn said, "Our Lord bids them to trust Him - Put out into the deep and lower the nets for a catch." Here, the Lord is seen with the apostles and "guides them in the midst of their work," Bishop Finn explained. "In great confidence and trust, Simon Peter and the other apostles obey the direction of the Lord in the midst of their work," he said, and thus realize a fruitful bounty.

Bishop Finn explained how St. Josemaria taught "we must be very daring in trust and confidence . that [God] is going to accomplish greater things than we can do ourselves."

Bishop Finn said this trust can be "scary and unsettling," particularly when "we don't always know what our Lord is asking us."

However, Bishop Finn assured, "If we trust him, he'll accomplish wonderful things and we'll look back like Peter in amazement and wonder why we didn't try to follow him more closely and sooner."

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