There’s a docuseries on Max exposing the Roman “Catholic” cult named Opus Dei (Latin for “work of God”) titled How I Left the Opus Dei.
The subjects were women from poor families, recruited when they were young.
Opus Dei housed them in a fancy estate (all under the auspices of Christian poverty, of course), and promised them legitimate credentials as hospitality experts only to enslave them as housekeepers and cooks.
Others, due to rank, yet confined to an Opus Dei center, were sent into the real world to work and evangelize. The money they earned doing real work went straight to Opus Dei, the organization trafficking their labor. In turn, they would beg their spiritual superiors — the ones ideally holier than they — to give them funds for living necessities, such as toiletries.
But hey, that was all for the greater good of serving God. They serve God by serving their masters out of humble obedience, never questioning how the Holy Spirit worked through them despite their frequent hypocrisy and authoritarian behavior.
These poor women were adding stars to their crown through “mortification,” especially when they tightened their cilices around their thighs “except on holidays” because their founder, “Saint” Josemaria Escriva, flagellated himself so much that there purportedly was blood on the walls and ceiling (read here and here).
A day with the living saint
Josemaria lights up to relax and admire the new bloodstains on his wall. Damn, that was a good whipping. He really got carried away this time! Look at all that blood.
Deo omnis gloria.
But the guilt over his cigarette overwhelms him. Now he begins to pray.
Fortunately, his Mexican slave girl faithfully recounted this prayer years later to her confessor, and Escriva biographer, Fr. Juan Pablo. It’s a true recollection because this prayer is so pious.
Hear his prayer
Lord, I had glorified you through self-mortification just now only to reach for my Los Rojos Marlboros! But you, O Lord, were never offered a cigarrillo on the cross! No, no, no! Instead, those perfidious Jews mocked you while you were only offered vinegar and gall!
Oh, Lord! If only I was there! I would have offered you my cigarrillo! But maybe that cigarrillo would have given you pleasure, alleviating your pain, the only pain that could save the world from its sin! If you had found relief from that one cigarrillo, maybe even the smallest hit, even without inhaling, the world would have been lost! All for one puff!
O Lord, may I be so perfectly selfless like you!
But if offering you just one hit from one El Rojo Marlboro would have angered your Roman executioners, all the more praise from this servant of Peter through Mary to you, O Lord! They would have flagellated me much more than I could have ever flagellated myself! And I would have sung a Te Deum with tears of pain, but also tears of indescribable joy!
See this blood on my walls today! The Romans would have bled me all the more! Oh Lord, how glorious that would have been! My blood would have splattered onto that cross soaked by your very own precious blood!
Bring me to that cross, O Lord! Have them splatter my blood onto your holy cross! Even if you were to have the cruel Romans splatter my blood for all eternity, I would praise you still!
The sanctifying cassock
Frequent cassock-wearing also increased Josemaria’s chances for sainthood. It made him physically uncomfortable. It brought derision from all those haters. And its 33 buttons gave him cause to contemplate the life of Christ.
Just think what it would be like to own one of his cassocks. Dry-cleaning the blood stains wouldn’t be easy. But why remove the blood stains? They’re first-class relics! The splotches would be good for new altars in new parishes named St. Josemaria Escriva Catholic Church.