“Work is for man, and not man for work” (Pope St. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens).

Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975), founder of Opus Dei, practiced such heroic virtue that he was canonized only 27 years after his death.

By 1975, Opus Dei was established in 31 countries with over 60,000 members, including over 1000 priests. One virtue stands out as the reason for his massive success as a “saintly CEO.”

That virtue is prayer.

Prayer as the Foundation of Work

According to Thomas Aquinas, prayer is an “act of the virtue of religion.” Escrivá insisted that it not be secondary to work but the foundation of every minute of work. “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5), Jesus tells us. That is, without asking for and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our work is just activity with no eternal value. Or, as St. Paul puts it, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

An interview with Escrivá’s long-time deputy and successor was published in the book 40 Years With a Saint: Blessed Alvaro del Portillo on St. Josemaría by Cesare Cavalleri. The details of Escrivá’s life, as del Portilla relates them, reveal how we can model the saint’s spiritual life and how he coached his followers to deepen their prayer lives.

Escrivá himself kept God top of mind throughout the day by glancing often at a crucifix, hesitating for a nanosecond at a doorway to let his guardian angels enter first, and kissing the ground after hopping out of bed before declaring that his day would be one of service to God.

Tutored by a Saint

Escrivá asked his followers to step away from work to pray at certain intervals in the day, no matter how important the work they were doing. A particularly touching story illustrates how crucial he considered prayer to successful work. The peace of prayer would be the only way to emotionally survive their very trying situation.

Some Opus Dei members were serving in a residence for students as World War II raged. Adding to the difficulty, the residence was still being built, and there were workmen everywhere.

The overwhelmed women told Escrivá they could no longer continue going “from one disaster to another” and had been neglecting their prayer life as a result.

del Portilla describes Escrivá’s response:

On hearing this, our Father could not hold back his tears. After a while, he took out a sheet of paper and wrote on it: 

1. without tableware 

2. with workmen everywhere 

3. with no unobstructed passageways 

4. without tablecloths 

5. without pantries 

6. without personnel 

7. without experience 

8. without division of labor

1. with a lot of love of God 

2. with full trust in God and in [Father Escrivá]

3. no thinking about “disasters” till tomorrow, during the day of recollection.

In this way, Escrivá encouraged them to persevere even though they were without the very necessities of life. With this list, he mirrored St. Paul’s exhortation not to let “anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword” separate us from Christ’s love (Romans 8:35).

Why He Wept

One of the women later asked Escrivá why he had cried.

“I wept, my daughter, because you were not praying … The most important work, the one which must take priority over all else, is just this: prayer.”

Escrivá lived out the belief that prayer builds the foundation of our work and that this foundation must be kept solid.

Tutored by a Saint

We may think, “Well, he’s a saint; I’m not there yet!” But consider what one of the first women to join him wrote in her journal (as reported in Cavalleri’s book):

The foundations must be laid very well. We must set them in granite, so that what happened to the house mentioned in the Gospel, the house which was built on sand, will not happen to us. The foundations must be really deep; then will come the rest.

Do we, like this woman, spend time listening to God and lifting the eyes of our heart to him often during the work day? Do we ask for his guidance when we start a new task? Do we thank him during the day for things pleasant and unpleasant?

St. Josemaría’s example inspires us to trust God “without tableware, without personnel, without pantries.” And, he shows us that only intimate prayer can build a foundation to support true trust in and love of God’s will—which is the only path to the peace that we were born for.

Saintly Prayer Hacks

Father del Portillo relates how St. Josemaría kept his connection with God throughout the day:

Ask others for prayers.

“He asked for prayers from as many people as he possibly could, even from people he didn’t know: for example, priests he met on the street, or people he saw in church who seemed to be especially recollected in their prayer.”

Forgive on the spot.

Lack of forgiveness obscures our vision of God. During the worst attacks against the Church and himself, Escrivá would tell his followers, “Forgive, say nothing, pray, work, smile.”

Make everything a subject of prayer.

Escrivá prayed his way through watching the news or reading the paper. He prayed for everything that could have disturbed him, perhaps remembering Psalm 37:8: “Refrain from anger; abandon wrath; do not be provoked; it brings only harm.”

Consecrate each day of the week to a single devotion.

Escrivá advised his new members to choose devotions such as the Most Holy Trinity​, the Eucharist, Christ’s Passion, Our Lady, St. Joseph, our guardian angels, or the holy souls in purgatory.

Pester the Lord.

He advised a member of Opus Dei who was dying of liver cancer to “pester the Lord” by keeping her connection with God constant in her exhausting pain. “Call out to Our Lady and say, ‘Show yourself a mother,’” he told her. “Or if all you can say is ‘Mother!’ that’s good enough. She cannot abandon us.”

Transformative Prayer

Our saint’s prayer hacks have one thing in common: They increase our trust in God. They grow our confidence that His will is better for us than our own preferences and desires—and that when our plans are contradicted by reality, God knows what He is doing.

He is purifying us. He is drawing us closer to Himself and molding us into the beautiful images of Himself we are created to be. He transforms us through our work.

Rose Folsom teaches people leadership skills that business schools don’t teach them. Virtues like patience, forgiveness, and courage are the foundation of good leadership and make us confident leaders that people trust, respect, and want to follow. Download Rose’s “Top 10 Tips for Patience.” Her experience as solopreneur and supervisor and her study of Thomistic theology have made her passionate about helping you live a virtuous life that gives you the peace and joy that support your mission and purpose.