Surprised By Jeffrey And Opus Dei

.How can a bloke keep so many blogs up?

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Anyway, here he posted about the Shrine of Torreciudad about which I knew nothing. How is this for a building from the 1970s?

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How is this for an altar from a building from the 1970s?

Carved from alabaster, this altarpiece was completely unknown to me until Jeffrey posted a link. Reading the explanation of the artist (Juan Mayné Torras) gave me a clue as to why I knew nothing about it:

"I read what the founder of Opus Dei had written and this helped me, while I was still designing, to get what he wanted: images which would inspire devotion and prayer; and that the whole altarpiece would be a piece of catachesis in alabaster, like the other altarpieces of Aragón".

This is an Opus Dei shrine to Our Lady of Torreciudad, before whose image the mother of St Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer gave thanks after her two year old son had recovered from an illness thought to be mortal.

Opus Dei: two words which are supposed to chill our blood. But, be objective: go to the shrine and find, for example, that the confessionals are in the crypt because they are the foundation on which everything else is built. And there are always priests available for the Sacrament of Confession.

Read all about it here.