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Josemaria, in his life and ministry, showed that it is possible for Catholics to have both a priestly soul and a lay mentality. It is possible for both priests and laypeople. He revered the work of religious orders; and their saints, such as St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Therese of Lisieux, had no small influence on his spirituality. For many years his spiritual director was a Jesuit, and the founder trained the first members of Opus Dei with St. Therese's Story of a Soul. We can hear echoes of St. Ignatius's phrase “contemplatives in action” in St. Josemaria's “contemplatives in the middle of the world.” We can hear echoes of St. Therese's “Little Way” in the founder's own emphasis on “little things.” Still, by divine disposition, his ways were distinctively not their ways.
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Scott Hahn (Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei)