Editing Josemaría Escrivá (section)

====Towards the liturgy====
Escrivá conceived the Mass as the "Source and summit of the Christian's interior life," a terminology which was later used by the [[Second Vatican Council]].<ref name="VDP"/> Escrivá strove to obey whatever was indicated by the competent authority regarding the celebration of Mass and "[h]e took all necessary steps to ensure that the prescriptions of Vatican II, notably in the area of the liturgy, were applied within Opus Dei."<ref>Francois Gondrand, At God's Pace, Scepter, London-Princeton, 1989, p. 287</ref> As his prayer was much integrated with traditional liturgy, Escrivá found the transition difficult and asked Echevarría to help him with respect to the new rites. Although he missed the practices of the old rites, especially some gestures such as the kissing of the [[paten]] (a small plate, usually made of silver or gold, used to hold the Eucharist), he prohibited his devotees to ask for any dispensation for him "out of a spirit of obedience to ecclesiastical norms... He has decided to show his love for the liturgy through the new rite", commented Echevarría. However, when [[Annibale Bugnini]], Secretary of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy, learned of Escrivá's difficulties, he granted Escrivá the possibility of celebrating the Mass using the old rite. Whenever Escrivá celebrated this rite, he did so only in the presence of one Mass server.<ref name="Echevarría Rodríguez 2000">{{Harvnb|Echevarría Rodríguez|2000}}</ref><ref>''"Other priests&nbsp;— such as Blessed Padre Pío and Blessed Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei&nbsp;— continued to use the old Mass privately in preference to the new rite."''<br /> [http://www.latinmassireland.org/thelatinmass/what_is_the_latin_mass.html Latin Mass Society of Eire-Ireland. Member of Una Voce International, a lay organization approved by the Holy See] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927134231/http://www.latinmassireland.org/thelatinmass/what_is_the_latin_mass.html |date=2007-09-27 }}</ref>

Vladimir Felzmann,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/4774|title=Latest News about Catholicism and Christianity in The Tablet|website=www.thetablet.co.uk|access-date=20 November 2017}}</ref> a priest who worked as Escrivá's personal assistant before quitting Opus Dei in 1981,<ref name="Miller">Annabel Miller, [http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/4774 "Muscular Catholicism"], ''[[The Tablet]]'', 17 November 2001</ref> stated in an interview for ''[[Newsweek]]'' that Escrivá was so distraught by the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council that he and his deputy, [[Álvaro del Portillo]], "went to Greece in 1967 to see if [they] could bring Opus Dei into the [[Greek Orthodox Church]]. Escrivá thought the [Catholic] church was a shambles and that the Orthodox might be the salvation of himself and of Opus Dei as the faithful remnant."<ref name="Woodward" />  Felzmann says that Escrivá soon abandoned those plans as impracticable. Flavio Capucci, a member of Opus Dei and the postulator of the cause for Escrivá's [[canonization]], denies that Escrivá ever contemplated quitting the Catholic Church.<ref name="Woodward" />  This was also denied by the information office of Opus Dei, which stated that Escrivá's visit to Greece in 1966 was done in order to analyze the convenience of organizing Opus Dei in that country, and that Escrivá even brought back [[icon]]s as presents for Pope Paul VI and [[Angelo Dell'Acqua]] (then the substitute to the [[Secretariat of State (Holy See)|Vatican Secretary of State]]), whom he had informed of the visit beforehand.<ref name="Felzmann-EP" />