What is the reality within Opus Dei?
There’s a distinction of membership within Opus Dei between numeraries and supernumeraries. A numerary is a celibate person who lives in an Opus Dei center. A supernumerary is a layperson usually who is married, has a family, lives in the outside world. These terms sound exotic, but they actually come from Spanish universities in the ’30s. They had to do with two different kinds of professors, and actually Escriva chose the term because it was so ordinary. It’s one of those cases where, you know, with the changing of time and with the reputation of this weird, cultlike outfit, the vocabulary has not served them well. But in any event, it’s these numeraries, who are about 30 percent of the membership, who engage in these practices of corporal mortification. I suppose the two best known and most commented upon would be, first, the cilice, which is a spiked chain that is worn around the upper thigh for two hours every day except on Sunday, because Sunday is the “little Easter.” It’s a fea
