His vocation to Opus Dei

Luis Valls professed the Catholic faith and had an absolute vital commitment to the Church. His profound love of God and devotion to the Holy Family made his way of life somewhat different from other bankers of his time. Faith was a priority for Luis Valls, and he incorporated it into his daily life without ostentation or explanation. As the Sevillian priest José Alcázar Godoy explains¹, “He said it was necessary to have a good spiritual pressure internally; prayer, continuous effort, attention to the small things, both personally and professionally, and delicacy with others. The key was not a set of precepts, but rather looking to Christ, loving in Christ, and working from Christ.”

His spiritual vocation and human talent made him act with magnanimity and a asense of realism. At the age of twenty, he discovered his vocation to Opus Dei, or La Obra , an organization of the Catholic Church composed mainly of lay faithful. He was fully convinced when he made this decision. His mother opposed it. Her opinion was sacred to him, and she was concerned about her son joining an institution of the Church that was still very young and unknown in the process of becoming established. His brother Javier ² describes it this way: “Our mother, a religious and pious woman, was concerned about Luis’s vocation. ‘Why not become a Franciscan, Dominican, or Jesuit? This Opus Dei… it the Church hasn’t even approved it!'”

Time, however, would prove that Luis was right. His decision made his mother happy in the end and left no room for doubt with his younger brother, who adds at the end of those same words: “Luis was a good man. He sought to do good to others. He devoted his intelligence, money, family, and celibacy to the Work. He was an exemplary member of Opus Dei”.