“Camino”, a “living book”, celebrates its 100th Spanish edition

The Way is one of the best-known works on spirituality today. The book of spiritual “points”, written by St. Josemaría Escrivá saw the light in 1939, in Valencia, although several years earlier, in 1934, the founder of Opus Dei had published the germ of this work under the title of Spiritual Considerations, in Cuenca. 

Since then, The Way has been translated into 142 languages and has sold more than five million copies. The famous prayer application, Hallow, The book was chosen as a guide book for Lent 2025, and among many of the anecdotes that this book has featured, during the era of persecution of the faith by the communist government in Bulgaria, a clandestine edition of The Way, helped in his spiritual life the faithful Catholics and those of other Christian denominations.

Edition 100 of The Way in Spanish

The National Library of Spain hosted the presentation of the 100th edition of this book in Spanish. book, edited by Rialp and coordinated by Fidel Sebastián Mediavilla, a specialist in Golden Age literature. This edition adds, to the original text, explanatory notes and an introduction that places the reader in its historical and spiritual context. 

A “mysteriously alive” book”

The director of Ediciones Rialp, Santiago Herraiz, pointed out that “Camino is still alive, mysteriously alive. A book that is almost 100 years old, that supports the weight of the years, is not easy. We have made a small edition of Camino, like a leather diary, with 5,000 copies and they are almost sold out.

For her part, the poet Marcela Duque, pointed out that, in The Way, St. Josemaría “achieves a unity between the form of expression and what is expressed, and this is also what Opus Dei does, as the saint himself pointed out: ‘making hendecasyllables out of daily prose.

The editor of the centenary edition in Spanish, Fidel Sebastián, emphasized that “a critical edition seeks the author's will, and is illuminated with whatever is necessary”.

Sebastián also affirmed that, “when I reread Camino, I discovered the mystic. To know more about this we will have to wait until the Intimate Notes are published. I think St. Josemaría was a great mystic, as we see, for example, in the point 555”The author's prayer experience is the fruit of his own experience.

Finally, Fernanda Lopes, coordinator of the Committee for the Centennial of the Opus Dei, He wanted to emphasize the “thousands of paths of intimacy with Christ that this book has produced. There are a hundred editions, but thousands of paths.

Drawing a parallel, Lopes stressed that “the centenary of Opus Dei is presented as a path, performative, transforming for each person of Opus Dei”.