BIOGRAPHY FATHER IGNACIO LARRAÑAGA
Ignacio Larrañaga, a Capuchin priest, writer and evangelist, considered by many a "modern prophet" or a "mystic of the 21st century" is the founder of Workshops of Prayer and Life (TOV).
His main work has been to leave the world with thousands of lay people prepared and dedicated to teach the deep and personal prayer that allows a daily encounter with the Lord on a daily basis.
He was born in Spain, on May 4, 1928, in the city of Azpeitia, in the Beristain neighborhood, Txanton farmhouse. His parents were: Marcelino Larrañaga Larrañaga and María Salomé Orbegozo, being the fourth child of a large family.
At the age of 12, in 1940, he entered the Seminary of the Capuchins of Alsasua; shortly before his priestly ordination, he receives the Subdiaconate on March 29, 1952, in the same city of Pamplona; and receives ordination on December 20, 1952, in San Sebastián.
Since he was a child he had a penchant for music, from the Seminar he played piano and organ. He developed a great sensitivity for music, this is how all his audios and videos always adorned them with pieces of the great masters of baroque music.
Gallipienzo Night
In the month of June 1957, being in the small town of Gallipienzo, Navarra, on a warm summer night, contemplating the stars, he was blessed with an experience, which he describes, in his book the Rose and Fire, as a glare, a flood of tenderness: LOVE that assaults, invades, penetrates, intoxicates and drives mad.
This experience is known as extraordinary infused gratuity. These moments and the infinite nuances that that brilliant experience contained were etched in his soul forever and he himself affirms in La Rosa y el Fuego that “the thick and vital lines of his complex work, books, Encounters and Prayer Workshops and Life emanated from the experience of that windy night.
Based in Chile since 1959, he displayed a varied and fruitful apostolate. He undertook a series of weeks of Franciscan coexistence along the narrow and long Chilean geography. As a result of this prolonged evangelization, a great enthusiasm among the members of the entire Franciscan family was raised over the years, which was not reduced only to emotions or words, but was concretized in projects.
CEFEPAL Foundation
In 1965 he founded the Center for Franciscan and Pastoral Studies (CEFEPAL), dedicating himself for about ten years to post-conciliar Franciscan animation in several Latin American countries.
God Experience Encounters
The year 1974 in Brazil, began the weekly retreats called "Encounters of Experience of God" (EED) that he led tirelessly until 2011 in more than 40 countries on four continents, with the assistance of thousands of people.
In addition to the EEDs, he displayed a great evangelizing activity to large masses in theaters, gyms, stadiums, with talks on Christological, matrimonial matters, humanizing dimension of prayer, etc.
He also began his stage as a writer in 1974, belatedly, at the age of 45. He wrote 16 books, most of which have reached numerous editions, and have been translated into more than 10 languages. The same as manuals and other writings especially for the use of the Prayer and Life Workshop Guides (TOV). He is currently considered one of the most widespread Catholic authors.
Prayer and Life Workshops
The Workshops of Prayer and Life (TOV), which he founded in 1984, are an ecclesial service approved by the Holy See since 1997, and constitute the summit and crowning of all his apostolic activity for its expansive force, for its fruits and for the high appreciation towards them, manifested by the Holy See and the Bishops. Millions of people have gone through their training sessions. The motto that synthesizes the way to go in Prayer and Life Workshops is: “From the charm of God, to the charm of life”.
He delivered to the TOV Guides his spiritual testament in the weekly meetings he called Weeks of Completion, initiated in 2012, for which he traveled to numerous countries in order to gather the feeling of the people of Guides, concluding that process of prayer and community reflection in the Re Foundation of the TOV in 2013.
Easter of Father Ignacio
His death, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on October 28 of that year, he found in full mission and only two weeks after completing the program of 62 Weeks of Completion, which could be concluded entirely thanks to the filming he left prepared in prevention of something happening to him.
Father Ignacio Larrañaga, with his love for Jesus Christ, with his Workshops of Prayer and Life, the Encounters of Experience of God and all his vast work, impelled by the Holy Spirit, has taken and will continue to take the New Evangelization to the confines of the land.
BLESSING
Whoever you are, sailing through these pages:
I wish you peace in your home
and happiness within your walls.
May the clouds of fear vanish from your horizons
and your blue sky shine forever
May harmony, be the musical spirit of your home
and joy the breath of life for your family.
May prosperity grow as a rosebush in your garden
and your home remain eternally perfumed by LOVE.
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God bless you
Ignacio Larrañaga