Today, May 4th, is father Ignacio Larrañaga Orbegozo’s birthday, founder of the Prayer and Life Workshops. From here, we wish to remember him with immense affection, thanking our Father God for the great gift he gave to the Church, with a tireless apostle, the “prophet of prayer” in love with Jesus and the Gospel.
Father Ignacio was born on May 4, 1928, in a farmhouse near the Ignatian shrine of Loyola (Guipúzcoa, Spain). His youth was not an easy time, but during those years, something he called a “mystical vein” throbbed within him; it was a thirst for God that would not leave him in peace, like a bush that always burns and never burns out.
His youth was besotte enraptured by two forces: divine friendship and music.
The culmination of Father Ignacio’s missionary experience lies in the founding of the Prayer and Life Workshops (1984), which emerged as a response to the need of men and women to pray in an experimental, orderly, systematic, and progressive way. It began with a group of people in Santiago, Chile, and from there, the PLW quickly expanded to various countries. By 1986, the Prayer and Life Workshops were taught in 17 countries, becoming a major emerging force.
On October 4, 1997, the Pontifical Council for the Laity signed the Decree by which the Workshops of Prayer and Life became a Private International Association of the Faithful, under Pontifical Right with Legal Personality, which was established on October 15 of the same year.
We highlight the intense writing activity of our founder, having published the following books:
+ Sensing Your Hidden Presence (1972)
+ The Silence of Mary (1975)
+ Come With Me (1978)
+ Brother Francis of Assisi
+ From Suffering to Peace
+ Encounter: Prayer Handbook
+ The Poor One of Nazareth
+ Journey Towards God
+ The Forces of Decadence
+ Happy Marriage (El Matrimonio Feliz)
+ The Art of Being Happy
+ The Fire and the Rose
+ Psalms for Life
+ God Within (Dios Adentro)
+ Transfiguration
+ The Meaning of Life (El Sentido de la Vida)
WE GIVE THANKS TO GOD FATHER, FOR FATHER IGNACIO’S FRUITFUL LIFE AND FOR TEACHING US TO LIVE FULL OF JOY IN THE LOVE OF GOD.
