March 22, 2020
Greetings to all, in this different time, when we are physically apart but in which we seek to be unified in a Lenten spirit of tragedy and triumph as we journey together towards Christ’s death and resurrection.
Our scripture readings for this week express, from Ephesians 5,
“8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord.” … “we were in the darkness, but now are in the light of the Lord and, as children of the light, we are to find out what pleases the Lord”.
In the Gospel reading, from John, chapter 9, we learn of a man who was blind from birth, to whom Jesus gave sight, and for whom was the source of great perplexity for the Pharisees. It shook their sense of order, of how they considered that things should be.
As we are inundated by a flood of news, information, opinions, and actions regarding the novel coronavirus, our sense of order, of how we consider things should be, have been thrown off. We enter into moments of malaise where we do not know exactly what to do. Wash your hands, isolate ourselves from one another, stay home becomes our new mantra.
But perhaps it is that much has been fundamentally off balance for some time, and this current crisis is a wakeup call, a trigger point, or an invitation to see and embrace the world with a renewed vision. Perhaps within all this crisis, there is a call for a deeper transformation, a deeper conversion to be light and life to one another and to the world.
We, Videlbina and Paul, share with you about Monseñor Oscar Romero, a prophet, now sainted, who is commemorated this week in the 40th anniversary of his death by an assassin’s bullet. It was a time of great tragedy in that land, El Salvador, when the wealthy and powerful, with the support of the United States’ Government, resisted the powerful movements of the people working towards a society where hunger, misery, and oppression where overcome and social justice would reign. The optimism and the force of the people for sweeping, democratic change was met by coup d’états, death squads, torture, bombings, and a gradual sliding into civil war.
Out of this arose a prophet, Oscar Romero, who had for decades, as a priest, given his full heart over to the church and to being humbly present with, and uplifting the spirit of the poor of the land. He did not get involved in politics, and even criticized priests who made social commentaries and advocated change through liberation theology. For this reason, the wealthy and powerful of the land were pleased when he was named Archbishop of El Salvador on February 23, 1977, and many priests and lay leaders who believed the church should speak and act with a prophetic voice were disappointed and highly critical.
It was only weeks later, on March 12th, that his good friend, since times of seminary, Father Rutilio Grande, was killed. Grande was a Jesuit who very actively practiced the social gospel of **hope for the poor in areas of the countryside where we have visited many times. His death, and the Government’s total inaction before it, had a profound impact on him, as well as the continuous visits by members of organizations telling him of acts of repression, and the direct testimonies he received as he visited and accompanied communities throughout the land. He came to say, “the people are my prophet” and “with this people it is not difficult to be a good pastor,” because he listened to them and allowed them to lead him on.
Romero sharing with the people.
As the violence intensified and became more generalized, little news came out through the press and every public gathering was viewed with suspicion by the government and the military. The Sunday masses at the San Salvador Cathedral became one of the few times of gathering and information sharing that remained. They were broadcast by radio (when bombings didn’t put the transmitter out of commission) and, throughout the land from household to household people listened in with rapt attention. Homilies lasted as long as an hour, and along with biblical reflection and teaching, included much news of the tragedies and hopes of El Salvador.
Videlbina’s mother, Julia, was one who listened to these transmissions. She would say, “Monseñor Romero is a prophet, who preaches truth, who speaks of how things should be. He is with the poor. He sees the poor.”
Videlbina: “In my youth, since the time I was 13 years-old (in 1976) I thought, “young people don’t have much of a life, with real meaning. There was no future. Every morning we would wake up and it was the same. We had to stay hidden because the soldiers hunted us out, to abduct us into the army. The rich kids could be out, in their gym shorts, playing basketball across the street from my house, without any worries because the soldiers left them alone.
In those times, the family of my cousin Jose Paz, known as Pacito, lived around the corner from us, whereas he worked in San Salvador, and it is said he had been active in a labor union. One day as he was on a bus travelling back to work with a friend (named Ramiro), the driver made a detour to a military base and handed them over to the officers. There they were tortured for three days, then killed. Their families, and the whole town, searched months for them, until finally their bodies were found in a mass grave, containing the remains of 10 people. His sister, Juana de Dios, recognized his remains because he was wearing the clothes she had helped him pick out on that day. Months later Pacito’s brother, Emiliano (who lives in our house here in DC) was abducted into the army. He later deserted, and fled the country, because they associated him with his brother and began to threaten him with the same fate. 
Pacito Pacito’s grave
I was also persecuted. Several times I was called to task by military officers in my home town of Pasaquina, La Union in the far eastern part of El Salvador.
One instance was when, in 1984, I was summoned, on three consecutive days as I waited for the bus taking me to my high school, to go speak with the National Guard commander. Each time I refused, saying that, as a young woman, I could not go into a military post occupied only by men. As the commander became increasingly agitated and threatening at my refusal, I spoke with my parents, and then with don Mauro, the Lutheran pastor of my church where I was a lay pastoral worker. Don Mauro then invited the officer to come speak with me at his office, which he did. The National Guard commander told me, “whoever has something to hide, has something to fear. I have summoned you because I have information from various persons that you are a guerilla, or that you collaborate with the guerillas.”
I told him that my work was to engage in biblical reflections with the people in their villages, and that I always went accompanied by the pastor, his wife, or another evangelist, whose name was Cristela, or with her brother, our driver, named Gustavo.
He told me that he heard I talked about a mustard seed growing into a tree, and that a small effort within the community could become something large. He heard that I would talk about the grains of an ear of corn growing and becoming many more. He said this sounded like organizing the people, and encouraging them to rise up against the authorities. I explained to him that this is how I could reach out and motivate the people of the countryside, by speaking in terms of common things in their lives, like seeds and corn. I never imagined that such could be considered to be a subversive activity. He ended the meeting by rising, pointing his finger at me, and saying “I will have my eyes on you, in every move you make.” He then shook hands with the pastor and said, “only because you have intervened…” and don Mauro said, “don’t worry, I will watch over her.”
From that time on, up to the present, in 2020, this mustard seed has grown in me as I hold up the blood of those who have fallen in the search for justice, participating in my political party, the FMLN, basing this in the theology of liberation.
Let’s pause, close our eyes a moment, and take a deep breath…
Paul resumes:
Martyrdom plays a central role in the popular church in Latin America, and within the concept of a people seeking peace, liberation, and social justice. It is bourn out a sense of giving oneself over to a cause greater than a single person, or class of persons, in the cause of achieving something much more meaningful and profound. Martyrdom arises out a deep love for humanity and creation, and it is a fruit of nonviolence. We have our own martyrs in the United States, such as Martin Luther King and the four women religious murdered in El Salvador the same year as Oscar Romero.
Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, killed by the Salvadoran National Guard 12/2/1980
MLK at March on Washington 8/28/1963
When I, engaged with the churches in Washington, DC and in Georgia, and with refugees fleeing from the Central American wars, became aware of how unjust, and how destructive U.S. policies were towards El Salvador I went, first in 1987, to live and work with the church for six years. I discovered that the people there committed to creating among themselves, and with the help of God and of mutual solidarity extending beyond its borders, a better future for their land. I discovered that they saw themselves not so much victims but as be architects and artifices of their own destiny. Many songs we sang where of this theme, such as “When the poor believe in the poor, there is fraternity, and the building of our liberation begins.” My last years there involved being with the people in an area countryside that was emerging from being a war zone to become living communities once again. There I encouraged the people to join together in reflections and celebrations of faith. Over time a new church was born, which the people named, “the Church of the Rebirth of the Martyrs.” It is located in a hamlet called, “Monseñor Romero Community” and there the vibrancy of a community life of faith is celebrated.
We close by sharing the last words of Oscar Romero, as he was about to celebrate communion, in a memorial mass for an important church community leader named doña Sarita, at a chapel by where he lived in San Salvador, which I have since frequented.
I ask all of you, dear brothers and sisters, to view these things that are happening in our historical moment with a spirit of hope, and sacrifice. And let us do what we can. We can all do something and be more understanding…
If we illuminate with Christian hope our intense longings for justice and peace and all that is good, then we can be sure that no one dies forever. If we have imbued our work with a sense of great faith, love of God, and hope for humanity, then all our endeavors will lead to the splendid crown that is the sure reward for the work of sowing truth, justice, love, and goodness on earth…
By Christian faith we know that at this moment the wafer of wheat becomes the body of the Lord who offered himself for the redemption of the world, and that the wine in this chalice is transformed into the blood that was the price of salvation. May this body that was immolated and this flesh that was sacrificed for humankind also nourish us so that we can give our bodies and our blood to suffering and pain, as Christ did, not for our own sake but to bring justice and peace to our people. Let us therefore join closely together in faith and hope at this moment of prayer, for Doña Sarita and ourselves….
(At that moment, a shot rang out.)
Conclusion of sermon:
Let us then, who are now light in the Lord, live as children of light and find out what pleases the Lord. Amen.