Commemoration of Archbishop Oscar Romero
Reading: Psalm 95
“Do
not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, when your ancestors tested me.” Psalm 95:8
Above the Great West Door at Westminster Abbey, in the
gallery of 20th Century Martyrs, amid tracery stonework, a sculpted
figure of a small man stands between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich
Bonhoeffer. He holds a small child. The statue is of Archbishop Oscar Romero of
El Salvador, assassinated while lifting the chalice at Mass on this day in
1980. Romero consistently preached that the Christian community should work for
the poor and oppressed, and not only in the care and giving of alms, but in the
changing of the world systems and structures that create poverty and oppression.
This he continued to do, in spite of hate mail and death threats and increasing
murders and disappearances around him. He felt deeply that salvation is for this world, that God desires the good
of all people in this time. He
preached, “We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our
Christmas cribs, we must seek him among the undernourished children who have
gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor news boys, who will
sleep covered with newspapers in doorways.”
(Christmas Eve, 1977)
Compassionate
God, give us courage to transform the suffering that comes to us and to work to
alleviate the suffering that comes to others. Amen
- Learn about a country with
immigrants in the area around Mount Olive: Mexico, Somalia, Laos (Hmong),
Tibet…
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