Romero

Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. During my novitiate, I was able to make a pilgrimage of sorts to El Salvador. We visited the places where our CSJP Sisters ministered during the civil war, and where they serve the people of El Salvador today. I was so incredibly touched by my ten days in El Salvador - you can read some of my reflections here courtesy of the way back machine that is this blog.

My friend Jen pointed out an online version of some of Oscar Romero's writings. I think I'll take the opportunity of this 30th anniversary week to share some of the powerful words of this 20th century holy man:

Let us not tire of preaching love;
it is the force that will overcome the world.
Let us not tire of preaching love.
Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love,
love must win out; it is the only thing that can.

The picture is from my trip to El Salvador in 2007. This one is a banner hanging at a retreat center in El Despertar, a poor neighborhood of El Salvador where our Sisters lived for a time during the war and where Fr. Octavio Ortiz and four young men attending a youth retreat had been killed in that same house by government troops who claimed it was a guerrilla training camp.