We Would Love
to Keep in Touch!
“I made my first trip to El Salvador in December of 1979 to visit my friend, Dorothy Kazel, and there I met her newlyarrived missionary companion Jean Donovan. It was a journey that transformed the way that I read the Word of God and understand the Church.” I wrote these words 25 years ago – just a few days after the martyrdoms of Jean and Dorothy – as the introduction to a reflection, entitled "Beatitude Women". It described how Dorothy and Jean lived the Works of Mercy in the spirit of the Beatitudes and how their compassionate actions of caring for the needs of refugees, training leaders, and teaching basic literacy skills were seen as “subversive,” not only by the Salvadoran military who assassinated them on Dec. 2, 1980, (along with Ita Ford and Maura Clark, Maryknoll sisters from New York), but also by highranking officials in the USA.
This reflection spoke too of the parents of Jean and Dorothy who sacrificed their only daughters and were the “blessed ones who mourn and know God’s consolations.” It also noted that we, those left behind, are challenged by our martyrs’ lives and heroic deaths “to hunger and thirst for justice.” We keep their memories alive as holy women who witnessed to meekness, mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking as they cared for the oppressed and victimized, seeking justice for the campesinos of El Salvador.
Twentyfive years later this same challenge, “to live the Works of Mercy in the spirit of the Beatitudes,” continues to call us to faithfulness. We honor our beloved martyrs, as well as the many thousands more throughout the world, all those who have poured forth their hearts in love, freely choosing to minister in dangerous places, thus being willing to suffer the “same fate as the poor” – to be disappeared and assassinated.
As I reflect on my own journey of the past 25 years, I am deeply grateful for the privilege of having been introduced to the Central American people and mission life by my friend Dorothy Kazel. During the two weeks of sharing in her ministry there, many times the story of the Good Samaritan came alive before my very eyes. I felt like I was walking around in Gospel times. I wept at the airport, not wanting to return to the lifestyle of the USA. Dorothy lovingly cared for God’s crucified ones, expressed deep respect for the faith of her people, and told me of how she found herself continually evangelized by her beloved campesinos, people living on the edge of survival. She embraced Monsignor Romero’s wisdom and witness: “The people are my prophets.”
Dorothy and I attended a spiritfilled but lengthy Mass celebrated by Monsignor Romero. His twohour homily was broadcast throughout the country on the Catholic radio station. As we left the Cathedral, overflowing with people standing on the benches cheering exuberantly, she remarked: “That man is going to be killed someday and it will be difficult to determine who killed him because he speaks out against violence perpetrated by the army and the guerrillas.” Three months later, he was dead a year later so was she.
1980 became a year of mourning, not only for the two of them, but also for so many others whom I met in El Salvador and Guatemala during my first lifechanging short visit there.
Ten years later, I returned to this land of prophets and martyrs to serve in the same parish where Jean and Dorothy had ministered. It was the last years of the Civil War and we lived daily with the sounds and sights and fears of a raging war. Nevertheless, I soon experienced the freeing realization that violence might kill my body, but it could not kill my soul because I was surrounded by a community of loving people, so appreciative that we as a team had stayed with them even after the deaths of our loved ones. The people did their best to protect us, at times risking their own lives for us. Again the words of Romero took on flesh and blood: “I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.”
To pilgrimage with visitors from North America to the sites of the martyrs were graced moments for me. Each time there was a profound silence as the sacred spaces proclaimed an intensity of faith, an awakening to the dangers of love, and an invitation to hope. Yet I find myself wondering sometimes if we dishonor our martyrs by putting them way up on a pedestal, seeing them as larger than life, as glorious heroes. Is that the way we distance ourselves from the reality of their choices, thus insulating ourselves from the demands of “living the Works of Mercy in the spirit of the Beatitudes” in our own circumstances? What I remember most about Dorothy and Jean is how very much they were “just part of the gang”, very ordinary, with all the same fears and hopes, anxieties and dreams as all their friends. It’s that very “normal” humanity that painfully challenges us as we live a lifestyle of comfort and security, wellestablished by our privileged place in the world economy.
By their own testimonies, each of these martyrs articulated a real fear of death. Maura Clark expressed it clearly: “If my time comes, will I be faithful.”
Their struggle to be people of integrity and commitment in the face of lifethreatening situations continues to speak to us. If the lives and sacrifices of our many modern martyrs are going to have any ongoing meaning in the world today, it will be because we still feel their pain and are open to listen to the Gospel calling us:
• to risk
• to challenge ourselves to fidelity to the responsibilities of global/local citizenship
• • to be a transforming presence of love, accepting all people as children of one God
• to hear the cries of oppression around us
• to live an everdeepening awareness that what is worth dying for is also worth living for
• to pour forth ourselves in love, “living the Works of Mercy in the spirit of the Beatitudes"
The theme of our Ursuline Congregation for this year is “Love casts out fear.” (I John 4:18) Our martyrs’ love cast out fears within the hearts of their beloved campesinos, enabling them to know their worth and live in dignity. The love of the campesinos in turn cast out the fears of those ministering to them in traumatic circumstances, enabling them to accept these realities and not be paralyzed by fear.
May the grace of God be with us as we march courageously into the future casting out fears by our love, creating a world free of the violence that still is destroying life in so many ways, and seeking a peace that is rooted in justice for all. AMEN!