“Si Me Matan . . .” ~~ “If They Kill Me . . .”

                  In my recent pilgrimage to the country of El Salvador I witnessed and 

             personally experienced the mystery in these words.  In the face of the violence

  

                 and injustice of this world, hope stands defiant.  Life overcomes death!

I had the privilege recently, along with a group of 26 co-workers and friends to be present for the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero. This celebration took place in the little nation of El Salvador in Central America, the country where the Archbishop was born and lived his life and witness. During a time of unspeakable violence in the late 1970s – violence perpetrated by the Salvadoran government, a government and violence supported by U.S. tax dollars – Archbishop Romero became an outspoken defender of those being victimized and killed, average citizens and especially the poor. Like Jesus, and like prophets of all ages, because of his clear message challenging the powers of his time, on March 24, 1980 he was shot and killed while celebrating Mass.

His accusers claimed that he was a subversive, a communist. But the words he spoke were from the Bible: “do not kill,” “love your neighbor,” “do justice.” And those who knew him personally will tell you even today that those are the words he lived by. Although Archbishop, rather than live in the Archbishop's residence he chose to live in a sparse room at a small hospital where cancer patients were cared for. He loved visiting, encouraging and praying with the patients there. In addition to celebrating Mass at the Cathedral, he was also known to visit smaller parishes around the city and in the country each week. He enjoyed meeting and visiting with the people, hearing their stories, sharing their struggles as well as their joys. His biographers recall that he was a disciplined man, strict with himself, a man who although bookish and shy was bold in his commitments and personal integrity. He was also known to be a man of prayer.

In one of his last homilies he spoke directly to the military: “In the name of God, I ask you, I implore you, I command you – stop the repression!” Having received numerous death threats himself, on one occasion he reflected: “Si me matan, resucitaré en el pueblo salvadoreño.” “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” And the command was given, a sharp-shooter was sent, and he was killed with a single bullet to the heart.

Now 35 years after his death he has been named “a martyr killed in odium fidei”(because of hatred of the faith) and Pope Francis has proclaimed his beatification, the first step to becoming a saint. And so it was for the celebration of this historic moment, that our group decided to go to El Salvador.

Looking back, I'm not sure what I expected to encounter on this pilgrimage. My wife and I (along with others in our group) had been invited to stay in the homes of families in the capital city of San Salvador. And so, in part, I anticipated the warmth of the typical Latin American welcome and hospitality. I was also looking forward to enjoying delicious pupusas (one of the best known national plates of El Salvador) and other authentic Salvadoran foods. We would visit the cathedral where the Archbishop celebrated Mass and where his crypt is located today.

Image of Bishop Romero in the lower level of the
Cathedral, where his crypt is located.  The day we
visited, this musician sang songs honoring the
Bishop's legacy of standing with the poor.

We would also visit the University of Central America, where in 1989 six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were massacred by members of an elite battalion of the Salvadoran military (a battalion, incidentally, trained in the United States). These places, which I had visited one other time some years ago, I knew would carry with them the weight, pain and visual horror (there are pictures and clothing still blood-stained from those who were killed) of the deaths. They would be a reminder of the more than 75,000 Salvadorans murdered and disappeared during this time of violence as well. But I also imagined the crowds gathered in the Plaza Divino Salvador del Mundo (Divine Savior of the World Plaza), celebrating – intense tropical heat not withstanding – this long-awaited moment of acknowledgement and recognition of a man already considered a saint in El Salvador and beyond.

However, regardless of what I may have anticipated, it could not come near to the reflection and emotions of being there. What I experienced in El Salvador was less about death, and more about LIFE – Resurrection Life! Members of San Antonio de Soyapango, the parish that hosted us, and the families who received us were exuberant in their welcome and gracious hospitality. And folks we met everywhere were overflowing with gratitude and appreciation. People would come up to us on the street to express how moved they were that we had come such a distance, from another place, to honor their hero. They seemed almost surprised to learn that the life and testimony of their Salvadoran Archbishop had reached so far. But there was also recognition of this reality in the signs and t-shirts proclaiming “San Romero de America” (Saint Romero of the Americas).

Officially we were there to celebrate the beatification of a martyr. But the message everywhere was that Monseñor Romero is not dead. At every turn one was reminded of the Archbishop's famous words: “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” And it was clearly evident that he lives on. Through the years of war that followed his death, when one did not dare let his name pass one's lips out loud in El Salvador, his message and spirit were nevertheless kept alive within and among the people. In the words of his homilies, copies of which he left in the parishes where he preached, his call to live the Gospel, to follow Jesus “the only true leader,” the promise and hope that his life and death proclaimed, lived on. Those who had to flee El Salvador for their own safety during the war recounted and kept alive in other places – in communities here in the United States - their personal memories of the gentle caring and fearless truth-telling of their Salvadoran Archbishop. Leading up to the day of beatification, t-shirts, posters and road-side signs proclaimed the deep mystery and witness: “Romero Vive!” (Romero Lives!).

And being in El Salvador, I witnessed and personally experienced the mystery in these words! Standing in stark, stubborn defiance to the gruesome violence of the war years and challenging the gang violence of the present day, the Salvadoran people we met expressed a sense of hope and life that gets under the skin, that tests the boundaries of the rational. It is not a naive or reality-denying kind of hope. There is grimness and sadness to be seen in weary eyes and faces etched with a haunting sense of pain and loss. Almost everyone in this country has lost someone in the war or in the current violence. At the same time though there is also an honest hope and a gutsy, rooted belief that the Divine has touched this land. As one theologian put it: “With Monseñor Romero, God has passed through El Salvador” (Ignacio Ellacuria).

And in struggling to put words to what I experienced in El Salvador, it is to this Mystery that I attempt to bear witness. Revisiting the story of Bishop Romero, sensing the real presence of his spirit in places where he lived and died his own prophetic witness, and – and, yes, being with the Salvadoran people (!) I met God!! I met once again the God of the Jewish Prophets and the God of Jesus, whose call is to the radical challenge of siding with the poor, with victims, with the powerless and the marginalized. It is a call for me as a white brother to find an acceptable and authentic way to put my voice and body on the line in the movement of Black Lives Matter! It is a call to denounce and vote out of office those who from positions of power and economic gain would block healthcare for poor families and children. It is a call to take the personal risk of placing myself physically and politically between immigrant families and those who would with xenophobic or racist motives seek to enforce unjust and anti-immigrant laws; a call to stand in the way of the injustice and to demand justice for immigrant children separated from their parents by deportations and for immigrant youth deported back to the violent communities from which they fled for their lives. It is a call to question and act on the side of creating alternatives to a global system that benefits from the violence and madness of war, that creates wealth for a few at the expense of impoverishing an ever-growing majority. It is a call to challenge this system that threatens the very existence of life on this planet in the name of short term gain and out-of-control materialism. It is a call to envision and engage in concrete strategies for creating a new world order characterized by justice which leads to peace, that promotes equality among all people, that ensures a healthy abundant life for every person, and that supports the long-term viability of this home that we share with all other species and that we call Earth.

Santo Romero Vive!! Saint Romero Lives!!