Forty seconds for four who gave their lives 40 years ago
Pope Francis remembered the 40th anniversary of four missionaries’ death in El Salvador. They died living their “preferential option for the poor”.
Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay volunteer Jean Donovan were slain by five members of El Salvador’s right-wing National Guard on Dec. 2, 1980.
Just 6 months earlier St. Óscar Romero’s assassination sent a message to all those who had taken up the “preferential option for the poor”.
“They were kidnapped, raped, and assassinated,” PopeFrancis said in a live-streamed, virtual audience from the papal study.
Although it has received little notice, Pope Francis introduced a new pathway to sainthood on July 11, 2017, recognizing individuals who, although not martyrs in the traditional sense, put their lives in danger out of compassion for others and died as a consequence.
“It is certain,” said the pontiff, “that their heroic offering of life, suggested and sustained by charity, expresses a true, full and exemplary imitation of Christ and, therefore, is worthy of that admiration which…the faithful usually reserve for those who have voluntarily accepted the martyrdom of blood or have exercised the Christian virtues to a heroic degree.”
Ib a recent arcicle, US Catholic highlighted the contrast Fr. John Prager, CM once described as being “tourists in the land of the poor”.
“These were not pious foreign missionaries coming in to preach a message of brotherly love and then returning to their comfortable American-style house, but educated young women who lived in a little wooden house like [the people] did, who traveled on foot and by bus as they did and who shared their bread and their friendship and their talents…”
Forty years ago, these 4 women gave their lives. Can you devote 40 seconds in prayerful memory of the countless others who have been martyred since then and petition for the courage to serve the forgotten and marginalized?
Read their own words. It should take just about 40 seconds.
In their own words…
America Magazine shares with us the words of Maura Clarke, M.M., Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, M.M., Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U.
- “If we abandon them when they are suffering the cross, how can we speak credibly about the resurrection?” – Maura Clarke, M.M.
- “Most of us feel we would want to stay here.… We wouldn’t want to just run out on the people.” – Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U.
- “Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could, except for the children.” – Jean Donovan
- “I truly believe that I should be here, and I can’t even tell you why.… All I can share with you is that God’s palpable presence has never been more real.” – Ita Ford, M.M.
All four women chose to stay. They had friends, family members and colleagues urging them to come home.
Despite all of that—or because of it—the four churchwomen chose to stay and to suffer, as St. Romero had once said, “the same fate as the poor.”
Vincentians speak of a “preferential option for the poor”.
We must ask ourselves:
- Where will we take our stand in the midst of such uncertainty?
- What might the “preferential option for the poor” cost me in my ordinary service?
- When the time comes, will I be faithful?
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk.
Powerful stuff, Father John.
I often wonder if I could measure up to the level of service we hear tell about in their story and similar ones. It’s a very sobering exercise. What would I give up to help a neighbor in need? Where do I stand when others are poking fun at them?
I have often hidden behind the veil of responsibilities – I need to take care of others, others depend on me to survive, I don’t have their kind of faith, I am so afraid, I am so weak.
May God forgive my weakness as He continues to challenge me to be strong.
Grace to all, but especially to those for whom “in harm’s way” is not an idle worry.
If there are people who have to be made “Sante/i subito”, these women are the ones!
As a small action I could take this year, when I saw that in my church a “Black lives matter” sign had disappeared (probably because it had taken too much of a political “color”), I took down my poster I had put outside my apartment door. Then, I prayed about it. Result? I went to put it back there with even more emphasis by adding the final prayer of Pope Francis with an American Indian background.
Small action as I am small but everyone can pass by and see it. I became the lady of the Black lives matter poster. I am white.
Thank you, John, for this moving recall of the El Salvador martyrs. I’m grateful, humbled, pushed to a braver stance for the impoverished and rejected. I can remember how outraged I felt when this first happened, and what’s so hard to face is that my outrage has diminished, while the trouble in El Salvador has not. Challenged.
These witnesses to Jesus’ self-emptying love truly suffered religious persecution and saw their religious freedom violated. What they went through puts into question, in my view, the claims of not a few who say today in the US that their religious freedom is being curtailed and disrespected.