Oscar Romero was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. He served from February 1977 until March of 1980 when he was assassinated. A studious, humble, and conservative priest, Romero had disappointed the ruling oligarchy of El Salvador by becoming a friend and advocate of the poor who were being afflicted and killed by the junta’s brutal military. Despite warnings and death threats, the Archbishop continued courageously to preach the gospel of justice and nonviolence. He was murdered on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass. The last three years of his life demonstrated someone who tangibly understood the nature of the paschal mystery, not merely in theory or as theological doctrine but as the vocation of all Easter people: love-in-action. With solidarity and deep sympathy, he discovered in and through the poor the intimate and necessary relationship between the ministry of servant love exemplified on Holy Thursday’, the radical trust exemplified in the face of Good Friday’s torture, suffering, and execution, and the liberating resurrection celebrated on Easter as the promise that life, not death, is the last and eternal word. The following is an excerpt taken from the essay “I Will Rise in the People” by Brian J. Pierce, OP

Todays Life-Line is:

The death and resurrection of Christ was Monseñor Romero’s daily bread, his sustenance, his hope. Just two weeks before his death, Romero gave an interview to the Mexican daily newspaper, Excelsior. In this interview, he gave an eloquent summary of his understanding of a Christian’s participation in the paschal mystery of Christ:

I have frequently been threatened with death. I must say that, as a Christian, I do not believe in death but in resurrection. If they kill me, I shall rise in the Salvadoran people. I am not boasting; I say it with the greatest humility. As a pastor I am bound by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that includes all Salvadorans, even those who are going to kill me. If they manage to carry out their threats, I shall be offering my blood for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador (Sobrino, pp.99-100).1

At first his words do ring with an almost haughty, messianic tone—almost as if he saw himself as another Christ—rising in the hearts of his disciples. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was no pride in Romero’s encounter with death. He understood the death and resurrection of Christ in a way similar to how many mystics understand love—from the inside out, from lived experience. The French saint, Thérèse of Lisieux, frustrated at one point in her short life with the reality that she would never be ordained a priest or go to a foreign land as a missionary, said in a moment of mystical frustration, “Then I shall become love.” For Thérèse, becoming love was not an intellectual affirmation; it was a vocation. She transcended all boundaries and limitations by allowing God to become love in her.

Romero, I believe, did the same. Like Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, Romero moved beyond simply consenting faithfully to his belief in the resurrection of Christ; he became the paschal mystery. He so fully poured his own life out that the paschal Christ could become one with him—body, soul, and spirit. “I live, yet no longer do I live but Christ lives in me… and dies in me… and rises in me and in the Salvadoran people.” (emphasis mine)

1 Jon Sobrino, Archbishop Romero: Memories and Reflections (Orbis Books)

QUESTION TO TAKE WITH YOU THROUGH THE DAY: How can I participate in the death and resurrection of Christ today? How can I become love?