Meetings and memories

Saturday's procession and Mass commemorating Monseñor Romero was a beautiful event, even though Patti and I only saw the start of it (we knew that walking some miles to El Rosario, the Dominican church, at the slow pace of the procession wouldn't have been a good idea for either one of us, alas).  We did meet a lot of friends at the Plaza of the Americas, where the procession began, among them Sister Peggy, Leslie Schuld, Patty Clausen, and Hernan Merino.  It was wonderful to be part of this large, reverent, and joyful crowd remembering Monseñor. 

Then today I had the honor of meeting Doña Tulia of San Antonio Los Ranchos and her son Toño, two people who lived some of the worst of the horrors of the Civil War.  Doña Tulia, now a beautiful woman in her 80s, lost 9 of her ll children.  Toño, the youngest, told me about his memories of Karla Petitte (very likely I'm not spelling her name correctly), a beloved Maryknoll Sister who drowned when her jeep was caught in a flash flood.  She was with Sr. Ita Ford, who somehow survived the flood only to be murdered in December, 1980.  Hearing this eyewitness of El Salvador's tormented history brought home so powerfully the pain and loss of the years of repression and war.  These are the people Monseñor Romero loved and spoke for and died for.  And now he does live again in the Salvadoran people.

Photos below: Hernan Merino in this year's Romero T-shirt; Patti Moore with monks in the background; part of the crowd.