Monseñor, vives hoy

This video by Fabrizio Villegas includes powerful moments and images from Monseñor Oscar Romero's life.  I especially love that it begins with one of my favorite nuns here, tiny Sr. Benedita, touring us through Monseñor's house on the grounds of the Hospitalito (Hospital Divina Providencia, where he lived and died).  Then, about 4:07 minutes in, close to the end, there's video of Monseñor's visit to one of the many slums built along abandoned railroad tracks (because that was and is public ground, unused, and an easy place to take possession and build a shack of cardboard and tin) - perhaps the railroad tracks near the church Maria, Madre de los Pobres in the La Chacra neighborhood of San Salvador.  I'm moved by the three unidentified Sisters who accompany Monseñor, clearly Sisters who work in this slum and are showing him around.  It reminds me that communities of women religious have long been present with the poorest among us.

We celebrated Monseñor Romero's life and martyrdom today, on the eve of the day he died (since tomorrow is Palm Sunday).  I missed the main celebration - apparently the Archbishop was here in Suchitoto and it was a grand celebration, but I was on an errand of mercy in the capital, and was too late to join in - but the evening Mass was also dedicated to Monseñor on the 33rd anniversary of his death.  After communion the choir sang one of my favorite canciones (words and music by Alvar Castillo) - the chorus is:

Monseñor vives hoy
en el corazon
del pueblo que tanto te amó.
Monseñor tu verdad
nos hace marchar
a la victoria final.

Monseñor you live today
in the heart
of the people who loved you so much.
Monseñor your truth
makes us march
toward the final victory.

And at the end of the mass we all proclaimed together "Que vive Monseñor Romero!  Que vive!"  With the election of Pope Francis, with his passion for the poor, Salvadorans have hope that the canonization of Monseñor Romero will take place at last - but then the people have always known that he is San Romero de las Americas, pastor, prophet and martyr for the people he loved so much.

Remembering the Jesuit Martyrs

Today is the 23rd anniversary of the martyrdom of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America (UCA).  I hope to be at the annual memorial Mass tomorrow.

(Icon by Br, Robert Lentz, OFM)

Tonight I am remembering them, their courage, their commitment to the people, their faithfulness and their hope.  In the words of Fr. James Martin, S.J.:

Today we remember the six Jesuits and their two companions who were martyred in El Salvador on Nov. 16, 1989. The Jesuits at the University of Central America in San Salvador stood with the poor and the oppressed in their country, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Liberator, and made the ultimate sacrifice for God, for the church and for their brothers and sisters.

Holy Martyr Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Segundo Montes, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Joaquín López y López, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Amando López, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Elba Ramos, pray for us.
Holy Martyr Celina Ramos, pray for us.

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.

San Romero of the Americas

Tomorrow in San Salvador Patti Moore and I will join those remembering Oscar Arnulfo Romero Galdamez, San Romero of the Americas, a man who turned toward the beloved people of El Salvador in their struggle for peace and justice, and who did not turn away in the face of all the threats that became reality on March 24, 1980.  Thirty-two years later, my Salvadoran friends still remember listening to his voice on the radio, how everyone tuned in to listen to the Sunday homilies in which he told the truth about the events of the unfolding civil war.

In his last Sunday homily on March 23, 1980, he had spoken to the soldiers: "In the name of God, then, and in the name of this suffering people, whose cries rise to heaven more tumultuously every day, I beg you, I pray you, I order you in the name of God: cease the repression!"

The next day he presided at a family memorial Mass in the small chapel at the Hospitalito Divina Providencia, where he lived in the simple house the Sisters had built for him.  The gospel for his homily was John 12: 23-26: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. (John 12:24).  As he came to the end of his homily - when he must have seen the assassin's car driving up to the open door of the chapel, the rifle being aimed - he said: "May this body immolated and this flesh sacrificed for us nourish us also to give our body and our blood to suffering and to pain, like Christ: not for itself, but to give the idea of justice and of peace to our people."  As he turned to begin the Eucharistic prayer, a single shot was fired from the door.

Monseñor, your people of El Salvador will always remember you. 

Dean Brackley, October 16, 2011

I learned today via an e-mail from Gene Palumbo that Dean Brackley, S.J. - priest, writer, tireless worker for justice, and great friend of the people of El Salvador - died in Santa Tecla today.

Dean has been a great friend to our El Salvador Health Mission as he has been to every peace and justice-based program that connects people from the U.S. with the people of El Salvador. This photo is from Eleanor Gilmore's farewell party in 2009: Eleanor is on Dean's right and Guadalupe Montalvo Palumbo on his left.

I last saw Dean after our eye surgery mission in May of this year; Kathy Garcia and I talked with him while our group was touring the Romero Center at the UCA (University of Central America). He'd been talking to a delegation - one of the hundreds he met with - and came out to talk about getting some medications for the people he worked with in Jayaque. He was thin and worn looking, and told us that he'd had a colonoscopy that morning and was tired. Soon after that, we learned that he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had metastasized.

Gene says:
As you know, Dean came to El Salvador to help replace the six Jesuits murdered in 1989. Today, his life as a Jesuit ended in the place where their lives as Jesuits began: the Santa Tecla residence, where they did their two-year novitiate.
and he quotes an e-mail from Dean's brother Jesuit, Rafael de Sivatte:
I write to give you the painful and joyful news that God, Father and Mother, has taken to his side our brother, friend, father, and companion in solidarity, Dean. I can tell you that he died so peacefully that those of us who were with him at that moment felt filled with peace ourselves. I send you a fraternal embrace, united with you in prayer and in the commitment to the Kingdom for which he worked and continues to work.

A long busy week

It's been a long and busy week, and I haven't touched the blog. I've put a lot of miles on the car in visits to Soyapango, Apopa, San Salvador, El Paraiso, San Juan Opico, and San Rafael Cedros. I joined Peggy O'Neill and Margaret Jane on a beautiful day of memory and renewal in Nueva Esperanza, Bajo Lempa, to honor of Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan, the North American religious women who gave their lives as martyrs of peace thirty years ago. It's too much to put into one blog post, so I hope to publish several short posts today. Here, to begin with, and from the beginning of the week, is Alejandro, my 14-month old godson, up and walking, with his new short boy haircut. Pretty cute, eh? Hard to believe, but his mother has somehow trained him not to head for the china ornaments you see behind him. Ani Paula and her Salvadoran compañer@s could give parenting lessons to a lot of anxious gringas!

Saints and Martyrs

The street I live on, while technically (to the Post Office) 4th Avenue South, is also Avenida Padre Rafael Palacios. Rafael Palacios was the priest in Suchitoto when he was assassinated in 1979; his body is buried in the Sanctuary of Santa Lucia. This mural remembers Palacios and Romero. The worn lettering underneath the mural translates, more or less: "They wanted to kill you, but you are more present in the people than before."

For Restorative Justice

For three days the International Tribunal for Restorative Justice in El Salvador has been meeting at the Centro Arte para la Paz and hearing from survivors and family members some of the terrible stories from El Salvador's Civil War years. The Tribunal, a project of the Institute for Human Rights of the UCA (IDHUCA of the University of Central America), has two judges from Spain, two from Brazil, and two from El Salvador.

This year they heard wrenching testimony about the Copapayo Massacre, told by one of the few survivors, Rogelio Miranda, who was 10 at the time of the massacre that took the lives of most of his family. They heard about the death of Christian Democrat and human rights activist Mario Zamora Rivas, from his wife, Aronette Diaz. Zamora was assassinated in the family home just a month before the killing of Monseñor Romero. They heard from daughters and sons of other victims, and at times the judges wept and begged pardon of those giving testimony.

This Tribunal for Restorative Justice is an annual event, now in its second year, begins a work that has long been needed in El Salvador: the work of hearing and recording some part of the tragic history of El Salvador's Civil War years. In part because an amnesty was granted to all participants in the war with the Peace Accords of 1993, there has never been a full examination or accounting of the many massacres and murders - the estimate is that more than 70,000 people died or were disappeared - between 1977 and 1993. The Tribunal begins that work.

One of the gifts of the Salvadoran people is knowing that even their tragedies require celebrations, so this heart-wrenching tribunal (if you read Spanish, you can read a fuller account here) ended in the Festival of Truth and Justice, celebrated this year on the Plaza Central, with a beautiful prayer service and an evening of music. The festival began with a lively group of girl drummers and dancers from the community of Guillermo Ungo and it's still going on.

Three photos from the tribunal and the celebration: the first is of Dra. Aronette Diaz testifying about the death of her husband, Mario Zamoa; the second shows a banner created by the Concertacion de Mujeres of Suchitoto with the names of women from Suchitoto who lost their lives during the war; and the festival photo is of the girl drummers.

Primero Dios or Primero El Salvador

Yesterday La Prensa Grafica featured a two-page spread on the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Archbishop Romero's murder, and one item on the page reported vandalism at a small park in Antiguo Cuscatlan honoring Roberto D'Aubuisson, founder of the ARENA party and a man considered by many to be responsible for Romero's murder (for a recent, well-reported and chilling story about the events surrounding that murder, see the English translation of El Faro's excellent interview with Captain Alvaro Saravia.).

The vandals at the park had left a sign saying Asesino and the outline of a body in red paint. But what really struck me in the photo was the plaque with what I presume was D'Aubuisson's motto:

Primero El Salvador
Segundo El Salvador
Tercero El Salvador

How different that is from the words I hear every day in El Salvador, Primero Dios, God first. There's a huge irony here in that El Salvador means the Savior, means God. But I don't think that was how D'Aubuisson meant it.

San Romero of the Americas

Today, speaking as head of the Salvadoran state, President Mauricio Funes asked pardon for the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Funes said he apologized because the state failed to investigate the murder. For this story and a link to a BBC radio program about Romero, go to Tim's El Salvador Blog.

Today the Chapel of the Hospital Divina Providencia, the Hospitalito where Monseñor Romero lived and where he was shot 30 years ago today was crammed with people - Salvadorans, delegations from other countries, youth groups, labor organizations. Although the big memorial march took place last weekend, today's ceremony, which began with Mass at the Hospitalito and proceeded to the Cathedral, was full and moving. His words were spoken in Spanish, in English, through many different voices. His message and his fearless example have lost none of their force. The message on the back of one of the official T-shirts for sale today is: Bienaventurados los liberadores que ponen su fuerza no en las armas, no en el secuestro, no en la violencia, ni en el dinero, sino que saben que la liberación tiene que venir de Dios; que sera conjugación maravillosa del poder liberador de Dios y del esfuerzo cristiano de los hombres. [Blessed are the liberators who place their strength not in arms, not in kidnapping, not in violence, not in money, but who know that liberation has to come from God; that it will be a marvellous combination of the liberating power of God and the Christian efforts of people.]

Here are two photographs from the day - one of the march in progress, and one of my friend Mercedes Arias holding a Romero poster. I particularly liked this poster because it uses the same image our Congregation leadership used in our recent gatherings, of a seedling. Here the seedling springs from a cracked and parched land. New hope, new possibilities: a marvellous combination of the liberating power of God and our efforts.

In memory

Yesterday Alexine and I went to a noonday Mass at the UCA (University of Central America) honoring the four North American missionaries, Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel and lay missioner Jean Donovan, who were killed on December 2nd, 29 years ago. To hear something of the spirit these women brought to their work in El Salvador, read Susan Francois' blog post quoting a letter from Ita Ford.

The day before yesterday we had another encounter with historic memory, the memory of tragedy and commitment and strength and loss that is so powerful here in so many stories, so many martyrs. With Margaret Jane, we visited a village near Suchitoto called Marianella Garcia, named in honor and memory of Marianella Garcia Villas, a human rights advocate who was murdered in 1983.

In honor of Dorothy, Ita, Jean, Maura, Marianella and the many, many more whose blood was spilled into the earth of El Salvador, I'm posting these photographs of a few of the people who live in Marianella Garcia today - village people, leading peaceful lives. People worth dying for.

Blessings

Alexine and I visited the crypt of the cathedral in San Salvador for the 10 AM Mass on the first Sunday in Advent. This is a special place, the burial place of Monseñor Romero, and the community that gathers here on Sunday is also special - full of people who revere Monseñor and try to walk in his path, women from the market, old men, students, delegations from the United States and Europe. Most of the music this Sunday was from the Misa Salvadoreña by Guillermo Cuellar, lively tunes mated with powerful lyrics. In the offerings, the Advent wreath was brought forward, martyrs were remembered, and a basket of food for the hungry was placed at the altar. Afterwards Alexine bought some medals of Monseñor, and the photo shows her bringing them to his tomb for a blessing.

We found another amazing blessing Sunday night when we went to the Centro Arte para la Paz for a concert. The first act gave the ten young students who are learning to play the harp a chance to show off their new skills - with "Twinkle, twinkle little star"! Who could imagine a harp concert in Suchitoto? The harps are the gift of a Canadian woman who has also taught a local guitarist, and he in turn has taught the children the first steps of harping. The harpists were followed by a group of young guitarists, a chamber music group, and a popular music group - all wonderful, but the harpists won our hearts.

Honoring the Jesuits of the UCA

Yesterday Pat and I drove in to San Salvador for a memorial Mass in the crypt of the Cathedral, honoring the six Jesuits and their companions, assassinated twenty years ago on November 16th. It was a beautiful Mass, and the huge crypt - chosen because it is the burial place of Monseñor Romero and a sacred place for Salvadorans - was packed with people. The Jesuit Provincial, Father Jesús Salguero, said the Mass, with the current rector of the UCA, Fr. José María Tojeira, and several priests assisting. Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh talked at the end of the Mass, calling for the rapid canonization of Monseñor Romero, which drew a huge round of applause.

Today the murdered Jesuits were honored by Mauricio Funes, President of El Salvador, who presented them posthumously with the "José Matías Delgado" order of the golden cross - El Salvador's highest honor - which was accepted by their families and their Jesuit colleagues. This honor was an important symbol of the changing times in El Salvador, and perhaps a beginning of a process of truth-telling and reconciliation that has never yet happened publicly.

Photo by Jane Halsey from the rose garden at the UCA marking the place where the Jesuits were assassinated.

A time of terrible memories

Today the Jesuit community of the UCA (University of Central America) is remembering the Jesuits assassinated 20 years ago on their campus. Last night the community of El Sitio Cenizero, a village settled by survivors of the 1983 massacre of the people of Copapayo, remembered those who died during the three terrible days of killing. Margaret Jane and I heard the story of the Copapayo massacre two years ago, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace sponsored a week of study and reflection in El Salvador. I turned the story into a poem, and in memory of all those lives squandered so terribly during the Civil War, here it is:


Copapayo

He stands staring into his hands
moving them back and forth
talking to the ghosts that live there.

He cannot lift his eyes to look at us
because we are the ones who were not there
and so are still living.

He is compelled to tell the story
again and again, talking into his hands
to the ones who are not here,

Mamá. Papá. Tia. Hermana. Sobrino.
How they came down into the canyon to the lake
looking to go home again, was it safe? Was the Army
somewhere else? Looking to go home to plant the fields
with corn and beans, to harvest oranges. Peasants, paisanos,
thought to be ripe for communism, wanting rights
they shouldn’t have. He was just ten,
old enough to help. They sent out scouts,
the army came back after them, there was no time
to run, no where to hide, they started shooting,
bodies fell, beloved ones fell, blood fell into the lake.
After a while the army rounded up the survivors
and marched them away. The officer told some of the men
they could take the young girls, do as they liked with them.
He heard the girls screaming as they marched the others up
the hill away, he hears them still.

They were thirsty, hungry, so afraid. The soldiers said
they’d take them to a camp. After a while. First they were marched
to another village, not their own, He found his aunt and sister on the march,
still living, walking, and they walked together, kept together,
They were divided into three groups, sent to different corners
of the village, his group in tall grass when he heard the shots begin
and dived back, a small, thin boy, into the tall grass, trying to tell
his aunt, his sister to come hide with him, but then he was alone
alive holding silence while the world erupted into gunfire
and the soldiers joked and reloaded and shot some more
and tossed some branches over the dead and went away
and only he and Pedro were left, and Pedro, older boy, was
wounded so he couldn’t walk and he tended him for a night
and a day, fetched water for him, but he couldn’t carry Pedro
and he had to leave and the weight of what still feels like betrayal still
hides in the lines of his hands.

But he left and walked back to the canyon, past the bodies of the girls
now torn and dismembered by dogs, past the bodies of the ones
who had died in the canyon, no one left, no one alive to break
the silence, and he walked back to the village where the corn fields
were still unplanted and the orange tree hung heavy with fruit
and he hid in a hole in the earth like a dead boy until he heard
voices and it was the guerrillas gathering oranges and he came out,
and there was his uncle, the only one left, who put down the oranges
and gathered him up, cipote, precioso, and then the story
is over.

He stands staring into his hands
moving them back and forth
talking to the ghosts that live there.

He cannot lift his eyes to look at us
because we are the ones who were not there
and so are still living.

He is compelled to tell the story
again and again, talking into his hands
to the ones who are not here.

Reading Monseñor

A while back, I bought one volume of the six-volume set of Monseñor Romero's homilies, the volume that holds his reflections (in Spanish) on the liturgical readings for Cycle B, from June to November, 1979. Thirty years later, we're hearing those same readings proclaimed on Sundays.

Reading Monseñor's 1979 homilies is a multilayered experience. I'm aware of the passion and power of his reflections, of his deep love for scripture and for the church. He also comments every week on what is going on, the increasing repression and reprisals that would lead to his own assassination only a few months later. Reading what he said over the radio to the people of El Salvador (and everybody sat by their radio to listen, I'm told) I feel a great sorrow for the loss that is still to come, the loss of this great and clear and loving voice.

It's powerful to hold these homilies and the terrible times in El Salvador 30 years ago in mind and heart as I look at today's world. Better here, yes, but tonight there's another tense situation in Honduras, and there are places of loss and agony all over the world. I've also just finished The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn, a book that took me back 70 years to see and know some of the ordinary lives that were wasted in the Holocaust. Reading Monseñor and Daniel Mendelsohn, one sees the horrible, repetitive, banal quality of evil, of what can be unleashed when the restraints are off, when some humans have become prey, have been seen as less than human because they're Jewish or Tutsi or thought to be communists. The supposedly civilized times of my life have known too much of evil unleashed.

Monseñor Romero

Today my friends in El Salvador are joining together to remember and honor Monseñor Óscar Romero, martyred 29 years ago and still alive in his people. I am with them in spirit today.

In this icon by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM, San Romero - as he is often called in El Salvador - holds and protects the infant Jesus, imaged as a Salvador child, while the helicopters of the Army and death squads fly overhead.

Below, a brief outline of his life and martyrdom from Wikipedia:

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (August 15, 1917 – March 24, 1980), commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He later became prelate archbishop of San Salvador.

As an archbishop, he witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country's civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. In 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in El Salvador.

In 1997, a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for Romero and Pope John Paul II bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. The process continues. He is considered the unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador and is often referred to as "San Romero" in El Salvador. Outside of Catholicism Romero is honored by other religious denominations of Christendom, like the Church of England through its Common Worship. He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London.

Ash Wednesday

A day of turning, a day of ashes...

Today was Eleanor's last El Salvador day as a long-term resident (I'm surely planning on her being back for next year's medical mission), and it felt completely appropriate that it is also Ash Wednesday, when we're asked to turn from sin and turn toward God's companionship.

We went to Mass at the Chapel of the UCA, University of Central America, the Chapel that memorializes the martyred Jesuits - and the 20th anniversary of their martyrdom is this year. Padre Dean Brackley gave a fine homily - especially fine for me, as I understood almost every word - in which he asked us all to accept this opportunity for new life and to lay down some of the things (like television, perhaps) that get in the way of God's companionship.

We were dramatically marked with ashes and came home to an omelet and the last bits of packing and the opportunity for new life that's right here to hand for Eleanor and for me.

Here's what T.S, Eliot has to say about this new life that keeps dancing in us (from Ash Wednesday):

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Back home in El Salvador

After a very, very long bus trip from Guatemala City (we had about 1 1/2 hours pause for what we were told was a parade or demonstration - Andrea and I watched three entire movies en route), we returned to San Salvador and to the base house where we rejoined Eleanor Gilmore and where I am now at home. What a pleasure to wash clothes, begin to arrange my room, and start to live here - even while continuing in vacation mode.

Today we went up to Suchitoto (about an hour north of San Salvador), stopping at Aguilares and El Paisnal for brief visits with doctors who've been part of previous PazSalud missions. Conversation is still a huge challenge for me - I answered "yes" to Doctora Nidia's question only to learn that the question was "When will we meet again?" May all these pits and pitfalls be pure comedy to my gracious Salvadoran hosts.

Aguilares and El Paisnal hold a special memory of the life and martyr's death of Padre Rutilio Grande, SJ, who was Pastor in both towns and was killed in 1977 (along with a young boy and old man who were driving with him) on the way to El Paisnal. In El Paisnal, a new altarpiece (above) shows Archbishop Romero and Padre Rutilio celebrating at a table with Salvadoran friends and foods - Una Mesa para Todos, One Table for All, says the legend. May we all gather at the one table of Jesus, the table of friends.

Relaxing in Antigua

Andrea, Beth and I wandered through the beautiful and confusing streets of Antigua yesterday - beautiful in the repeated simple patterns of adobe walls and ornate doors, confusing because for the newcomer one street looks much like another, and all of them somehow lead to the Cathedral, Plaza and Palacio of ancient Guatemala. We wandered and wandered in search of the restaurant we had liked so much the night before, one with bountiful vegetarian choices for Beth and a delightful courtyard setting, and we finally found it, but found it closed, alas.

Along the way we visited the tomb of Santo Hermano Pedro de San Jose Betancur, open for the holiday. Brother Peter, born a poor man in Tenerife in 1626, made his way to Guatemala and, destitute, joined the Franciscan breadline. Later he tried to study for the priesthood in the local Jesuit college, but couldn't master the subjects. Instead he became a 3rd Order Franciscan and gave the rest of his life to caring for those in great need, opening a hospital and school for the poor, a shelter for the homeless, and a religious order for women teachers, the Bethlehemites. No wonder his tomb and the Franciscan church were full of people praying. In the church, a mural of Franciscan life included portraits of four Franciscan brothers martyred during the civil wars of the 1980s, one in Salvador, one in Nicaragua, two in Guatemala: a potent reminder that the call to give all for Christ continues to be a dangerous invitation.

As we came back to the Plaza we saw a great crowd gathered and heard firecrackers going off in a storm of noise and smoke, young men running through the area of explosions, and then, majestically, a procession with the Holy Sacrament carried reverently around the plaza under a canopy - preceded by firecrackers and followed by devout candlebearers. A very latino combination!

The Martyrs of El Salvador

The other blogging Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, Susan Francois, has a moving memory of encountering the Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador during a Congregation Experience there a year and a half ago. I have now walked many times in the rose garden at the University of Central America that now blooms where six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were killed - a rose garden planted by Elba Ramos' husband, Celina Ramos' father, in memory of all that was lost on the 16th of November, 1989. Here is a rose from that garden (photo by Jane Halsey).

I am always glad that Elba and Celina Ramos are remembered along with the Jesuit Fathers Ignacio Ellacuria, Ignacio Martín Baró, Amando López Quintana, Segundo Montes Mozo, Joaquin López y López, and Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo. Like so many Salvadorans during the Civil War years, they died because they were at the wrong place, in the way, witnesses to murder. Ignacio Ellacuria and his companions were killed because they, like Monseñor Oscar Romero, spoke for the poor, the vulnerable, the voiceless - the Elbas and Celinas.

May the roses bloom this November day over the garden where their blood was shed.