Like many, I will never forget the devastation felt when I heard of the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero of El Salvador in 1980. Although we were at the other end of Latin America, the reverberations rang loudly: another outstanding Christian leader shot down by murderous state powers. These were the years of state sanctioned terror, disappearance, brutal savagery and murder.

The homily given at the Mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence cancer hospital in San Salvador where he was assassinated, was based on John 12:23-26. It said in part,

you have just heard in Christ’s gospel that one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and that those who try to fend off the danger will lose their lives, while those who out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others, will live, live like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently. If it did not die, it would remain alone. The harvest comes about only because it dies, allowing itself to be sacrificed in the earth and destroyed. Only by undoing itself does it produce the harvest.

The full Final Homily of Archbishop Romero. 

Also an interesting sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury based on Romero’s ‘sentir con la iglesia’: ‘his feelings and compassion with the church’.

Much more information is available at the Archbishop Romero Trust: Oscar Romero was a priest and bishop in El Salvador. His love for his people who were suffering violence and oppression led him to take their side and to denounce their oppressors. And so he was killed, whilst saying Mass, on 24th March 1980. The website makes available materials on Archbishop Romero’s life and martyrdom. In praying about mission, I have found good grist for forming my prayers in the prayer attributed to him,

THE LONG VIEW   –  A Prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying that
The Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection,
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter
And do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference
Between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Amen.

See also my Easter message: Healing through forgiveness.