Sunday, February 16, 2025: There are some things that can only be seen by eyes that have wept.
Jesus came down with the Twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
I Stand with You who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.
I Stand with who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
I Stand with You who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
I Stand with You when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation in this world.
Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.
- Luke 6:17, 20-26
Reflection by Jim Fredericks
In October of 2018, Pope Francis celebrated a mass in the open air in the Piazza Santo Pietro in Rome. The mass was held outside because there were far too many people for the
Basilica to hold. If you had been there and if you were lucky enough to be close to the Pope, you would have seen that the Pope’s cincture was stained with blood.
Pope Francis was canonizing Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, who had been assassinated as he was celebrating mass in a little chapel in 1980. Romero was martyred during a time of injustice and violence against the poor in El Salvador. This tiny nation used to be called “the republic of coffee.” An oligarchy of fourteen families (las catorce) used to run the country.
By Romero’s time, the power of las catorce had been consolidated into five corporations doing business with US coffee companies. Campesinos were desperate for land reform. By the time of Romero’s installation as archbishop, twelve priests and an untold number of peasants had been murdered by the private militias. 3
Romero was chosen to be the archbishop of San Salvador because he was apolitical and therefore acceptable to the government. But as the Psalmist wrote – The Lord hears the cry of the poor. And so did the archbishop. Romero began to speak out in defense of the poor.
On March 24th 1980, a militia member entered the church while the Archbishop was celebrating mass and fired on him during the prayer of the faithful. Thirty-eight years later, Pope Francis wore Archbishop Romero’s bloodied cincture at the canonization mass in the Piazza.
In one of his homilies, Oscar Romero said something important for us to remember: There are some things that can only be seen by eyes that have wept. These words reveal much about the faith of Archbishop Romero.
He was a priest that first had to weep over the suffering of those humbled and marginalized by the so- called “laws” of economics and the power of his country’s oligarchs before he could see the world as Our Brother Jesus sees the world.
Our Brother Jesus does not see the world as oligarchs see it. Listen to what he said in his famous sermon: “Woe to you rich!”
I Stand with You who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. I Stand with You who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. I Stand with You who are now weeping, for you will laugh. I Stand with You when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
Our Brother Jesus does not see the world through the eyes of the oligarchs of this world. He does not support the fourteen families or the five corporations of El Salvador. He does not bless the interests of the bored billionaires who presume they have a right to run the world.
When I think of Pope Francis canonizing Saint Oscar Romero wearing the archbishop’s bloody cincture, I pray for a Church that weeps for what is happening to the poor and the marginalized today. We must be a Church that weeps for those uprooted by ethnic cleansing, invasion, militias, and drug gangs that profit from poisoning our children.
We must become a Church that weeps for the plight of those forced to immigrate. It is easy to see the world through the eyes of oligarchs. But this is not how our brother Jesus sees the world. Like Oscar Romero, the Lord sees the world through eyes that have wept. I Stand with You who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.
Announcement: President's Day Protest Against the President
Mon, Feb 17, 2025 11:00am - 1:00pm | US/Pacific
| Category: | Marches and Protests |
Description
I Am the Land: A Poem in Memory of Oscar Romero*
I am the land.
I am the grass growing.
I am the trees.
I am the wind, the voice calling.
I am the poor.
I am the hungry.
The doors of the church are open
as wide as the heart of a man.
In times of trouble
here is a rock, here is a hand.
God knows the meaning of our prayers.
I have asked our government to listen.
God is not dead
and I will never die.
I am the land.
I am the grass growing.
I am the trees.
I am the wind, the voice calling.
I am the poor.
I am the hungry.
He who is resurrected is revolutionary.
He who is resurrected believes in peace.
This is the meaning of light.
This is the meaning of love.
The souls of my people are the pages of history.
The people of El Salvador are the people of the world.
I am Oscar Romero, a humble servant.
I am the land.
I am all the people who have no land.
I am the grass growing.
I am all the children who have been murdered.
I am the trees.
I am the priests, the nuns, the believers.
I am the wind, the voice calling.
I am the poets who will sing forever.
I am the poor.
I am the dreamer whose dreams overflow with hope.
I am the hungry.
I am the people.
I am Oscar Romero.
E. Ethelbert Miller
Comments
Post a Comment