February 2, 2023
EDITOR’S NOTE: Fr. Mike’s homily was originally posted to the Maryknoll Society’s website. We thank them for allowing us to reproduce it on paulist.org.
A little more than two weeks ago, I got out of a rickety bus, on a small, dusty, winding road, in a small, rural, town in El Salvador. I was on a pilgrimage, and though the site I saw was unremarkable to the unknowing eye, I was on holy ground.
You see, it was at this site 42 years ago, that four bodies were discovered, recently buried in a shallow grave. The bodies were of three religious sisters – nuns – sister Maura Clarke, sister Ita Ford, sister Dorothy Kazel, Jean Donovan, a lay woman. On December 2, 1980 on their drive home from the San Salvador airport, they were stopped by the Salvadoran National Guard, abducted, raped, and murdered.
They were missionaries from the United States and because many priests and sisters and lay church workers were advocates for the poor, were critical of the government, they were seen as political enemies by some – many – in the government and military. And for that, they were murdered. For that, they are martyrs.
Before her murder, Sister Dorothy wrote: I came to El Salvador thinking the people needed my help, instead they have helped me to deepen my own faith and I suffer with them. This country is writhing in pain and yet [is] a country that is waiting, hoping, yearning for peace…for a complete realization of the Kingdom.
In many ways, what happened to those women, their experience of ministry there, their experience of the people they served: connects to our gospel today, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, they who mourn, the meek, they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers.
My observation is that so often we go through life as if we were the expert on everything. That, when it comes to learning, we, in our often-self-centered society and country are the ones that can teach others how to be, how to live, how to think.
Yet, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, and Sr. Dorothy discovered in El Salvador working among the poor, that the essential part of being a disciple, is learning.
The Beatitudes are the foundation of what we are to learn. You see, while there are so many things one could study and learn about our Church – Church history, theology, scripture – they are not as fundamental as the Beatitudes.
The Beatitudes, that speak to us about pain and suffering and grief. Pain and suffering and grief, which are all part of the human condition, part of our lives. But it’s what we do with it that matters. It’s asking ourselves, honestly: why am suffering right? Is my suffering and struggle inwardly focused, about our own concerns, our own comfort – or it is like the suffering of Sr. Dorothy, a suffering that was for a longing for peace and justice?
The Beatitudes, that teach us that we are to be people who work for peace, who live for peace. And yes, this was the work of Sr. Dorothy and so many others, and it is our work, our task as well. Our work, not necessarily to relocate to far off lands, but to think about where the places in our lives that don’t have peace right now. And what are the sacrifices we’ll make to bring peace there?
Here’s the thing about Sr. Dorothy that has been running through my mind – in my mind while I was in Central America – and in my mind right now at this moment as we see images, horrible, terrible images of the beating death of Tyre Nichols – at the hands of those whose responsibility it is – was – to keep people safe.
You see, Sr. Dorothy as a white American woman, knew nothing about the pain and suffering of the people in El Salvador. But she went, she learned, and she suffered for that – she suffered with them.
In our country right now, there are a lot of people who are in pain, who are suffering. Sr. Dorothy’s words echo in my mind again: This country is writhing in pain, and yet, [is] a country that is waiting, hoping, yearning for peace…for a complete realization of the Kingdom.
And me, as a white American male, in so many ways, I don’t know what that’s like, what so many others are unjustly going through. Yet the Beatitudes are calling me – all of us – to do something more, to learn.
And yes, there is a price, there is a cost to living the Beatitudes, to go outside our own circumstances. To speak out, to shout, to thirst for righteousness.
But to that, Jesus tells us this:
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.