“Holy Week is a call to follow Christ’s austerities, the only legitimate violence, the violence that he does to himself and that he invites us to do to ourselves: “Let those who would follow me deny themselves,” be violent to themselves, repress in themselves the outbursts of pride, kill in their hearts the outbursts of greed, of avarice, of conceit, of arrogance… this is what must be killed, this is the violence that must be done, so that out of it a new person may arise, the only one who can build a new civilization: a civilization of love.”
This is the violence of love of which Romero speaks—killing the idol of self.
“A Christian’s authenticity is show in difficult hours… it is in difficult hours that the church grows in authenticity. Blest be God for this difficult hour in our archdiocese. Let us be worthy of it.” P. 43-44
Amazing to read that Romero blesses God for the “difficult hour” his church and country are living through—the murder of priests and lay-workers, the disappearances, the slaughter of the innocent. He blesses God for all of this! But blesses in the sense of the Beatitudes… “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven…” (Matthew 5:11-12)
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’ skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do no light up the y world they live in.” p. 44
Very challenging words for any preacher and every Christian! Do we light up the world that we live in?
“Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know that we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down to proclaim blessed the poor, blessed the thirsting for justice, blessed the suffering.” P. 48
See Matthew 5: 3-11 & Luke 6: 20-26 Amen to the upside-down logic of God!
“Suffering will always be. It is a heritage of the first sin and a consequence of the other sins that God permits, even after the redemption. But the redemption converts into power of salvation when suffering is undergone in union of faith, hope, and love with the Redeemer’s divine suffering and cross. Suffering is the shadow of God’s hand, which blesses and pardons; and suffering unites people in solidarity and draws them near to God.” P. 51
This is another very difficult one to wrap one’s mind/heart around. Suffering is a consequence of human sin, yet God allows suffering, and suffering can be sanctified, made holy, if we suffer for/in God’s love. What do you think? What is your experience?
“God has eternity before him. Only God has security. It is for us to follow humbly wherever God wants to lead, and blessed are those who stay faithful to the ways God inspires them to go and who do not, in order to please others, live with an uneasy conscience in the place where others believe security is to be found.” P. 58
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