12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A - 25th June 2017
Remembering Blessed Oscar Romero
This year we celebrate the 100th birthday of Blessed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador who was assassinated while celebrating Mass on March 24th 1980.
Sentir Con La Iglesia
Written above the tomb of this saintly man are the words, ‘Sentir Con La Iglesia’ which means ‘to feel,’ ‘to regret,’ ‘to experience’ with the Church. It means to be sensitive to all the church is going through, to feel and experience its joys and sorrows, its celebrations and its shame. While he took the side of the people who were poor he did not despise those who made them poor.
Love the Oppressor and the Oppressed with the Same Love.
It is often difficult to remain calm and not to adopt a militant tone in seeking one’s rights or those of others. A great pacifist once said that the most dangerous people he ever met were in the Peace Movement! That is why the words of Blessed Oscar Romero are so important – we have to love the oppressor and the oppressed with the same love.
We are prophets of a future which is not our own.
‘We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.’
These words were never spoken by Blessed Oscar Romero but they are always attributed to him. He was indeed a prophet. Prophets are not fortune tellers but they look at life and can foresee when people are leaving an unjust legacy to future generations.
The Call to be Prophets
Jesus today calls us to witness without fear to his life among us. We receive a dire warning: ‘But the one who disowns me in the presence of the people, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.’
Fr. Michael McCullagh C.M.
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