Anniversary of El Salvador Martyrs, Memories, Events, & Reality

On my stove this morning sits a single dark red rose, in memory of all who have died from HIV / AIDS and also in memory of Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel, who were murdered in El Salvador 30 years ago yesterday. Jean herself spoke of El Salvador as beautiful, with roses blooming in December, and the film autobiography of her is named "Roses in December." So the rose, which came from my community's World AIDS Day Mass on Wednesday evening, 1 December, feels especially appropriate now.

Much of yesterday, as I thought about and prayed for Jean, Ita, Maura & Dorothy, I thought back to 30 years earlier. At that time, I lived in Berkeley & had recently begun my second year in seminary at Pacific School of Religion (PSR). The previous Spring, I'd been invited to join a House Church: An intentional base community, modeled on the base communities in Latin America, in which a small group of us met to pray, reflect upon Scripture in light of current reality, share our ministry work, support one another, and share a pot-luck meal once each week or once every other week. Our House Church was small & comprised mostly of Jesuit seminarians & other students at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (JSTB), including several dynamic women who were members of different religious orders. Founded by an ordained Jesuit, the House Church was egalitarian, challenging, a source of deep faith, and often provided the best meal any of us ate all week. For three years, it served as the most authentic and faith-filled community in my life, calling me to an always-renewed and always-renewing understanding of how I was called to serve G-D and G-D's people.

We had learned on Wednesday, 3 December, that 4 US women church workers had not returned from the airport the previous evening; they had been expected at the coastal city of La Libertad that night. Since at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU -- the consortium of seminaries to which both PSR & JSTB belonged) there were 3 Catholic seminaries -- Jesuit, Franciscan and Dominican -- in classrooms & along the streets of Northside, as well as in refectories & at daily Mass, we talked quietly, wondering what had happened. There was little news that night.

Late the following afternoon, I waited in Downtown Berkeley for the bus that would take me up to Northside for House Church when Garland, another House Church member (and our only Quaker) came up from out of the Berkeley BART Station. "Pat, I just heard. They've been found, or, their bodies have been. They're dead. They were all shot to death."

I was not the only person who cried that evening, as we talked, prayed, comforted one another, and reflected upon the Gospel in light of this new reality. What did it mean for El Salvador, especially for the poor? What did it mean for US policy -- would this help to change it? And what did this mean for us?

The following morning, the group of us -- Garland, Kenny, Sheila, Steve, Mary Lou, Millie, Donna, JD, Kevin, and myself -- went into San Francisco to the memorial Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, celebrated by Archbishop John Quinn. The Archbishop had long been an advocate for the poor of Latin America and had attended Archbishop Romero's funeral just a few months before, in March of the same year. As I listened, and prayed, and reflected upon the deaths of these four women, I realized that something significant had shifted and changed. I realized and understood, probably for the first time in my Catholic Christian life, that people I knew and loved, people who took their faith with the radical seriousness of the Gospel of Liberation, could risk and even lose their lives for the sake of that Gospel. I looked at my friends and realized that, if we did, indeed, take the Gospel seriously, we could die. And over the next days and weeks, I grappled with that new understanding, wondering if I were truly prepared to say that kind of "yes" to G-D.

Thirty years on, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel continue to call people to follow the Gospel, to serve the poor, to make a radical commitment to G-D's preferential option for the poor. One doesn't need to belong to a religious order to make such a commitment; I see it every week in my parish community in Downtown Hartford, as members make and serve sandwiches to folks who come to our door; prepare, cook, & serve dinner to the women in our transitional women's shelter; serve meals at The House of Bread; travel to our Sister Parish in Haiti; nurses in our parish take blood pressures & help refer people without health coverage to health care options in the Hartford area. And I know that these ministries are repeated in hundreds of parishes across the US. This coming Thursday, 9 December, my parish will commemorate the lives and deaths of Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel with dinner and a performance about these modern women martyrs.

In the interim... what else is new? This past Wednesday afternoon, I began an eight-week training program in the Pastoral Care Department at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford. At the end of the training, if I still feel called & don't bomb out, I will be approved to serve as a pastoral visitor with patients at St. Francis, both in the hospital & in the Emergency Room. After years away from the classroom & formal ministry training, it is a challenge! Please keep me in your prayers. My long-term hope is, if I do indeed continue to feel called, to be able to do more formal training (Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE) that would qualify me as a hospital chaplain, thus bringing together two parts of my life that have long seemed to be moving toward one another: My health care experience, including acute care experience in San Francisco in the 1970's & '80's, and my theology & ministry experience over the past 35 years.

Tomorrow & Sunday, I'll be spending time in Chapters 40-55 of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah with class at St. Patrick-St. Anthony. I love these particular chapters of Isaiah which begin: Comfort, Oh give comfort to my people, says Your G-D...

Later today, I hope I will finally get the cast off my right ankle & leg & begin rehab of my fractured ankle. It's been 6 weeks (I think) since I fractured it in a freak accident. It will be nice to shower without covering one leg in plastic sheeting!

I'd intended to write this yesterday, however, by the time I arrived home after daily Mass & a trek to the main library in Hartford, my lack of sleep following my days of too much sleep finally caught up with me, & I slept from about 4:30 pm - 7:15 pm & then again from 10 pm until 6 this morning, all of which feels terrific. Over the weekend, I'll write about Advent and why it is my favorite liturgical season.

For now, Happy Chanukah, Blessed Advent, and best wishes for a most enjoyable weekend!!