There are two pictures that have been on the wall of my office since my first trip to El Salvador in 2001. The first is of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the second is of the four American churchwomen who were killed in 1980, the same year Romero was assassinated. They are there as a reminder to me that being a leader in the Church means loving the people you serve with such a passion that no sacrifice is too great. On this most recent trip to El Salvador we visited the graves of Ita Ford and Maura Clarke in Chalatenango. As we were leaving, one member of our group expressed the same thought that plagued me the first time I learned that many of those serving as missionaries in El Salvador during the civil war were warned that they would likely be killed if they stayed. Why didn’t they leave?

It was only when I began to talk with the people (like my little friends above from NPH) that I began to understand why the four American churchwomen and so many others could not leave the country even with the threat of death. How could they walk away from the people they had come to love and allow them to face the atrocities of a brutal civil war alone? I am sure that none of them wanted to be killed, but if there was any truth to their ministry they had to risk being killed when the same was happening to those they served.

This past trip I was humbled by the stories that I heard from many Salvadorans, mostly women, who survived the war. They told us gruesome  stories of massacres and of being tortured by soldiers. But most of all they spoke of forgiveness. There was not even a hint of vengeance in their voices. They simply told the truth so that the evils they witnessed could be exposed for what they are and that they would not be forgotten and thus repeated. “I don’t want anyone to ever have to suffer from another war,” one woman repeated several times.

As I stood and looked at the more than 30,000 names inscribed in the Memorial Wall to Truth & Memory, knowing that this is less than half of those killed and missing during the long civil war in El Salvador, I couldn’t help but wonder how it is that we so often dehumanize one another. Many of the stories that we heard over this past week describe things done to others that I wouldn’t even dare do to an animal, much less a human being. Beginning the season of Lent with a reminder of the terrible costs of war has not been such a bad way to start. I hope it will be my reminder throughout Lent to treat others with the dignity they deserve as a result of having been made in the image and likeness of God.

I am happy to be spending almost a week this Lent with these and other smiling faces in El Salvador. My friend John and I will be heading out tomorrow to introduce some new folks to NPH as well as to learn more about the country. As a result, I will not be writing any new posts for several days. It’s all part of my plan to spend less time on the internet during Lent. Please keep us in prayer during our journey.

One of my favorite paintings is located on the second floor of Mundelein Seminary’s administration building. It is this painting of the crucifixion that clearly portrays the stark reality of the death of God and the sorrow of his mother and the beloved disciple. The expression of agony on Mary’s face and John holding his face in his hands, his head cast down captures the pain and anguish that would have naturally been a part of losing a loved one to this kind of violent death.

As my friend John and I looked through Fr. Ron Hicks’ recent photo albums from NPH last night, we came across several pages dedicated to his last Lent and Easter spent at the house in El Salvador. One of the things that always seems to strike those of us from the US when we see Latin American depictions of the passion is the gruesome reality with which Jesus’ passion and crucifixion are presented. It is very common to see the person playing the part of Jesus totally covered with blood, beaten to look like a man who has been brutally tortured, leaving no doubt that he is dead. My experience is that we usually shy away from this type of depiction, thinking that they are meant to guilt us into feeling badly about what our sins did to Jesus.

While I don’t think it is all that bad of a thing to remember the consequences of our sins, I am not so sure that this is what many Latin Americans are thinking when they see the very same depictions. Let’s take El Salvador as an example. The Salvadoran people have recently lived through a terrible civil war in which many people were brutally raped, tortured and killed. During the same years that I was in junior high school out on the baseball field practicing, boys my same age in El Salvador were being conscripted into the Army. If my own experience was that of poverty, suffering and terrible violence, having a God who freely chooses to enter into these same things would not make me guilty, it would give me hope that I have not been left to suffer alone.

When I see realistic depictions of the crucifixion, ones that expose the true consequences of the broken nature of this world, they always remind me that we have a God who wasn’t willing to leave us to suffer alone, but who willingly accepted death, even death on a cross, in order to show us his love.

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the brutal killing of four American women in El Salvador. The four women, Sister Maura Clarke, M.M, Sister Dorothy Kazel, O.S.U., Sister Ita Ford, M.M., and lay missioner Jean Donovan, were killed in El Salvador on Dec. 2, 1980. The murders were part of a brutal pattern of attacks by death squads and members of the Salvadoran Armed Forces against its own people and those who lived and worked among them. Since visiting the site where the women’s bodies were buried as a newly ordained priest I have kept a poster of both Bishop Romero and these women on the wall of my office as a reminder of what it means to give oneself totally to those one serves. One of the things I am most proud of at St. Thomas Parish is the large scale commitment to the NPH House in El Salvador. In the same way I am saddened by our US government’s involvement in helping to fund the brutal violence against the people of El Salvador, I am now heartened by what we are doing with the children of NPH to show the better side our our country.

Click here for an audio program from Vatican Radio to hear more about these four selfless women.

NPH 2010 from Christian Mathis on Vimeo.

It has been a busy couple of weeks of visiting NPH El Salvador, celebrating anniversaries and catching up on work. Here is a video with a few highlights of our recent trip to El Salvador. Enjoy!

Once again you are invited to join me in promoting the Sabbath by taking a break from your normal blogging. Please share an older post from your blog that is near and dear to your heart. Make sure to leave your name and the URL of your post below and share a comment if you so desire. I look forward to reading your recycled posts!

Here we are again at a Sabbath Sunday and I am sharing a post from our trip to three NPH orphanages back in September entitled NPH Update.

Once again you are invited to join me in promoting the Sabbath by taking a break from your normal blogging.  Please share an older post from your blog that is near and dear to your heart. Make sure to leave your name and the URL of your post below and share a comment if you so desire. I look forward to reading your recycled posts!