HIS FIRST POST OF TODAY is about the Martyrs of El Salvador, on the anniversary of the murders of the four North American Churchwomen, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel. They were murdered by soldiers of the fascist El Salvadoran government which was (and still does) carrying on a war against the poor People of El Salvador, especially the indigenous People supported by the American government, though President Carter cut off funding for that after these murders. Later the Reagan administration supported the fascist government and its war against the poor even more than before aid had been cut off, just as Trump supports and pays off the current dictator of the country.
To his post I'll add the last two entries in Here I Am Lord: The letters and writings of Ita Ford who, with her fellow Maryknoll Sister, Maura Clarke, had been attending a meeting of Maryknoll missionaries in Managua, Nicaragua. Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan had driven to the airport to give them a ride back to their mission. On their way back they were abducted, assaulted and raped and murdered by El Salvadoran soldiers. Members of the Reagan administration, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Al Haig and others either slandered them (especially Kirkpatrick) or joked about their murder (Haig) and the lie campaign against them was hardly limited to those two. Maybe I'll expand on that if I can find my notebook from back then.
123. Ita's last letter to her mother, from Nicaragua, December 1, 1980
Dear Mom,
I guess we're into celebrating life - birth, birthdays, and my own grudging acknowledgement that I'm still alive for some reason. So here's to three generations of Fords thankful for the gift of life!
I should have known better than to plan on the time for a tape at the Assembly. We generate work for all the margins of the day - sigh.
Central America is so different from Chile! But they're a good group of supportive ladies.
Much love, Ita
124, Translation by Ita for prayer service, December 1, 1980
For a prayer service at the conclusion of the Maryknowll Sisters' regional meeting in Managua, Sr. Maria Rikleman asked Ita to translate this text by Archbishop Oscar Romero, "The Poverty of the Beatitudes." The next day Ita and Maura Clare flew back to San Salvador.
"The Poverty of the Beatitudes" by Archbishop Oscar Romero
In my thought today, I would like you to hear this idea . . . that poverty is a force of liberation because in addition to being a denouncement of sin and a force of Christian spirituality, it is also a commitment. These words of scripture are a call. Christians, this word is for me first of all. I must give an example of being a Christian. And it is for all of you, my brother priests, and for you religious and for all baptized people who call themselves Christian.
Listen to what the Medellin conference says.
"Poverty is a commitment which assumes, voluntarily and through love - the condition of the needy of the world in order to give testimony to the evil this represents. It also is a spiritual freedom towards goods - following Christ's example who made his own all the consequence of man's sinful condition and who "being rich, became poor" to save us."
The commitment to be a Christian is this: to follow Christ in his incarnation. If Christ is the majestic God who became humble undo death on a cross and who lives with the poor so should be our Christian faith. The Christian who doesn't wish to live the commitment of solidarity with the poor isn't worthy to call himself a Christian.
Christ invites us not to fear persecution. Believe me brothers, he who is committed to the poor mus suffer the same fate as the poor. And in El Salvador we know what the fate of the poor signifies, to disappear, to be tortured, to be captive, to be found dead . . .
He who wold want the privileges of this world and not the persecutions of this commitment - hear the tremendous antithesis of today's Gospel.
Happy you, when people hate you and exclude you, insult you and consider you an outcast for the sake of the Son of Man. Rejoice and be glad because your reward will be great in heaven.
I pointed out yesterday that issues surrounding the birth of Jesus, the Incarnation are never far from continuing affairs. I'd like to expand on this part of Romero's sermon as translated by St. Ita Ford some other time but I'll just point it out for now, since it's Advent now as it was then.
The commitment to be a Christian is this: to follow Christ in his incarnation. If Christ is the majestic God who became humble undo death on a cross and who lives with the poor so should be our Christian faith. The Christian who doesn't wish to live the commitment of solidarity with the poor isn't worthy to call himself a Christian.
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