Monsenor Romero: Memories in Mosaic

Archbishop Oscar Romero comes to life as never before in this wonderful set of memories of his life and martyrdom. Edited and collated by Maria Lopez Vigil, Romero's coworkers, fellow priests and friends tell stories that add up to a portrait of a man who tried to make the gospels a tangible reality. Snippets of Romero's homilies and diary entries add his own voice to the mix.

Romero was thrust into a position of leadership in the late 1970s, during the turbulent and violent El Salvadoran civil war. The book makes it clear that he started not from a position of radicalism, but from the same blinkered, knee-jerk anti-communism that was the stock in trade of his brother bishops. The difference between him and the others, however, was that Romero had the capacity to learn from the real lives of his people. His episcopal brothers were satisfied with lives of "holiness," separated from their flocks, oblivious to their troubles and uninterested in their corporal well being.

Romero was radicalized by the death of his friend, Father Rutilio Grande, who was gunned down by Salvadoran military men. His death was one of countless thousands that epitomized the mindless slaughter of civilians by a military pledged to protect the interests of a few wealthy landholding families. Grande's funeral was one of many military murders that Romero presided over.

Romero is shown as a man of the people, sacrificing comfort and sleep to celebrate Mass in far-flung, hard-to-access villages. He preferred the company of old campesinos to rounds of meetings with his fellow bishops. He even worked out a system of pretexts with one of his parishioners to get him out of dull meetings. His homilies were broadcast on the archdiocesan radio station, and listened to by the entire country, including hopeful peasants as well as ill-intentioned military men. He was adored by the ordinary and the poor as much as he was reviled by the rich families. That went doubly for the wealthy matrons, who were interested in helping those less fortunate as long as their place of privilege was never threatened. His battles with the Vatican hierarchy were most disheartening. Even Pope John Paul II couldn't understand his fierce defense of the gospel, as viewed through the lives of the suffering of El Salvador. In the end, Oscar Romero was forced to tread his Via Dolorosa alone except for his enemies, as are most of the world's great martyrs.

I couldn't help but think back to the wonderful Paulist film made about Romero's life. That Romero was timid and quiet, though capable of bold words and deeds. The Romero of Memories, by contract, is passionate, wildly generous and full of fire. He gets irritated, he sweats in the heat, he lashes out in anger at his stubborn subordinates. But he also loves greatly, and is humble to the point of apologizing to those he has hurt.

There is no question that Romero could have lived a longer life had he tempered his critiques of the Salvadoran government and of their US backers. But politics was not his strong suit. He saw suffering in front of him and demanded that it end. He saw the wretched lives of the poor and demanded that they be succored. He saw thousands of dead and demanded that they be honored and buried.

Truth be told, some passages from that could easily be taken as coming from a man who had crossed the line into radicalism."As for the left, I don't call them leftist forces, I call them forces of the people. Their violence is likely to be the result of rage that people feel from having confronted so much social injustice....We can't say that there is a formula for moving from capitalism to socialism, if you want to call it socialism, well that's just a name. What we are looking for is social justice, a kinder society, a sharing of resources." You don't have to be a rabid anti-communist to hear what might have come from a rebel's mouth.

Perhaps this is a lesson for us who have grown up on tales of tepid saints sanctified for helping the poor. Perhaps their struggle was no less harrowing than that of Oscar Romero. Perhaps the gentle holy men and women who clothed the naked and fed the hungry were not so gentle after all. Or perhaps they played it safe by tended to the outcast without challenging the societal structures that required poverty as a side effect.

Memories shows that Oscar Romero, like Jesus, chose another path: to point the holy finger of blame at the economic structures that breed poverty. He made a career of living the words of Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara , who said famously, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." Memories in Mosaic shows how one man came to embody Camara's words and paid for his commitment with his blood. His sanctity was not one of quiet piety but of an active, almost violent clash of the gospel against the world. That the world struck back with fury is no surprise. Neither is it surprising that Romero's death is fated to overcome that fury.

Pope Dream

I had a crazy dream about the pope two nights ago. The scene: a huge cathedral, which was also an enormous, well-stocked supermarket. Crowds sat in stadium-style seats around the perimeter. Pope Francis (and helpers) were stripping the shelves and throwing food out to the masses in the seats. I was watching, very upset. I wanted to know (loudly) how this giveaway would be sustainable. How could the markets keep the shelves stocked when everything was being given away? In my dream, this seemed to border on communism.

So what was that all about?

I'm both a Francis fan and a supporter of the poor. At least, so I like to think. And I also take dreams seriously, especially ones that challenge my self-image. Am I worried that Francis is "giving away the store"? And if so, how?

Francis has certainly challenged the world's economic powers to rethink their cultural assumptions about their self-serving trickle-down  theories. And he is "throwing around" grace and kindness to communities (gays, Muslims, women, the sick and imprisoned) that have long dwelt in deserts of the church's love. Am I worried that Francis will empty the world's storehouses in order to feed the poor, and the world's (and God's) stores of love by distributing it too freely?

Maybe I am more stingy stingy (with my dollars and my love) than I should be.

Ten years ago, I visited South Africa. It has bugged me since then that I haven't found some way to directly assist the people I met there. There are the familiar reasons. I have kids to raise. A mortgage and house remodeling to pay for. College costs. Commuting. Utilities. Internet. Restaurants. Dry Cleaning. Christmas. By the time I have totaled my expenses, I live pretty close to the edge -- at least the edge defined by living a comfortable life in a first world country.

But the truth is that I don't know where to cut back. Taking five percent of my income and diverting it the poor would mean giving up something that I consider bedrock to my lifestyle. That I might in some sense need to survive in a high-paced world. Even the ten bucks I spend each month on the gym, a very modest amount, seems essential to maintaining a health weight.

I don't know whether my dream is a critique within a critique (criticizing me for criticizing the pope) or even whether it addresses economic concerns or spiritual ones. For all I know, the pope's approach to economics is naive and unsustainable. The fact is that I am not happy with the merry-go-round I am on, and that I feel hypocritical about it.

Pray for the stingy, imprisoned in a cocoon of "necessary" expenses.

Funeral drudge

I attend the funeral services for my cousin's wife's mother yesterday. Held in the chapel of the funeral home, something that seems to have caught on lately. An elderly deacon from one of the local churches showed up, ran through the funeral liturgy and gave the standard reflection.

It started, "Well, I didn't really know , but..."

I call this the "standard" reflection because I have heard it too often. A man of God struggles to say something heartfelt and extemporaneous for the deceased, whom he doesn't really know. Rather than avoiding this possibly embarrassing topic, he makes it the centerpiece of the eulogy.

"I didn't really know her."

This is why homilies and eulogies should never be combined. It should be chapter one in the class on homiletics. What "good words"  ("eu logia") can you say about someone you don't know? First off, Father, the reflection is not about you and your relationship with the deceased. It is about the deceased and their relationship with the Almighty. It's about the survivors and their relationship with the deceased, now broken, but also with each other, and with God.

I would speak about the relational rupture that is the result of death. Of the lines of love and communication that seemed to have been sundered irrevocably. Of obligations that will never be repaid, tasks that will never be completed. Of a life line for which the ink has run out, with no erasures or rewrites possible.

I would also speak of the presence of God in grief. Of the continuation of life, love and relationship. Of how the deceased has transcended to a newer and deeper relationship with Life, the Universe and Everything. Of how the dead live on in our memories, and in our hearts and in their descendants. Also, in the good or evil they have done during their lives, and which we are called to foster or to undo.

But even beyond this, I would says that even after all memory has faded and the existence of the deceased has been lost to memory and to history, they are held in the life of God. They are always precious, always loved and always nurtured. Their lives continue, in prayer for those still alive, in praise for God's goodness and love. In gratitude that life continues beyond the grave, beyond remembrance and into eternity.

When suns bloat and die; when atoms evaporate; when galaxies fade, cool and solidify; when the universe cools into a dark, hard and lifeless cinder, life in God continues -- probably in ways that we cannot imagine.

This is the promise of Resurrection. That after our descent into hell, we will rise again as Christ was raised. That we will sit at God's right hand as Christ sits, and that we will continue in God's company, doing whatever God needs done, growing in holiness and love until ours is indistinguishable from His.