Your Excellency,<\/p>\n
Dear sisters. Dear brothers,<\/p>\n
We are gathered today around the altar of the Lord to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Blessed Oscar Arnulfo Romero.\u00a0 Today, all of us here, together with others in El Salvador and in other parts of the world, remember this shepherd for his Gospel witness that brings light to believers and non-believers alike.\u00a0 On that long ago August 15, 1917, God chose the child born that day for a great mission:\u00a0 to prepare the hearts of his fellow countrymen to welcome the Gospel of his Son.\u00a0 As often happens with prophets, Romero paid with life.\u00a0 His birth, his life, and especially his death were all focused on Jesus.\u00a0 He made his own the words that Paul wrote to the Romans: “What will separate us from the love of Christ?\u00a0 Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?…For I am convinced that neither neither death, nor life … nor other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God…. ” (Rm 8:35, 39). The last years of his pastoral life were guided by those exact words.\u00a0 Pope Francis has made it clear that Romero was persecuted even after his death with the opposition to his beatification that many persons mounted.\u00a0 But when May 25 last year finally came, more than sixty thousand people gathered around the altar to thank the Lord for sending this shepherd.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll never forget the emotion of that day.\u00a0 At his tomb, many, just as when he was alive, spoke to him because they felt he was still with them!<\/p>\n
Today, on the centenary of his birth, we remember him yet.\u00a0 And we do so beginning with the day he entered Heaven.\u00a0 It was on March 24, 1980, that he was assassinated at the altar just after his homily nd while he was preparing the gifts at the Offertory.\u00a0 They silenced him with a single shot to the heart, but now he speaks to us even more clearly.\u00a0 His death is written in the heart of the Twentieth Century Church.\u00a0 In ages past, only two other bishops met the same fate:\u00a0 St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Krak\u00f3w, and St. Thomas \u00e0 Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.<\/p>\n
I myself remember the emotion of St. John Paul II when he heard that Romero had been assassinated.\u00a0 And when, at the Celebration for New Martyrs during the Great Jubilee of the Year Two Thousand, he saw that Romero\u2019s name had been left out\u2014that\u2019s how strong Curia opposition was\u2014the Pope added it, writing that Romero was an example of the Shepherd who lays down his life for his flock.\u00a0 And today, Romero\u2019s death continues to speak to us in the martyrdoms of the many priests in the Middle East who have been assassinated while celebrating Sunday Mass.\u00a0 Romero was the first in this long line heros who died for Christ in the Twentieth Century, in the New Millennium.\u00a0 And with him, let us remember all the Christians who continue to bear witness to the Gospel even unto the shedding of their blood.<\/p>\n
Keeping alive the memory of Romero is a noble task, and my great hope is that Pope Francis will soon canonize him\u2014a Saint!\u00a0 Over the years, we insisted on Romero being recognized as a martyr.\u00a0 The essence of his holiness was his following the Lord by giving himself completely for his people.\u00a0 But let\u2019s be realistic, Romero was not a Superman. He was afraid of dying, and he confessed that to his friends on a number of occasions.\u00a0 But he loved Jesus and his flock more than he loved life.\u00a0 This is the meaning of martyrdom.\u00a0 Love for Jesus and the poor is greater than love for oneself.\u00a0 This is the power of Romero’s message.\u00a0 A simple believer, if overwhelmed by love, becomes strong, unbeatable.\u00a0 Several times, to shut him up, he was threatened with death, but Romero, following the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His sheep, would not shut up; and when he was advised, even by Rome, to leave the country because the threats had become more direct, he replied: “The shepherd never leaves his sheep, especially not when then they are in danger.”<\/p>\n
And today Romero repeats in Heaven the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: “When I was with them, I protected them in your name … and guarded them…” (Jn 17:12)\u00a0 Romero died to save his people, to save them from the violence of injustice.\u00a0 I believe that the verse I just quoted was one that Romero often meditated on, just as he meditated on other passages that speak of giving one\u2019s life to protect the flock, and before he preached this message to others, he preached it to himself, and he chose to be like Jesus, giving his life for his flock.\u00a0 For this reason, he could not, just to save himself, keep silent in the face of the injustices suffered by the powerless.\u00a0\u00a0 He began to denounce them publicly.\u00a0 He did not shirk before the forces of power, and he found his power in the love that Christ has for the poor.\u00a0 It was the Gospel that led him, it was the Magisterium of Vatican II and of the Latin American Church with its preferential option for the poor.\u00a0 Those who were oppressing the poor did not like the Church that Romero exemplified.\u00a0 Indeed, they believed it to be a politicized Church.\u00a0 Romero chose to be faithful to the Church presented by the Council.\u00a0 He became a forceful witness of its love for the poor, and he gave his life at the altar in union with Christ Himself\u2014victim and priest at the same time.\u00a0 A nun who was at that Mass and who saw Romero die before he raised the bread and wine to Heaven, told me, \u201cthat day I thought Romero was, like Jesus, both victim and priest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Martyr\u2019s death that Romero suffered is his most precious gift to us.\u00a0 That gift is especially precious in our days, and the people know it.\u00a0 That’s why his testimony continues to be welcomed all over the world.\u00a0 Yes, dear sisters and dear brothers, in a world where self-love and self preservation are supreme values, where we protect ourselves from others by raising building walls and barriers both in our hearts and in our relationships, Romero\u2019s example is a shining beacon, a light that delivers individuals and peoples from the darkness of egoism.\u00a0 Romero is speaking to us, and I can hear the echo of his last Sunday homily: \u201cIn the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people, I beg you, I beseech you; I order you in the name of God\u2014stop the repression.\u201d\u00a0 There is too much violence in the world, there is so much violence in El Salvador, where gangs continue to bloody the country.\u00a0 There is violence in too many countries in the world; too many wars; Hunger is too widespread and there is too much injustice to number.\u00a0 Ours is a world of indifference that lets evil reap its harvest of innocent souls, young and old..\u00a0 There is too much terrorist violence that sows death and fear.\u00a0 Today, Romero asks the whole world to stop the violence, stop the killing.<\/p>\n
Dear sisters and dear brothers, we need a real conversion away from fear, indifference, superficiality, just as Archbishop Romero was converted when he lived through the death of Father Rutilio Grande with his two peasant friends.\u00a0 Romero became a defender of the poor, and we too are asked to leave behind a Christianity that is just habit and self-reference. Today, in our own world, we need a Gospel Christianity that knows how to witness love for everyone, especially for the poor, a Christianity that inspires us to give our life for others.\u00a0 Romero did not think of himself, did not defend himself, did not spare himself.\u00a0 Romero followed Jesus who gave his life for others. This was his witness.\u00a0 He witnessed a Gospel and a Church that \u201cgoes out\u201d to save everyone, no one excluded.\u00a0 It is the Church of the Second Vatican Council that Blessed Paul VI compared to the Good Samaritan who bends down before the hurts of today’s humanity.\u00a0 Romero is a martyr who exemplifies the Church that Vatican II wanted\u2014a martyr of the Church of Vatican II.\u00a0 And Pope Francis is not just a defender of that Church.\u00a0 With Romero in the Heaven and with Francis on the Throne of Peter, the Church goes out of itself and becomes a Good Samaritan in the world.\u00a0 We needed a Latin American Pope before Romero could be raised to the honors of the altar.\u00a0 I remember the\u00a0 words that Pope Francis said to me when we met on the first day of his Papal Ministry, March 19, 2013. He asked: “How is the cause of beatification of Archbishop Romero doing? ”<\/p>\n
Romero believed in the missionary power of the Council.\u00a0 In a homily at the funeral of a priest killed by death squads, he said that Vatican Council II calls on all Christians today to be martyrs, that is, to give their lives to Jesus and the poor. “Some, he said, the Lord asks to shed their blood, as He did to this priest, but he asks all to give their life for others, to be martyrs.” He gave another example, that of a mother who conceives a child, carries it in her womb, gives it birth, nourishes it, cares for it.\u00a0 Romero said, “This mother is a martyr because she is giving her life for her child..”\u00a0 Dear sisters and dear brothers, martyrdom\u2014giving one\u2019s life\u2014is the only way to follow the Gospel in our time.\u00a0 We can not be disciples who act only out of habit and are thinking only of ourselves.\u00a0 That is not Gospel joy.\u00a0 Romero reminds us of the teaching of Jesus that was quoted by the Apostle Paul: “There is more joy in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35).\u00a0 Indeed, martyrdom, giving one\u2019s life for others, is the only way to follow Jesus and the only way to be truly blessed.<\/p>\n