The Violence of Love

by Debra Dean Murphy
Easter Monday marked the anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered while celebrating the Eucharist at the chapel of Divine Providence Cancer Hospital in San Salvador on March 24, 1980.

We should not wonder that a church has a lot of cross to bear. Otherwise, it will not have a lot of resurrection. An accommodating church, a church that seeks prestige without the pain of the cross, is not the authentic church of Jesus Christ. (February 19, 1978)

Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know that we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down to proclaim blessed the poor, blessed the thirsting for justice, blessed the suffering. (May 11, 1978)

Let us not forget: we are a pilgrim church, subject to misunderstanding, to persecution, but a church that walks serene because it bears the force of love. (March 14, 1977)

From The Violence of Love, Oscar Romero, compiled and translated by James R. Brockman, S.J.

(Originally published Wednesday, March 26, 2008)