El Salvador Martyrs

December 2nd is the 28th anniversary of the murder of four American women in El Salvador - Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, and Maryknoll Lay Missioner Jean Donovan.

I first learned about these women 10 years ago. I lived in Philadelphia one summer during college and worked for the School of Americas Watch Northeast. The agency’s offices were located in a large house and when I arrived, the house was known as the Maryknoll House. I soon learned that they were in the process of changing the name of the house to the Jean Donovan Community Peace Center.

This additional piece of news meant nothing to me, as I had never heard of Jean Donovan. I barely had a grasp on the School of the Americas and the Maryknolls. That summer in Philly, I felt completely out of my league - I had so much to learn about social justice and Catholic social justice was just another layer. I asked a lot of questions, including who Jean Donovan was.

I learned that she was one of four women living and working in El Salvador during the late 1970’s. They worked for different parishes during the government’s war against the poor, ministering to the communities they lived in. As the political situation worsened and the threat of violence on foreigners increased, they still stayed in El Salvador. In a letter Jean wrote during that time, she said she believed God had brought her there and wanted her to stay and so she was going to try to live up to that call.

I was struck by her conscious decision to stay. How many times do we hear God’s voice but ignore it because it’s not the answer we want? Or think we hear God’s voice but don’t act, waiting to see if we can hear something that we like better? There are many who talk about being still and hearing God’s voice. But hearing God’s voice is only half the battle. We have to hear the call – and answer it.

As I learned Jean’s story and the stories of the three other women, I noticed in myself a variety of feelings. Anger, sadness, frustration. And yet, a lot of hope. Hope in the goodness of people and the beauty of a world where we hear God’s voice.

May we all have the faith to hear God’s call for our lives. And like Dorothy, Maura, Ita and Jean - the courage to answer it.

Deb Heimel lived at the Jean Donovan Community Peace Center during the summer of 1999 and is grateful to all of the people she met there who continue to inspire her today.

Keeping Watch, Becoming Witnesses to Life: Ita, Maura, Dorothy, and Jean

Jen will deliver this homiletic reflection in Andover Chapel this Wednesday, 3 December, for this week's Noon Service at Harvard Divinity School .

To begin, I’d like to read an excerpt from what would be the last letter that Maryknoll sister Ita Ford would write, with her characteristic lightheartedness, from Chaletenango, in El Salvador, to her mother in New York, dated 1 December 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!” (from Jeanne Evans' "Here I Am, Lord": The Letters and Writings of Ita Ford, 247)
In a place that had become so influenced by death and destruction, Ita Ford became a witness to life. And I think this witness has something to do with our readings as we begin this season of Advent.

We remember Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan because of the witness to life that they offered. Before coming to El Salvador, Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Maryknoll sisters, had lived for many years as missionaries in Nicaragua and Chile. Jean Donovan, a lay missioner who was 27 at the time of her death, had left a business career and an engagement in Connecticut for work among the poor in El Salvador. Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline nun, had been in El Salvador the longest of the four. As the work of God’s hands, they committed themselves to work alongside the most vulnerable among us. In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life.

These four women lived in the midst of the beginnings of the Salvadoran civil war, which was supported in large part by the US American government and lasted until 1992. This largely was a war against the poor, who made up the vast majority of the Salvadoran population. Influenced by the hope of liberation theology, the poor had begun to organize for their rights, and they faced violent opposition from those in power as a result. In the face of death, they became witnesses to life.

Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean kept watch and read the signs of the times in El Salvador. They worked among refugees fleeing political persecution and economic poverty. They provided sanctuary for priests who had been organizing against oppressive governments. They offered pastoral care to catechists who lived in fear of the work of the military in the midst of the civil war. And twenty-seven-year-old Jean often baked cookies for Archbishop Oscar Romero on the days that he delivered his famous homilies broadcast over Salvadoran radio. In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life.

On their way home from the airport on December 2nd, 1980, Salvadoran soldiers in civilian clothes stopped the jeep in which they were riding. Two of them were raped, and the four of them were “shot in the head at close range” (from Robert Ellsberg's All Saints, 526).

In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life. As we begin this season of Advent, we reflect on what this witness might mean in light of our readings. In the first reading, we hear of a God who is a loving parent, that “we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” If we really believe in a God who is a loving parent, that we are shaped by God’s hands, we will respond in a way that reflects the example of Ita, Maura, Dorothy, and Jean. These four women understood what it means to live and what it means to love. They knew God intimately and demonstrated with the commitment of their lives that they were the work of God’s hands. They loved the people of El Salvador in the most real way that they could, one that did not allow for injustice to be perpetuated against them. Let us have the strength to watch, as Jesus encourages us in the Gospel, for those threats to life in our midst. Let us work together in service, to struggle toward justice, building up the Kingdom of God, living each day in a way that shows we are the work of God’s hands.