33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
Next Sunday we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It marks the end of the church’s liturgical year. And so the liturgy today would have us reflect on basic things – on final and fundamental things – as we move toward the end of the year.
As a Jesuit, I also have a real need to remember that this past Friday marked the twenty-third anniversary of the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador. I hope they will help us reflect on basic things.
In today’s gospel Jesus talks about the coming of the Son of Man in great power and glory. The coming is framed by turbulence and darkness. Here Jesus wants to teach us what to look for – what signs to look for – that we may discern and recognize his coming among us. It’s like recognizing summer’s coming, he says, when we see leaves beginning to sprout. But at his coming – what begins to sprout in us and among us is a committed love for others. When love enters alien territory, there’s upset and turbulence. When we love in a world grown suspect of real love, then we will face opposition.
I want to offer the example of the Jesuit martyrs – their lives and their deaths – as a way to help us recognize and respond to the coming of Jesus into our lives and our world.
And so we remember that on November 16, 1989 elite troops of the Salvadoran army arrived on the campus of the Jesuit university in San Salvador. It was night. These troops had been trained here in the United States. They headed directly to the Jesuit residence. They shot six Jesuits through the brain – their protest to the kind of thinking these Jesuits had pursued. Then they shot their cook and her daughter.
There was a member of the Jesuit community who was not killed. Fr. Jon Sobrino, a theologian, had been away in Asia giving talks. I know Jon. We were students together in Germany. He later reflected on the slaughter of his brother Jesuits. Why? Why kill these men? His answer was simple. They were killed because they had taken to heart Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. These parish priests and university professors were killed because their lives had been given over to mercy and compassion. They had seen the obvious needs of the Salvadoran people – and they had responded. And their response to real human needs called into question the basic power structure of Salvadoran society. These Jesuits thought basic thoughts and asked basic questions about justice in their society. They did basic things – like publicly protesting in their preaching and teaching the absence of justice. They called the powerful into question and called them to accountability.
A year after their martyrdom Jon publicly prayed these words at their graves: “rest in peace, my six Jesuit brothers. May your peace give us hope, and may your memory never let us rest in peace.” I think this kind of remembering should give us, the living, unsettling memories. I don’t mean an unsettling that comes from guilt. That takes us nowhere. Today Jesus is telling us in the gospel we are to see in these martyrs – to recognize in their lives and deaths – the Son of Man returning in all his power and glory. We are to see here in these men what real love can do, when lived utterly to the end. What should unsettle us is what we can become – what God can actually make of us. It is our hope that unsettles us.
As a parish we reflect on these final, fundamental things. We reflect on what these martyrs have to say to us. And they speak to us of living in bold hope – a hope that unsettles us. May we be a parish of unsettling hope for ourselves and for Charlotte. Come, Lord Jesus, renew the face of your church!
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