The Justice and Merciful Love of God

The following words of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, were spoken one year before his murder. The message is as relevant this Holy Week as if it had just been stated. Perhaps reflection on Romero’s words will touch those of us who work for social justice today.

"The message of Holy Week has perhaps greater meaning for the present time than for any time before.
	Amid so many voices and cries from oppressed and oppressors,
	amid so much machinery of repression and so many moans of victims,
	amid the selfishness of those who refuse to hear the protest of the hungry,
	in the presence of rightful efforts made for social justice, and
	in particular as we live surrounded by a virtual environment of terrorism, vengeance, and violence—
what good it would do us all to raise our problems and our feelings and personal or group efforts to the transcendent level that Christ calls us to from his cross in Holy Week:
		to God’s justice and his merciful love."
April 6, 1979

Quote reprinted with permission from The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero [Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing House, 1998]