Donné qu'hier fut leur fête

Martyrs de Námugónga, mes frères dans la foi, vous connaissez le contenu de ma prière, qui n'est pas changé. Je vous supplie de prier le Seigneur de la part de vos concitoyens d'aujourd'hui. Amen.

[Honi soit qui mal y pense.]

-le BB

Women Martyrs of El Salvador

JaneR reminds us of the four women serving the people of El Salvador who were raped and killed by members of security forces 27 years ago.

Sr. Maura Clarke:
"The endurance of the poor and their faith through this terrible pain is constantly pulling me to a deeper faith response. My fear of death is being challenged constantly as children and old people are being shot... I want to stay on now. I believe that God is present in His seeming absence."

Jean Donovan:
"I think that the hardships one endures maybe is God’s way of taking you out into the desert to prepare you to meet and love Him more fully."

Sr. Ita Ford:
"Am I willing to suffer with the people here, the powerless? Can I say to my neighbors, ‘I have no solutions to this situation; I don’t know the answers, but I will walk with you, be with you? Can I let myself be evangelized by this opportunity?’"

Sr. Dorothy Kazel:
"El Salvador is a country writhing in pain—a country that daily faces the loss of so many of its people—and yet a country that is waiting, hoping, and yearning for peace."

Maura. ¡Presente!

Jean. ¡Presente!

Ita. ¡Presente!

Dorothy. ¡Presente!

Loving and Compassionate God, make us prophets of your word. Open our ears and our hearts to hear the words of your prophets, our sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clark, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan, as they challenge us to take you at your word, to feel within us your urgent cry for justice in our world. May we take that cry as our own and become instruments of your justice and peace as we pray together the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Our Father....

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Photo of the martyrs via JaneR combined with a December sunset in Berkeley.

Words of the martyrs and concluding collect from a service found here.

Biographies of the four women may be found here.