on the first Sunday of the last Lent of his life, Archbishop Romero
renewed his call to repentance:

«If people do not want to listen to me, let them hear at least, the
voice of Pope John Paul II who, as a matter of fact, this week, upon
the start of Lent, has exhorted Catholics of the world to deprive
themselves of superfluous wealth in order to help the needy as a sign
of Lent-time penance. Toward this end, I want to recall how Pope Paul
VI used to say that there are two ways to celebrate Lent: in those
countries that are economically developed, and in these poor
countries, where Lent is perennial, because one is always fasting.
Over there, it must consist in making the values of austerity
prevail: to deprive oneself of something, while here, among us, those
who suffer perennially from hunger and privation, must give their
situation a meaning of repentance, and not grow slothful in that
situation, but to work so that social justice reigns in our country.»

Twenty five years later, we invite you to join the "perennial Lenten
pennance" of El Salvador...



SALVADORAN LENT (from Maryknoll.org)
http://laymissioners.maryknoll.org/index.php?
module=MKArticles&func=display&feature=1&id=72

Feb 09, 2005 - Join us today, for a 40 days journey in spirit,
through a small country, El Salvador, and a people who are renewing
themselves after too many years of hardship. And our journey promises
this as well. We will be renewed –in Christ.

• The Beginning – The land itself. The coming of the first peoples to
the land. Their life. The Spanish conquest.
• 20th century El Salvador. Tyranny. Civil war. Massacres and martyrs.
• The Renewal – Justice. Healing. Lay Missioners at work.

THE BEGINNING

On Day One:
We take note of the name El Salvador – the savior.

On Day Two:
We are reminded of its location, in Central America – and that it is
the smallest country in Central America.

On Day Three:
We picture the natural features of a land before there were any
people. Mountains. Forest jungles. Plains. Lakes. Coasts and beaches.
The Lempa River. Wildlife and flowers.

On Day Four:
We are made aware of the land's climate – and of it being perpetually
besieged by hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes. Tropical yes.
Paradise, sometimes.

On Day Five:
We imagine the first people arriving. Did they walk from Asia over
ice to Alaska, and then migrate south, slowly over the years? Or did
they navigate small craft across an almost impossible Pacific to land
on the country's beaches? Are they the Pipil Indians, descendants of
the Aztecs? How did they live? What gods did they bow to?

On Day Six:
We watch them settling in, learning to live on the land – and on the
land's terms. They are grateful and honor the natural world that
sustains them.

On Day Seven:
Roots down, their civilization grows, takes shape. In the Valley of
the Hammocks – a region of volcanoes – the people build their
spiritual and commercial center. They hunt and fish in the Lempa
river, plant and harvest, and trade among themselves. They socialize.
And argue. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with weapons. And then
make peace. Perhaps they are called the "original ones", the
indigenous people.

On Day Eight:
As if on a film, we view the centuries passing: the people birthing,
playing, learning, marrying, working, worrying, enjoying, aging,
dying.

On Day Nine:
It is the sixteenth century. Intruders appear, dressed in iron. We
know them as Conquistadores from Spain. Perhaps the people thought
them gods. It did not prove so, though from these strangers one does
hear of a man named Jesus.

On Day Ten:
The intruders have taken over. A privileged class known as "the 14
families" develops into a ruling class. It is they who will live the
high life for 400 years and hold the reins of power even into the
20th century. .

20TH CENTURY EL SALVADOR
On Day Eleven:
The modern world sweeps away all sense of the past among the
privileged of El Salvador and gives them very effective tools, skills
and weapons for oppression. They can no longer see, if they ever
could, the people of El Salvador.

On Day Twelve:
As "the rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer". Hungrier, sicker and
sadder.

On Day Thirteen:
The calendar reads 1981. Civil war breaks out. It will last 12 years.

On Day Fourteen:
An age-old truth emerges. The innocents will be tortured and killed.
The violence of revolution and noble anger is still, mostly, a beast.

On Day Fifteen:
We enter into "valley of the shadow of death". Do not avert your
eyes, close your ears or numb your heart.

On Day Sixteen:
We are with Father Rutilio Grande, S.J. It is 1977. He is organizing
30,000 Salvadoran peasants into a collective bargaining force.
Because he preaches the gospel, denounces the wealthy and violent
oppressors of his country, he is machine-gunned outside the village
of El Paisnal. With him are a old man, Nelson and a 15 year old boy,
Manuel. Their lives, too, are ended.

On Day Seventeen:
Early in the morning, Father Octavio Ortiz, a young priest, born of a
campesino family in Morazan province and 30 young Salvadoran men are
sleeping. Father Ortiz has organized a Christian retreat. It is
January 20, 1977. Shouts and shots as Salvadoran police and National
Guardsmen rush into the compound and dormitories. Father Octavio,
awakened, runs toward the sounds and is gunned down. Four young men
are killed.

On Day Eighteen:
The Sumpul river is red. The Salvadoran National Guard has opened
fire on hundreds of Salvadoran peasants trying to flee the violence
and find safety in Honduras, the neighboring country. The security
forces who kill women and children trapped in the river do not seem
to mind what they've become.

On Day Nineteen:
Herbert Ernesto Anaya, one of the co-founders of a non-governmental
human rights commission in El Salvador called CDHES will be
assassinated today in front of his two young children as he takes
them to school. He will be the seventh leader of CDHES to be killed
or disappear. Mr. Anaya had been held in Mariona Prison for a number
of months, had listened to thousands of prisoners tell him their
stories of torture and forced confessions. Mr.Anaya is a book the
powers can not allow to be published.

On Day Twenty:
On the evening of December 2, 1980, Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and
Maura Clarke, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and Lay Missioner Jean
Donovan (who had received training at Maryknoll) are returning from a
Maryknoll retreat in Managua. Their car is stopped at a military
roadblock. They are brutally abused and executed.

On Day Twenty One:
Eight hundred women, children and men are slaughtered in the village
of El Mozote. It is December, 1981.


On Day Twenty Two:
Archibishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, is assassinated. A champion
of human rights, a man who loved justice, his loss has not been
forgotten. He is, as so many of those who died unjustly, a symbol of
peace and courage. No few words as these can tell his story fairly.

On Day Twenty Three:
The war is over, somehow. It is 1992. Two tasks are before us. To
count. To heal. Thirty five thousand innocents dead? Or is it 75,000?
How many tortured. Who can sleep well? Surely not those who were
harmed. Surely not those who did the harm. Surely not those who have
learned of it.

THE RENEWAL
On Day Twenty Four:
The healing begins. Caring people come. Bring their skills and
knowledge. The Church, so vital in caring for the oppressed, remains
the people's ally, itself strengthened by the people's endurance.

On Day Twenty Five:
Facts must be faced. The infant mortality rate is far too high. HIV-
AIDS infects 6% of the adult population and has been moving up. There
is no economy to speak of. The war has chewed it up.

On Day Twenty Six:
Nature, absent of sentiment, adds its devastation. In 1998,
hurricanes kill hundreds, leave 30,000 El Salvadorans homeless.

On Day Twenty Seven:
Major earthquakes strike El Salvador in January and February 2001.
Twenty percent of the nation's housing is destroyed. Twelve hundred
people are killed.

On Day Twenty Eight:
A severe drought in the summer of 2001 destroys 80% of the country's
food crops. Famine is widespread.

On Day Twenty Nine:
We pause to reflect again with the people of El Salvador. We have
passed through a 12- year civil war and three years of natural
disasters. Certainly the people of El Salvador can look to the
heavens with a question. But they retain their faith as they have
through all their trials.

On Day Thirty:
We see what has to be rebuilt or built for the first time: a sound,
fair economic structure. As long as poverty exists, disease and death
and despair will prevail.

On Day Thirty One:
We total up the assets El Salvador has in order to rebuild. They are
scant. One of the nation's main source of income comes from monies
sent back to families from relatives living and working outside the
country.

On Day Thirty Two:
Our eyes are open to the people of El Salvador. We see their
strength, their faith, their endurance – and their eagerness to work
in every way possible. They are the "currency" that will finance the
renewal.

On Day Thirty Three:
We meet those people who have come to accompany the people of El
Salvador by living and working with them. Many of them are Maryknoll
Lay Missioners.

On Day Thirty Four:
We learn of Maryknoll Lay Missioner Gigi Gruenke, working with civil
war survivors who suffer from the post-trauma effects of panic
attacks, violence, and isolation. They share their stories, "the
history that survives" … it is a painful but essential part of the
healing.

On Day Thirty Five:
We witness the ministry of Maryknoll Lay Missioner Ann Greig who
coordinates a Soy Nutrition program. In rural El Salvador
malnutrition effects almost 30% of children under 5 years of age.
Ann's ministry teaches hundreds of families how to feed their
children nutritiously and inexpensively.

On Day Thirty Six:
We are invited to spend time with Maryknoll Lay Missioner Debbie
Northern and her work at a HIV clinic in San Salvador. Debbie teaches
preventative AIDS education and also tutors the children that come to
the clinic. Some of the children have a parent that is ill… some have
contracted the virus themselves.

On Day Thirty Seven:
We consider the bravery and tenacity of the young people of El
Salvador, now struggling to further their education in a country that
has lost almost an entire generation. Their skills are needed for the
rebirth of these communities.

On Day Thirty Eight:
We can learn more about the Maryknoll Lay Missioners Circle of
Compassion. How it is made up of ordinary people of faith willing to
help by supporting the work of Lay Mission.

On Day Thirty Nine:
We are near the end of our journey. We have learned something about
this small country and its people. If we have reflected well, perhaps
we have learned to love them. Most important we know why we should
help them.

On Day Forty:
We awaken to see Jesus. We are renewed.

Remember the people of El Salvador, and their journey to rebuilt
lives and renewed faith.