Words of Oscar Romero

March 24, 2005 is the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, killed while celebrating mass because he spoke truth to power. To commemorate the event I have been posting selected passages from Romero taken from the book, The Violence of Love, available for free download from the Bruderhof Communities.

From 27 years ago today:

Holy Week is a call to follow Christ’'s austerities,
the only legitimate violence,
the violence that he does to himself
and that he invites us to do to ourselves:
“Let those who would follow me deny themselves,”
be violent to themselves,
repress in themselves the outbursts of pride,
kill in their hearts the outbursts of greed,
of avarice, of conceit, of arrogance.
Let them kill it in their hearts.

This is what must be killed,
this is the violence that must be done,
so that out of it a new person may arise,
the only one who can build
a new civilization:
a civilization of love.
March 19, 1978