Spring Starts

Into the darkness of winter the sun is shining brighter and longer each day. Spring is on its way and the green of St. Patrick’s Day, today, is here to stay for awhile. There is no winter killing of nature just as there is no killing of the human spirit.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, whose 30 anniversary of his assassination we will celebrate March 24th, said to his people: “If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people.” In modern day El Salvador we can see the spirit of Oscar Romero alive and well in the spirit of the people, especially some of the youth who were not even born when he was killed by the US-trained military.

Cleaning out our sun room today I moved away some dead plants. I guess you can say I was doing some spring cleaning and getting ready to sow some new seeds.

In the sermon just minutes before his death, Archbishop Romero reminded his congregation of the parable of the wheat. “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies. We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us”

In American society we talk a lot about change. However, I wonder if we are always willing to make the sacrifice, to suffer the loss, to face the death that it takes and is demanded of us?

We are blessed in the Midwest to have four definite seasons. We can see each spring in nature what we thought was lost and dead rise again. Spring is not eternal but I am glad it is here at last. Let green reign.

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