Reflections on Ascension

During his three years as archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero became known as a fearless defender of the poor and suffering. His work on behalf of the oppressed earned him the admiration and love of the peasants he served and, finally, an assassin's bullet.

Money is good,
but selfish persons have made it bad and sinful.
Power is good,
but abuse by humans has made it something to fear.
All has been created by God,
but humans have subjected it to sin.
And so Christ’s ascension proclaims
that the whole creation
will also be redeemed in him,
because he will give the meaning
of all that God has created,
and at the end of time
(in this will consist the final judgment)
he will place at God’s feet
the great adjudication of good and evil.
Evil will be eliminated definitively
and good will be taken up
in the eternal glorification of Christ.
The Lord’s ascension also marks the glorification
of the universe.
The universe rejoices, money rejoices, power rejoices,
all material things –
farms and estates, everything – rejoice because the day will come when the Supreme Judge
will redeem from sin, from slavery, from shame,
all that God has created
and that humans are using for sin,
for affront against their fellows.
The redemption is already decreed,
and in his power God has raised up Christ our Lord.
Christ gone up to heaven is a witness to final justice.

MAY 7, 1978

It will always be Pentecost in the church,
provided the church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit
shine forth from her countenance.
When the church ceases to let her strength
rest on the power from above –
which Christ promised her
and which he gave her on that day –
and when the church leans rather on the weak forces
of the power or wealth of this earth,
then the church ceases to be newsworthy.
The church will be fair to see,
perennially young,
attractive in every age,
as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her
and she reflects that Spirit
through her communities,
through her pastors,
through her very life.

MAY 14, 1978