Posts Tagged ‘5-14-2023’

A Martyr of our time 5-14-2023

Friday, May 12th, 2023

Sadly, the age of martyrs is not over. In our own time, men and
women of faith give their lives for the cause of justice and mercy.
A few years ago the world witnessed just such martyrdom two
days before Valentine’s Day. Sister Dorothy Stang was a Sister of Notre
Dame de Namur from Dayton, Ohio. The 74-year-old nun had spend 35
years in Brazil, the last 22 living and working among 400 poor farmers
and their families in Anapu, Para, a section of Brazil’s Amazon rain
forest. A slight, unassuming woman of boundless energy and
irrepressible joy, Sister Dorothy had become an effective advocate not
only for the poor but for the rain forest itself, one of the world’s most
important environments that is being destroyed by powerful economic
interests.
But the nun’s work with the landless and her efforts to preserve the
rain forest proved too much for the wealthy logging and ranching
interests. On February 12, Sister Dorothy was ambushed by two men
contracted by a local rancher. Witnesses said Sister Dorothy, when
confronted by the gunmen, took her Bible from her bag and began
reading aloud. The two listened for a moment, then stepped back and
fired. She died instantly from six gunshot wounds.
Sister Dorothy knew that her work was dangerous but refused
police protection for herself.
“I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these
farmers who live without any protection of the forest. They have the
sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can work
with dignity while respecting the environment.”
Our scriptures today remind us that the Spirit of God speaks in all
that is just and right, in every word of compassion spoken, in the
simplest acts of reconciliation. The Spirit spoke clearly and eloquently
in the courageous voice of a slight 74-year-old woman who dared to call
powerful interests accountable for their immoral treatment of the poor
and their abuse of God’s creation.
The Risen Christ’s promise of the Paraclete/Advocate is a
bittersweet blessing: God’s Spirit is often difficult to accept,
challenging our lives and lifestyles, confronting us at times with our
irresponsibility and culpability. May we possess the integrity and
courage to hear the Spirit of God in the many voices in which God
speaks and to allow that Spirit to transform our skepticism, self –
centeredness and blindness to the things of God, things like justice,
forgiveness and the peace of the Easter promise.
I leave you with this: “I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to
abandon the battle, these people have the right to aspire to a better life.”
The words and the actions of a modern martyr living among us. Thanks
be to God.