58:19 minutes (26.7 MB)

Father Tom appeared as a guest on "Keepin' the Faith" with Steve Shomeaker on WILL AM-580 on September 6, 2009. The topic of the show was "The Local Homeless".

Our Lady of Guadalupe
December 12, 2008

For almost 20 years St. Mary Church has had a sister relationship with five very poor settlements in the eastern mountains of El Salvador. There are no roads or electricity in their area. In those early years of our relationship we could not visit them because they were in a war zone where bombings and massacres were taking place.

MASS SCHEDULE
In the Church (this weekend):
Saturday 6 PM Those grieving for the loss of a loved one
Sunday 10 AM Jong Ryeol Christian Kim
6 PM Spanish Language Mass
In Provena Hospital Chapel:
Monday Noon Servants of the Holy Heart of Mary in France
Tuesday Noon Fr. Lawrence P. Morrissey
Wednesday Noon Special Intention
Thursday Noon Louis M. Condon
Friday Noon Cardinal SuWhan Stephano Kim

14:39 minutes (10.3 MB)

Let me tell you about an ex-con that I have known and admire very much. It is a Franciscan sister who was sentenced to six months in a federal prison when she was 88 years old. Her name is Sister Dorothy Hennessey. I want to honor her memory because she died on Thursday at age 94. She will be buried tomorrow, Monday, in Dubuque, Iowa. She is a great example to all of us. Full transcript here

17:15 minutes (12.34 MB)

Although he lived and died in a faroff country many years ago, I think that Archbishop Romero can serve as an example of what the Holy Spirit calls us to in our baptism – to be holy and a light to others. Full transcript here

To the family of Rufina Amaya
Secundo Montes, Morazan Dept, El Salvador

Dearest Friends,

We have received the news that Rufina has died with a sense of losing a very special friend. But we know that God has taken his beloved daughter to be home with Him. She was a witness to the martyrs of El Mozote and she kept alive their memory by her painful testimony over and over again on the sacred ground where their lives were tragically taken from them.

We thank God for the gift of her life. We thank God in a special way for her ministry on behalf of the crucified ones of El Salvador. We hold sacred her memory.

In a small way we were privileged to be a part of her story. In a very significant way, she brought us to a deeper understanding of the sufferings of the crucified ones. Our delegations were blest to experience her gracious company and her friendship.

Now she is at home with her family and friends who have gone home to God. She has been welcomed by the blessed ones of El Mozote and all the Salvadoran martyrs. Now we pray to Rufina, Archbishop Oscar Romero and their companions to speak on our behalf to the Father.

At our Saturday/Sunday Masses we have mentioned all of them in the Eucharistic prayers that remember the martyrs of the faith. We have prayed for Rufina’s family who are saddened at her absence. May God heal their grieving hearts. Please pray for us.

Father Tom Royer
and the people of St. Mary Church, Champaign, Illinois

The following is an excerpt from the book "Cry of the people" by Penny Lernoux, published by Penguin. We remember her as she passed from this world this week.

Mozote: Crucifixion of the Salvadoran People

More than 1,000 men, women and children were killed on December 12 and 13, 1981 in the massacre at Mozote, in the Department of Morazán. The massacre was committed by the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite Army unit trained in counterinsurgency by the U.S. government.

The following is the testimony of a 41- year-old woman, Rufina, the only witness to the massacre.

John and Katy Easley's presentation on their trip to Calavera with the Saint Mary delegation:

Each year starts with the story of the journey of three wise men in search of the Savior. My year began again with a journey to El Salvador (the Savior) to visit our friends in the live mountain settlements. It is always a journey of epiphanies and encounters With wise men and women.

Let me tell you of Samuél Guzman, one of our special friends, who has been loved and respected by our delegations. For several years, he had been assigned by CEBES as our guide through the five settlements. He was a strong leader, a good companion and a wonderful storyteller.

Samuél had been a young catechist in the early 1980s when the war came to these mountains. When his father, a community leader, was taken and killed by the death squads, Samuél joined the FMLN, the people's army, that resisted the military forces at war with the Salvadoran people. He became a leader with the compas (short for compañeros) in the very area where our settlements are located. As a result, he knows every footpath the compas used and every ravine where they lived during the ten years they defended their people.

I seem to lose my glasses now and then, forgetting where I had just put them down. There are certain memories, however, that I can never forget. One of them is the story of Christmas.

My earliest memories are of the old Christmas crib at home. It had endured many Christmases in a house full of children who would playfully rearrange the small figures in imagining the story unfold before them. As a result of much handling, the donkey was missing a front leg, so that we had to lean him against the stable door. A donkey lying on its side does not figure in anyone's imagined story of the events of Bethlehem.

How can we ever forget a God who approaches us with the surprising humility of an infant. He is poor to meet us in our poverty. In every way He shares our burdens.

This year's story of Emmanuel (God with us) is repeated again with the hope that we will not overlook Him. It is always a tale of the divine presence in the midst of the poor and the humble - in surprising ways and in out-of-way places.

It is a small thing to miss one's glasses. It is truly troubling to lose the vision that Christmas brings.

In the footsteps of Mary of Nazareth,
  young Maria Of Calavera
  goes about her chores,
  the weight of her labors bends her neck,
  poverty clings to her skirt.
She waits for our strange caravan to pass,
  we bent with other burdens,
  in a poverty all our own.
She bears the One we seek,
  born in every age,
  the campesino God of the poor,
  El Salvador.