Reflections from Alternative Spring Break trip to El Salvador
“He makes all things new” BY LAURA COLE El Salvador is a country that knows suffering. That really hit me hard in our first four days in San Salvador. Before our trip, I did a little bit of research on El Salvador’s history, so I knew there was a terrible civil war from 1980-1992. I knew a bishop named Oscar Romero was martyred. I knew some American churchwomen and Jesuit priests were killed, too. I knew El Salvador is a poor country with high rates of violent crime. But before I walked the streets of El Salvador and met its people, those facts didn’t really come alive in my mind or heart. We spent much of our time in San Salvador visiting historical sites, learning about the civil war and its effects, and speaking with members of different organizations and ministries who are working for positive change in El Salvador. We happened to be in San Salvador on the 34th anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s martyrdom, so we attended the memorial Mass celebrated at Divina Providencia, the small parish where he was shot while celebrating Mass. The Catholics
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of El Salvador clearly adore Archbishop Romero; the church was literally overflowing with people. After the Mass, the congregation marched no short distance to the National Cathedral, which houses Archbishop Romero’s tomb, to continue celebrating his life. Since we participated in the march after Mass, we didn’t have time to visit Archbishop Romero’s house, so we came back to Divina Providencia the next day. He lived in a small guest house that the resident Carmelite sisters built for him, and the sisters have preserved the house as a memorial to him. A sister took us on a tour of the few rooms in the house. While it was awe-inspiring to be in the home of a martyr, it was also very, very tough, because it was very, very real. We saw the bloodstained vestments and alb he was wearing when he was shot, and read his handwritten notes on the calendar on his wall that was never turned past March 1980. Even harder were the photos on the walls. A journalist was in the congregation
on the day Archbishop Romero was shot, and he was able to document the events with his camera. The photos showed the moment after he was shot while everyone was frozen with fear, people rushing to his side as his mouth gushed blood, men carrying his body out of the church, women on their knees mopping blood off the altar steps, people standing together in shock, crying. The journalist was also recording Archbishop Romero’s homily, so he caught the moment he was shot on audio recording. At the very end of our tour, the sister played the recording for us. I braced myself, but it was still incredibly hard to listen to. I heard the last few lines of Archbishop Romero’s homily, the gunshot echo in the church, and the second of shocked silence before the screaming chaos began. Needless to say, I was shaken up. I got a small insight into the shock, horror, and helplessness the Salvadoran people felt in that church, and I spent most of the bus ride to our next destination, the