WEDNESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT
40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROSES IN DECEMBER MARTYRS SISTERS DOROTHY KAZEL, MAURA CLARKE, ITA FORD AND LAY WOMAN JEAN DONOVAN

These Holy Women Martyrs were brutally murdered by the Salvadoran military on December 2, 1980 for their ministry and for their dedication to those living in poverty. They sacrificed everything for the sake of God’s people.

-from a letter written by Sister Ita to her niece and goddaughter, Jennifer, on her sixteenth birthday, three and one half months before Sister was murdered:

…what I want to say…some of it isn’t too jolly birthday talk, but it’s real…Yesterday I stood looking down at a 16-year-old who had been killed a few hours earlier. I know a lot of kids even younger who are dead. This is a terrible time in El Salvador for youth…Many people have found a meaning to life, to sacrifice, to struggle, and even to death. And whether their life span is 16 years, 60 or 90, for them, their life has had a purpose…What I’m saying is, I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you…something worth living for…something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can’t tell you what it might be …that’s for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking, and support you in the search…I want to say to you: don’t waste the gifts and opportunities you have to make yourself and other people happy…I hope this doesn’t sound like some kind of a sermon because I don’t mean it that way. Rather, it’s something you learn here, and I want to share it with you.

Father Bill +