Our Patron
Saint Oscar Romero
I invite you to read Saint Oscar Romero's writings, journals, and homilies. Often he is misunderstood as someone who preached liberation theology. Saint Romero spoke of liberation, but liberation is always more than fulfilling material needs. Liberation is a biblical concept tied to wholeness of being. People can be enslaved by poverty, illiteracy, hunger, loneliness, sickness, sin and oppression, God wants people to be liberated from these and brought into authentic communion with God and one another.
Romero writes: "The church cannot seek only liberation of a temporal nature. The church does not want to liberate poor people so that they can have more, but rather wants them to be more. She promotes people so that they are more. The church is hardly concerned with having more or having less. She is interested in making sure that all person, whether they have many possessions or not, make progress and become true human beings and children of God. She wants people to be valued not for what they have but for what they are. This is the human dignity that the church preaches." Source: The Scandal of Redemption p. 110
For Romero, we all need liberation from sin and liberation from anything that becomes an obstacle to achieving our true humanity. Pray for us Saint Oscar Romero that we may experience the liberation we need from the structures of sin which we are embedded in. May we see Christ in each person that we encounter - the poor, the powerless, the outcast, the sick and the sinner.
Romero writes: "The church cannot seek only liberation of a temporal nature. The church does not want to liberate poor people so that they can have more, but rather wants them to be more. She promotes people so that they are more. The church is hardly concerned with having more or having less. She is interested in making sure that all person, whether they have many possessions or not, make progress and become true human beings and children of God. She wants people to be valued not for what they have but for what they are. This is the human dignity that the church preaches." Source: The Scandal of Redemption p. 110
For Romero, we all need liberation from sin and liberation from anything that becomes an obstacle to achieving our true humanity. Pray for us Saint Oscar Romero that we may experience the liberation we need from the structures of sin which we are embedded in. May we see Christ in each person that we encounter - the poor, the powerless, the outcast, the sick and the sinner.