We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Oscar RomeroRead
Who knows if the one whose hands are bloodied with Father Grande's murder, or the one who shot Father Navarro, if those who have killed, who have tortured, who have done so much evil, are listening to me? Listen, there in your criminal hideout, perhaps already repentant, you too are called to forgiveness.
Interpretation
The quote calls for forgiveness even towards those who have committed grave crimes, suggesting that every person has the capacity for repentance.
Oscar Romero's quote addresses those who have committed heinous acts, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and the possibility of redemption. It reflects on the moral responsibility of perpetrators of violence and encourages them to listen and reflect on their actions from a place of accountability and the hope that they might seek forgiveness, regardless of the severity of their crimes.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of forgiveness in healing a community.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be.
When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.
Aspire not to have more, but to be more.
A Christian's authenticity is show in difficult hours it is in difficult hours that the church grows in authenticity. Blest be God for this difficult hour in our archdiocese. Let us be worthy of it.
The church would betray its own love for God and its fidelity to the gospel if it stopped being . . . a defender of the rights of the poor . . . a humanizer of every legitimate struggle to achieve a more just society . . . that prepares the way for the true reign of God in history.
Stones of judgment, discouragement or doubt may be thrown at you. You can't stop them, but you can make the choice to keep your walls up and not let them affect you.
For heaven's sake, when you see the enemy attacking, you pick up the pitchfork, and you enlist everybody you see. You don't stand around arguing about who's responsible, or who's going to pay.
The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor's arrogance and contempt.
You must be fearless. It is the coward who fears and defends himself
I had to experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I'm therefore not a pacifist at all - or am I?
It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens. We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time.
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