A Sign for Eternity

The site was the chapel of Trinity College in Washington, DC, the oldest women's Catholic college in the United States. It seemed fitting to come to this place, where traditional marble and gold were embellished for a brief moment with the resplendent colors of Central American tapestries and the symbols of life and resurrection from that region.

At the foot of the brightly adorned altar sat two large baskets of corn -- 75,000 kernels to represent the martyrs of El Salvador who have given their lives in the pursuit of justice, who have followed Jesus to the cross. We were gathered with the memories of four of them in particular in our hearts -- Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, U.S. missionaries who were killed on a dark and lonely road not far from San Salvador's airport exactly 10 years before, on December 2, 1980.

Beautiful banners bearing their faces were carried down the aisles in silence to begin our service. And then began the ominous drumbeat and the "litany of the martyrs." One after another, the names were sung out -- "Rutilio Grande, Febe Velasquez, Hector Gallego, Laura Lopez, Ignacio Ellacuria, Elba Julia Ramos, Segundo Montes, Marianela Garcia Villas, Maria Magdalena Enriquez, Herbert Ernesto Anaya, Oscar Romero ..."

Catechists, labor leaders, priests, students, journalists -- on and on the names went, impaling our hearts with the enormity of the tragedy that is El Salvador. And after each name the congregation vigorously responded "Presente!" affirming the presence of each martyr. It could have been a litany without end. But finally, the names of Maura, Jean, Dorothy, and Ita echoed through the chapel -- and then we remembered the unnamed thousands of others whose spirits were there among us.

Then silence. From the midst of the hush came the word of God from the prophet Isaiah: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven ... and water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout ... so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

Four dancers took their places by the altar. Slowly, quietly, began the music from the film The Mission, growing to a crescendo as words of the four church women were read over the plaintive strains. Words of fear and doubt. Words of love. Words of faith.

In all their humanity, Maura, Ita, Jean, and Dorothy were among us. And then, with confidence, we proclaimed in song their triumph over their humanity, their resurrection and new life with Christ.

Indeed, the Word of God sent forth in these four women did not return empty. As homilist Jon Sobrino reminded us, "The Word is their lives -- let us not let their last homily be forgotten."

THE GIFTS WERE BROUGHT to the altar by representatives of the Salvadoran community and members of the families and communities of the four women. As she raised the tortillas and offered a blessing in Spanish, earlier words of Hermana Raquel of El Salvador came to my mind. She had declared that, by the death of our four sisters, our blood has been mixed with the blood of her people and proclaimed that, by our unity, the idols of power and death will someday fall.

Joseph Eldridge acknowledged that we come to the altar very aware of "broken bodies, broken spirits, and a broken world." But he exhorted us, "We are not here to lament what the world is coming to, but to celebrate what has come to the world -- the unconditional love of our Lord Jesus Christ!" We shared the tortillas and recommitted ourselves to live as vessels of the Word of God -- as Sobrino put it, "to help the crucified people down from the cross."

Outside, a full moon hid behind patches of clouds. We gathered in the chill dark around four rose bushes, to be planted in honor of the four church women. As the dirt was being shoveled around the bushes, pruned and barren of blossoms, Robert White offered a final blessing. For many of us, the ritual brought back a poignant image from a decade before: the former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador standing over the shallow grave in a Salvadoran cow pasture as the bodies of Dorothy, Jean, Ita, and Maura were exhumed.

But now, a decade later, we were participating in a ritual of life. We know that the rain and the snow do not come down from heaven and return empty. Some spring day, the blossoms will begin to appear. And they will be carefully tended by the groundskeepers of Trinity College, who prepared the ground for the planting as an act of love. They are refugees from El Salvador.

By the rose bushes remains a cross, made by a community in El Salvador as a special gift for the commemoration. It will stand as a sign that our blood -- and our hope -- have been mixed for eternity.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.