Dear Friends,

   I am home and out of the hospital. I was there for 31 hours.    Many signs point to a quick recovery (i.e. no blood in my urine this afternoon nor at dinner time.)  But constipation is a problem.  Ugh!  I am drinking a lot, especially warmed juices like prune juice. I had a quality sleep last night, a harbinger of good things to come and a sign that this operation was worth the trouble.  I still have a catheter in me; that won't come out till Monday morning.  Sometimes it is quite irritating!  It could easily be an effective tool for torture!  (Sorry for being so graphic!)

  Where were my thoughts this last week?  In two places:  first, on the 35th anniversary last Tuesday, the 24th, of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  His story has gripped my attention for many years.  I had the opportunity in 1998 to travel with a group of 12 other Americans to El Salvador and spend a week there.  I got to see what it was that changed that man in the last four years of his life from a quiet seminary professor to an outspoken bishop.  It was the murder of his Jesuit friend, Rutilio Grande, that lit a fire under him and made him take a stand for the many, many poor, abused farmers of that nation.  The financially powerful families and military feared/hated him and eventually murdered him.  That happened when he was saying mass for the mother of a murdered priest. He had just finished his homily and began the prayers for the preparation of the gifts of bread and wine.  At that point, from the back of the chapel, an assassin fired a single rifle shot through the upper part of Romero's heart.  He fell dead immediately.  In 1998 I had the opportunity to stand on the spot Romero stood on when he was shot, and I stood right on the spot or close to it where the assassin fired the bullet.  The chapel is not that big.  It might hold 200 people at most.   Later, we were taken to Romero's bedroom--a simple guest room at a hospital for terminally ill cancer patients--and I saw up close the alb or white undergarment Romero was wearing; all priests wear this when celebrating mass.  All down the white garment on the heart side (left side) was dried blood.  The single bullet hole was quite visible.  What an amazing thing to see with my eyes!  I was so taken by how real and brutal is the death of a martyr.  But there was also a deep admiration for this man and a secret desire to imitate his courage and be as public as he was in defending the oppressed, to speak out for those who are considered disposable by those in power.  HIs story of being transformed by his role as chief shepherd for the church there is what makes his story so remarkable in how God can make a saintout of somebody, and then in such a short time.  He wasbishop less thanfour years and all of his spiritual depth came to the fore in those last four years.  God can move quite quickly in our lives.  It begins with God planting deep desires in our soul and then calling us forwardto live with depth, with great generosity, selflessly.  (something is making the type here unerasible unlessI erase whole sentences.  I will notdo that!)  So Romero and his life mean very much to me.  He is a great saint but I find it more remarkable in how God "seized" him and led Him to such greatness under tremendous pressure and danger.  This fills me with great hope.  The "burden" is not with us but with
God!  Just say 'yes' to whatever God asks and go with it.  We aren't to make plans.  God has a better plan, better than anything we could ever come up with.  Just go with God,  Let God accomplish in us whatever God wants to do.

  The second set of thoughts very much on my mind and heart were on the following day, in the morning in fact and as I lay on the bed waiting to be put under for my surgery.  I was so aware that it was the feast day of the Incarnation, perhaps the greatest moment in all of human history.  How can I say such a thing?  Because that feastmarks the crossing over of God to humanity, of God becoming human in Jesus.  Everything changed in that initiative of God, everything!  Without that all would be lost.  With it, all is assured.  I have thought abut this before but rarely has it hit me as strongly as it did last Wednesday as I lay waiting for the anesthesiologistand surgeon to start the surgery.  I was so alert that morning, even though I was up at 4 AM and had slept maybe 6 hours that night.  I felt the overwhelming love of God for all humanity,whether people believed in Christ or not.  This love was there and is still there  I don't know how to communicate more than I have the depth of that gesture.and it is something like what struck me about Bishop Romero,that as admirable is his life, what I find far greater is this same theme:  how God makes us who we can become, if we are willing to trust and go with the gifts that are offered. The initiative is with God, not with us.  It was so true in Romero's case and gives me all the more motivation to offer myself to God however God wants to use me, take me, ask me to do X or Y.  I find the  respectful gesture of God, inviting us, notpushing us, but inviting us,to be so beautiful, so moving.How meaingful it has been for me to be surprised with the invitation to Kenya, to trust it, to go with it and to be so blessed by what I have found in that part of the world.  I so hope I can relate to God in the same way for the rest of my life and not miss a thing in my friendship with Him.  It is too wonderful to miss out on or fail to accept.

  It is time for bed here.  Tomorrow is the 500th birthday of St. Teresa of Avila.  What a great,great lady and what amazinginsights about human life and growthin her writings.  Anyway, I had to mention her as I say 'goodnight.

A very blessed Holy Week and Easter season to you all.  May you experience something of the consolations that are there when pondering the love of God for everyone of us expressed in that fateful week almost 2000 years ago.

Bernie Owens