Edinburgh: Homily at Thanksgiving Mass for Beatification of El Salvador Martyrs

Icon of Rutilio and companions by Br Rene, along with Grande's dairy, were on display before the altar during the Beatification Mass

The following homily was given by Fr David Stewart SJ on 22 January in Edinburgh's Jesuit Church of the Sacred Heart at a Thanksgiving Mass on the day four martyrs were beatified in El Salvador. The main celebrant was Archbishop Leo Cushley of the Archdiocese of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, with Jesuit priests concelebrating.

We here in this Jesuit church give thanks to God for the beatification of our Jesuit Fr Rutilio Grande and his two parishioners Nelson and Manuel, martyred together on 12 March 1977 in El Salvador. We recognise also Fray Cosme Spessotto, an Italian Franciscan missionary, killed as he began Mass there in June 1980. The beatification ceremony is taking place in the Cathedral of San Salvador, St Oscar Romero's cathedral, later this evening. These, our fellow Christians, were murdered by the State "in hatred of the faith". We are delighted that our Archbishop kindly agreed to celebrate this Mass of Thanksgiving, which is also the parish's Vigil Mass of Sunday.

Let us meet Rutilio the Jesuit, secondly Rutilio the pastor, then Rutilio the friend and inspiration of St Oscar Romero.

The Jesuit Rutilio, unusually, was ministering in his home district. He, like every Jesuit, had heard the call of Christ the King, in the spiritual exercises, the "Long Retreat". These Spiritual Exercises test your call to mission. The vocation is tried and affirmed in the intense prayer of the Exercises; your initial orientation is purified, then confirmed, then, set free from disordered attachments, it's deepened as you place yourself, in Ignatius's words, under the banner of the Cross. You pray for inner freedom to be sent anywhere; think of St. Francis Xavier, think of our own St John Ogilvie. Grande walked the same pathway of prayer, like all the other Jesuits. He suffered from poor mental and physical health and frequent bouts of depression and self-doubt but his passion for ministry transcended all that. Most Jesuits in El Salvador at the time were committed to university-level education, academic research & formation; Grande did serve for a time at the seminary.

The Jesuits, at a worldwide meeting, or General Congregation, in 1975, discerned that the order's mission was "the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement". Unlike most other Salvadorean Jesuits, Grande went out into the villages, alongside the poorest.

Grande as pastor. Tilo, as he was affectionately known to all, was a pastor; he died a pastor, driving, with his companions Nelson and Manuel to celebrate a Novena Mass - when the soldiers ambushed them. It was said of St Ignatius that he loved the big cities but Grande was drawn to leave the city for a mission to the poorest and most neglected areas. He was excited, energised by what the Second Vatican Council, the Latin American bishops and the Jesuits worldwide had discerned. He knew from personal experience the tough lives of the campesinos, their hard labour in the coffee and sugarcane fields, their struggle for land and for a decent life. He learned that most of the productive land was owned by about 2% of the population. But he had also learned that the Gospel speaks to such injustice, that to follow Christ did not mean passively accepting poverty and oppression as somehow the will of God to be accepted. Grande developed ways of encouraging them to challenge their situation; "reading the signs of the times through the eyes of faith". When Grande was installed as the new pastor in Aguilares in 1972, he was determined to be a pastor among the oppressed, shaped by Vatican ll's rediscovery of the church as the people of God, a community not a hierarchy, committed to what the Council named as the "preferential option for the poor". We just heard in today's Gospel how Jesus launched his ministry by citing Isaiah's words about bringing the good news to the poor, setting the downtrodden free and proclaiming the Lord's year of favour. Fr Rutilio was murdered for doing that. But as archbishop, now saint, Oscar Romero preached at his funeral Mass on 14 March 14 1977. Grande became a pastor to the peasants, "not only out of a revolutionary inspiration but as an inspiration of love". His love for the people whom he served led to his martyrdom.

Rutilio Grande, the great friend and inspiration of Oscar Romero. Pope Francis has said that "great miracle of Rutilio Grande was Archbishop Romero." When the quiet, shy Romero had returned from Rome and been made a bishop, that country's 14 leading rich families were relieved; they had a tame cleric, untainted by all this new theological and pastoral thinking. Grande and Romero had become close friends, despite their very different reception of what was flowing from Vatican ll. Bishop Romero was one of many who disapproved of how Rutilio was encouraging the seminarians out of the building and into the villages. Only two weeks after Oscar became Archbishop of San Salvador, Tilo, Nelson and Manuel were driving to a novena in El Paisnal, Tilo's birthplace. Intercepted by state security forces, they met a hail of bullets. Archbishop Oscar came to the spot as soon as he heard. He later said that, when he saw the bullet-ridden corpses of his friend and the two parishioners, he knew that if they had done this to Rutilio, it would be his path too. It's not quite right to see here the moment of Oscar's conversion to the option for the poor, because that had been growing in him for some time. But he knew that this moment was its confirmation.

Rutilio Grande will shortly be named Blessed, the same as his two lay friends; they have names and faces too. He and they are an inspiration to all who do pastoral ministry in the church: clergy, catechists, young activists, community organisers. Here is an image, a symbol of the church as the People of God.

We're setting out on a Pathway too, as we heard last Sunday; the pathway of synodality, the largest ever listening exercise in the Church and, indeed, in human history; once again, we read the signs of the times with the eyes of faith. May the prayers of Blessed Manuel, Nelson, Rutilio and Cosme, and of St Oscar Romero, support us as we try to be the people that God wants us to be.

Edinburgh Mass of Thanksgiving for the Beatifications on 22 January: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrKNAi5Tojs