The 7 Last Words with Blessed Romero

BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO, MAY 23, 2015
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This is a Good Friday meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ with Blessed Archbishop Romero.  Here are the Seven Last Words, together with similar sayings found in the homily Blessed Romero had been preaching the moment he was killed.

	CHRIST	ROMERO
I.	“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34)	“May God have Mercy on the assassins.”   (Dying words, attributed.)
II.	“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)	“As deformed by sin, the shape of this world will pass away; but we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart. Then, with death overcome, the sons of God will be raised up in Christ, and what was sown in weakness and corruption will be invested with incorruptibility.” (Quoting «Gaudium et Spes», 39.)
III.	“Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.” (John 19:26–27)	“Because of the manifold relationships that I have had with the editor of the newspaper El Independiente, I am able to share to some extent his feelings on the anniversary of his mother’s death. Above all, I can appreciate her noble spirit, how she put all of her educated upbringing, all her graciousness, at the service of a cause that is so important now: our people’s true liberation.”
IV.	“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34)	“Those who out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others, will live, like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently. If it did not die, it would remain alone. The harvest comes about only because it dies, allowing itself to be sacrificed in the earth and destroyed. Only by undoing itself does it produce the harvest.”
V.	“I thirst.” (John 19:28)	“This is the hope that inspires us as Christians. We know that every effort to better society, especially when justice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.”
VI.	“It is finished.” (John 19:30)	“To Christian faith at this moment the Wheaten Host is transformed into the body of the Lord, who offered himself for the redemption of the world, and in this chalice the wine is transformed into the blood that was the price of salvation.”
VII.	“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)	“Let us join together, then, intimately in faith and hope at this moment of prayer for Doña Sarita and ourselves.” (Final Recorded Words.)

We reflect upon these deaths, not in despair, but in hope. Beyond Good Friday, Easter Sunday awaits us. “Easter is now a cry of victory.”  (Romero) Amen.

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