Today the Church celebrates the canonization of seven new saints, including Pope St. Paul VI and St. Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran Archbishop who was assassinated by the military while celebrating Mass in 1980.

Archbishop Romero is revered as a voice for the poor, the powerless, and those on the margins, the very people Jesus lived with and reached out to, as Pope Francis continually reminds us. He is an inspiration to the Conventual Franciscan Friars who work in Central America, along the US-Mexico border, and with those who have come to the US searching for freedom and better lives for their families.

Let us now ask for St. Oscar’s intercession as we pray for the grace and courage to follow Jesus in the footsteps of St. Francis, the Little Poor Man of Assisi who strove to live fully the Gospel Life.

Each one of you has to be God’s microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. The church will always exist as long as there is someone who has been baptized…Where is your baptism? You are baptized in your professions, in the fields of workers, in the market. Wherever there is someone who has been baptized, that is where the church is. There is a prophet there. Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people.

St. Oscar Romero
1917-1980