Prior to Mass there was a 20-minute video shown on the life of Father Rother (ROW-ther) that with camera artistry and commentary brought everyone to Okarche, where he was born, baptized, grew up and farmed; to Santiago Atitl\u00e0n, Guatemala, nestled on a lake between volcanoes, where he ministered for 13 years; and into the room where in 1981 he was martyred, where his blood continues to stain the wall and a bullet hole still pierces the floor, but where now a tabernacle has been placed with Blessed Sacrament helping everyone to learn Whose love Blessed Stanley imitated there to the full.<\/p>\n
At one point in the video, a parishioner from Santiago Atitl\u00e0n was describing Fr. Rother\u2019s assassination in the Tz’utujil dialect and \u2014\u00a036 years later \u2014\u00a0began to weep with uncontrollable filial love for his slain spiritual father, and the editors just let him sob for about ten seconds, as everyone in the Cox Convention Center not only learned the inextinguishable devotion his spiritual sons and daughters have for him but wept together with him before our tears would soon be turned into joy.<\/p>\n
When Pope Francis\u2019 Apostolic Letter of beatification was read in Latin by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation of Saints, I couldn\u2019t help be filled with the wonder of divine irony: that a man who was dismissed from seminary because his Latin was so poor was now being proclaimed a Blessed in the language he couldn\u2019t master! Adding to the joy-filled irony of the priests around me \u2014\u00a0including one of his fellow seminarians from Immaculate Conception Seminary in San Antonio from which he was let go \u2014\u00a0was the fact that the Latin decree was so poorly translated. Pope Francis\u2019 words in Latin calling Blessed Stanley \u201cdiocesan priest and martyr, missionary according to the heart of Christ, heroic witness of the Gospel and defender of the poor,\u201d were somehow rendered, \u201cdriven by a deeply-rooted faith and a profound union with God, and by the arduous duty to spread the Word of God in missionary lands, faithfully living his priestly and missionary service until martyrdom,\u201d a paraphrase that, although beautiful, took such liberty that it would likely have gotten us kicked out of seminary, too. All of us noted that Pope Francis\u2019 words \u201cmissionarius secundum cor Christi,\u201d <\/em>a \u201cmissionary according to Christ\u2019s heart,\u201d were particularly apposite of the new Blessed, whose heart was removed and remains in the place of his Missionary work in Santiago Atitl\u00e0n.<\/p>\n Cardinal Amato mentioned in his homily that the day of his martyrdom, Fr. Stanley was scheduled to go to the hospital to give blood for a parishioner who needed an operation. Little did he expect how he would become a blood donor that day! Similarly Bishop Gonzalo de Villa of the Diocese of Solola, where Fr. Stanley served, told those present in Oklahoma that when the metal reliquary containing the Fr. Rother\u2019s heart was recently disinterred in Santiago Atitl\u00e0n to be moved to an altar, people were shocked to find that his blood was mysteriously still \u201cfresh\u201d after 36 years.<\/p>\n The chalice used for the beatification was the one given by Fr. Rother\u2019s parents and family, containing the diamond from his mother\u2019s wedding ring, and used throughout his priesthood. I thought of all those parents \u2014\u00a0including my own \u2014 who have sacrificed to give their sons chalices for the ordination in order to contain Christ\u2019s precious blood at the altar. Little would any anticipate that such an offering might be used to embrace Christ\u2019s blood when their son would be raised to the altars!<\/p>\n The tapestry of the new Blessed revealed as soon as the formula of beatification was read beautifully wove together various elements of his life. He was dressed in a cassock and surplice with a multicolor stole, a sartorial synthesis showing \u2014 he was a priest during a time of great transition in the Church \u2014 that he was both traditional and modern. In his right hand he held a copy of the New Testament in Tz’utujil that he had helped translate and by which in some way he continues to preach the word of God. The tapestry featured plants and flowers native to Oklahoma and to Guatemala, a sign that his life flourished in both places. And in the four corners were different places in which the seed of the Word of God had grown in him: Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche where he was baptized; Mount St. Mary\u2019s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md, where he was formed; Our Lady’s Cathedral in Oklahoma City where he was ordained; and St. James the Apostle Church in Santiago Atitl\u00e0n, where he passed on to others the fruit of the seeds God had planted.<\/p>\n I was surprised that there was a collection taken up during the beatification Mass, but the collection \u2014 introduced by Fr. Rother\u2019s cousin Fr. Don Wolf, a priest of Oklahoma City \u2014\u00a0was for the two parishes served by Blessed Stanley in Guatemala, as a means to continue the new beatus\u2019 <\/em>work. The ushers made sure to pass the basket among the concelebrating priests and the generosity of the priests around me was edifying!<\/p>\n In the video before the Mass, it was mentioned that in the 400 years prior to Fr. Rother\u2019s arrival, the parish of Santiago Atitl\u00e0n had not produced a single priestly vocation. In the 36 years since, there have been 15 priests ordained from the parish and presently seven seminarians. This is an extraordinary commentary on the Gospel for the beatification \u2014\u00a0that if the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will bear great fruit (Jn 12:24) \u2014 and doubtless a witness to the compelling example of the priesthood given by Blessed Stanley.<\/p>\n There was a concerted focus throughout on the fact that Fr. Rother was an \u201cordinary man\u201d and an \u201cordinary martyr,\u201d something that was meant to prompt all the faithful, as Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City wrote in introduction to the Beatification booklet, \u201cto realize that holiness is nothing more and nothing less than the full flowering of our baptismal grace\u201d and that \u201cwe are all called to be saints.\u201d Saints aren\u2019t superheroes, but ordinary men and women, who respond completely to God\u2019s saving work.<\/p>\n There was also an emphasis on Fr. Rother as a shepherd according to the heart of Christ. His most famous words, repeated to those who tried to talk him out of returning to Guatemala after his name appeared on the death list, were, \u201cThe shepherd cannot run; my people need me.\u201d Mercenaries flee the wolves; shepherds, rather, are willing to give their lives to protect their sheep (Jn 10:11-15). That\u2019s why the Collect for his beatification Mass, which will be used on his feast day July 28, is so appropriate, linking him to the One who had entrusted him with his Guatemalan flock: \u201cO God who gave your priest Blessed Stanley the heart of a pastor and the fidelity of a martyr, grant, through his intercession, that the humble flock may reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.\u201d<\/p>\n
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