Introductory notes by Dennis Rivers, Editor, www.LiberationTheology.org
  

In contemplating the lives of those who have lived and died for the love of others, we are invited to reflect on the way each of these persons sought to embody courage, compassion and deep truthfulness.  Giving thanks for the lives of these great souls brings us close to one of life's great mysteries:   While the help we give with our hands may only reach those we touch with our hands, the love with which we give that help can travel far beyond the lives of those who first receive it. The inspiration of courageous and creative compassion travels from heart to heart like a candle flame lighting many other candles.  There is no limit to how many candles will be lit, or will light others.  My experience has been that profound integrity travels beyond the life of the person who embodies it, and joins our souls with the soul of that person in some sort of life-changing process of resonance.  This is my experience of grace.  As we give thanks for the lives of these great souls, and mourn their deaths at the hands of violent men, we open ourselves to receive the light that came through them, and we open ourselves to bring forth that light of endless compassion into the world around us.  At one level, their lives were taken from them.  At another level, they gave their integrity and love into our keeping.  Both levels are true.  These different truths are points along the way… of a pilgrimage of gratitude and remembrance.
 

 

Archbishop Oscar Romero — 1980		Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. — 1968		Gandhi 1948
Rachel Corrie 2003		Sister Dorthy Stang 2005		Ben Linder 1987

  

 

Four Churchwomen — American martyrs in El Salvador
   Sr. Maura Clark, M.M.
   Jean Donovan
   Sr. Ita Ford, M.M.
   Sr. Dorthy Kazel, O.S.U.

 

 

Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa — Nigerian ecology and human rights activist, murdered by the Nigerian government for resisting the exploitation and ruin of the Ogoni homeland by the Shell Oil Company.

 

 

Remembering the Jesuit Martyrs  a meditation on the meaning of their deaths and their lives by John Dear, S.J. (11-10-09)   Six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter —  1989 Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.      bibliography in Spanish Joaquín López y López, S.J. Amando López Quintana, S.J. Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J.      bibliography in Spanish Segundo Montes Mozo, S.J. Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo, S.J. Celina Ramos Elba Ramos

Research Guide from the St. Peter's College Libraries Bibliography on the martyrs of compassion in Central America

 

 

Francisco Alves (Chico) Mendes Filho  –  President of the Xapuri Rural Worker's Union in Brazil.  Chico Mendes was a brave and persistent rubber tapper who challenged the people and institutions responsible for the devastation of the rainforest. Mendes galvanized local and inter- national support for his vision of a self-sustaining economy of the Amazon, but he enraged powerful enemies.    click here for wikipedia article      click here for film

 

 

The Blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter (1907-1943) – a devoutly Catholic Austrian farmer who refused, on the basis of the teachings of Jesus, to serve in Hitler's army. He was executed by the Nazis on August 9, 1943.  The story of his heroic integrity, not popular in a region where most men obediently went to war and most priests argued in favor of doing so, was rescued from oblivion in the 1960s by sociologist and writer Gordon Zahn in the book: In Solitary Witness: The life and death of Franz Jägerstätter.  (Also see remembrance by Jesuit peace activist John Dear.)   On June 1, 2007, the Vatican officially recognized his death as an act of spiritual faithfulness and confirmed him as a martyr of the Church. His beatification took place in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Linz, Austria, on October 26, 2007. Short biography from the Diocese of Linz Long biography from the Diocese of Linz

Franz Jaegerstaetter: The courage to love, and to say "no" with transformative compassion when the authorities of one's time are mistaken

  

James Earl Chaney	Medgar Evers	Andrew Goodman	Jimmie Lee Jackson

Viola Liuzzo		James Reeb		Michael Schwerner

 

MUSIC: A young musician in 2006 sings a forty-year-old song of gratitude for the civil rights protestors of the 1960s.  "Thirsty Boots," by Eric Anderson, performed by Kirobaito on YouTube.

Lyrics: