Reflection for Sunday – February 1, 2026

Gloria UlterinoSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5: 1-12a 
Preacher: Gloria Ulterino

 BRRR!  It’s cold out there!  Frigid, in fact!  So cold that schools were cancelled once this week!  Besides all that, this weekend’s readings are a real challenge.  For they remind us: we are “the humble of the earth.”  And yet, we are the very ones chosen “to shame the strong.”  How can that be?  What are we to do, as followers of Jesus, the Christ?

 It even feels like Lent already, though that’s more than two weeks away.  Where is the Good News today, perhaps especially when times are tough?  Where can we discover blessing upon blessing upon blessing, as Matthew—this year’s evangelist—promises us so clearly in today’s Gospel?  Come, and see.

 I remembered a ministry from several years ago.  A small group of us women formed a storytelling group, “Women of the Well.”  Our now-retired group created venues, with music, to tell the stories of powerful women in Scripture and Tradition.  What could their lives mean for us?  Right here and right now?  What questions did their lives raise for us?  And how might their “solutions” speak to our hearts and times, as well?

 One of our very favorite creations was the program “Certain Women.”  It was about four American women—Jean Donovan, and Sisters Maura Clark, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel.  Strangers to one another previously, they came together in August 1980 to serve the people of El Salvador—that tiny, poverty-stricken nation in Central America.  In Paul’s words, they were not “wise by human standards” or “powerful” or “of noble birth.”  And yet, what power they shared!  For good!  So much so, that we simply had to tell their story, over and over and over again.   

 What was it about these “Certain Women” that so profoundly inspired us?  They chose simply to become one with the people… to love and cherish them… to care for and about them… to encourage them to live a little bit more like Jesus… all the while trying, themselves, to do precisely that.  As you might well imagine, the people responded!

 But, so did the authorities, who couldn’t put up with their empowerment of the people.   You see, the folks hadn’t forgotten the life of Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande, who had done much the same as the women, back in the spring of 1977.  In response, these very same authorities had killed him!  In fact, as one writer proclaimed at the time: On March 12th of that year, “the first shots of the war against the church” rang out…  And now, here were these women, doing exactly as he had done!  That could not be!

These four women could see it coming.  Dorothy had written to a friend: “If we can help, I want to stay.  I simply could not run out on these people.  Just know how I feel; if a day comes when others will have to understand, please explain it for me.  Thanks!  Love you lots!”  And Jean agreed.  In another letter to another friend, she proclaimed, “Several times I have decided to leave—I almost could except for the children, the poor bruised victims of adult lunacy.  Who would care for them?  Whose heart would be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and loneliness?  Not mine, dear friend, not mine.”   

Dorothy even wrote to President Carter in October 1980: “I have been here for six years and I have seen the oppression of the people grow worse each year…  Do you have any idea how many innocent people are being killed with American equipment? …  One young girl about twelve years old had in her hands the words of a song which had been written in honor of one of the priests who had been martyred.  She got killed…”

 On the evening of December 2, 1980, Jean and Dorothy picked up Ita and Maura at the airport, on their return from a Maryknoll Conference in Managua.  They were watched by National Guardsmen… followed… stopped… brutally raped… killed… and left in a shallow grave by the side of the road.  Three days later, Ambassador Robert White watched, as their bodies were lifted up, about an hour’s drive from the airport.

But Father John Sobrino said it all: “The murdered Christ is here in the person of four women… But he is risen, too, in these same four women…  Salvation comes to us through all women and men who love truth more than lies, who are more eager to give than receive, and whose love is that supreme love that gives life rather than keeping it for oneself.” 

Amen!

Gloria Ulterino
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