Home Sweet Home

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Thank you for your interest in my journeys over the last six weeks. I feel very blessed to have had such wonderful opportunities. Seeing volcanoes in El Salvador and Japan, venues of the Inquisition in Salamanca and Seville and Marist Universities and schools in Alcala de Henares, Salamanca, San Salvador, Guatemala City and Chichicastenango, to name but a very few of the experiences, has given me a keen sense of the enormous history of struggle and achievement that precedes us, as we strive to build the Kingdom of God today. As for the highlights, these are the ones that strike me at the moment:

1. Experiencing the tangible peacefulness in the church which stands on the foundations of the house where Mary is reported to have died.
2. Standing behind the altar where Monsignor Romero said the immortal words ‘This is my gift’ as he glimpsed up to see his assassin take aim.
3. Visiting the Dominican Church in Salamanca where Christopher Columbus visited the Dominicans, the Pope's agents of the Inquisition, to get permission to discover America.
4. Walking in the garden where the six Jesuits were told to lie face down before being shot, and the room in which a mother and her daughter were assassinated, because they were all standing up for the defenceless.
5. Standing in the Roman theatre where Paul the apostle once preached, only to be howled down and put into prison.
6. Witnessing the gentleness and respect shown by Japanese people.
7. Experiencing Benedictine contemplative life at Ampleforth and seeing its effect on the adjacent Ampleforth College.

Such is the diversity of our increasingly globalised world. Yet people working at the United Nations spoke to us about the invaluable contribution Marists can make to improving our world, through our deep knowledge of education and our broad experience of enhancing the lives of young people. Marcellin Champagnat’s dream is still to be fulfilled. We are blessed to be able to participate.

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