It was a grace for me to spend a week of pilgrimage with colleagues in El Salvador shortly before the twentieth anniversary of the martyrdom of our six brothers and the two women who died with them.  What we found in our pilgrimage was the blessed memory of a church that, in a terribly painful moment, found a way to stand with the people of El Salvador.  People are not shooting at each other in El Salvador today, but the crisis that produced the war and the martyrs then continues now, and the challenge continues now -- there and here -- for the church to find a way to stand with the people.  For me that happens in the different milieu of teaching literature, orienting freshmen, forming Ignatian colleagues, but the priestly call to stand with the people and to listen to them is the same.

For me, the hero of it all is Archbishop Oscar Romero.  He underwent a personal conversion that allowed him to become a singular priest caring for his people.  It was a special grace for me to be where our brother Jesuits fell.  In them, I think, our whole Society learned something crucially important.  The direction into which God called us then -- and still calls us now -- demands a heavy price.  I am proud that we want to stand with them and say again "Presente -- I am here, ready and willing."

Gregory I. Carlson, S.J.
Associate Professor of English
Creighton University