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Communication
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Companion Diocese of El Salvador
A Day in El Salvador
by: Father Alex Nagy
At the 2007 diocesan convention, we passed a resolution to enter into a formal companion diocese relationship of walking together toward God with the Anglican diocese of El Salvador.
Celebrating the Eucharist in El Salvador
I was invited to be part of a team that would spend six days in El Salvador on a relationship-building and fact-finding visit. The other team members were: The Rev. Canon Jenny Vervynck, from the Office of the Bishop;
The Rev. Canon Carlos Garcia, Vicar of All Saints’, Brawley and Santa Rosa del Mar;
The Rev. Leland Jones, Vicar of St. Mary’s, Ramona;
Alexandra Alberts, a parishioner from St. Paul’s Cathedral and
Mike Angell, Campus Missioner at UCSD.
Our goals were to recognize ways to share human, material and financial resources and to cooperate in the process of becoming fully alive.
At the airport, Vince and Arcelio, our guides, met us. They transported us to the Centro Diocesano, which is within the San Juan Evangelista campus. Here we would stay, enjoy home-cooked meals and hold meetings with clergy and lay leaders. We concluded each day with evening prayer.
Bishop Barahona was welcoming, gracious and genuinely glad that we had come.
We visited and prayed in the chapel where on March 24, 1980, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered by a military sniper’s bullet while celebrating the Holy Eucharist.
Alexandra Alberts, Father Alex from El Salvador and Father Alex from Borrego Springs
Next, we traveled to the museum where four young women from the United States are honored. On December 2, 1980, they were raped and murdered by military men. Finally we visited the campus of the Catholic University where shortly before dawn on April 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests and university professors, their cook and her daughter were dragged out of their beds into the courtyard and assassinated, again by the military. Each experienced martyrdom for the same reason: they spoke up on behalf of the voiceless, powerless, oppressed masses of Salvadorans. We were all moved by their witness.
Travellers with Bishop Barahona
We plan to strengthen our companionship by partnering parishes and institutions in our Diocese with those in El Salvador. In the already growing relationship between our college students, through the potential partnering of Episcopal Schools in both Dioceses and in direct relationships between parishioners we hope to grow to know Christ in one another.
How will you join our Salvadoran brothers and sisters in God's mission? Feel free to contact any member of the team that went to El Salvador with information on how you can get involved in our companion relationship, or to ask that the team make a presentation at your church. Email: the Rev. Leland Jones: lelanjones@sbcglobal.net
link to Cristosal: www.cristosal.org
link to the Diocese of El Salvador: http://www.elsalvador.anglican.org/