Thursday, December 2, 2004
St. Jean the Playful
Born April 10, 1953, Jean Donovan was the younger of two children raised in an upper-middle class family in Connecticut.
Jean was juggling a successful business career with her volunteer work in the Cleveland Diocese Youth Ministry with the poor, when she learned about a diocesan mission project in El Salvador.
She volunteered to go, underwent training, and arrived in El Salvador in July 1979. It was a dangerous time to be in the Central American country. Political unrest was broiling and the Catholic Church became a popular target.
Jean helped distribute food for the poor and refugees, and worked on family education programs. She was loved by the people who dubbed the outgoing young woman, “St. Jean the Playful.”
Jean also became devoted to Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, often traveling to the cathedral on Sundays to hear his homilies. When he was assassinated, she was among those who kept vigil at his coffin. When family and friends questioned the wisdom of her work in the war-torn country, she reassured them, “They don’t kill blond-haired blue-eyed Americans.” But she was wrong.
Jean Donovan, along with three U. S. women religious, was killed by a death squad in El Salvador on this day in 1980.
Thursday - First Week of Advent
Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived. (Matthew 1:20)
We have here Matthew’s announcement of the annunciation to Joseph.
Dreams play an important part in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. There are five of them – four to Joseph and one to the Magi.
The angel gives Joseph some astonishing news: His wife, Mary, has conceived a child by the power of God!
We’re back to a fundamental truth: God works through human beings. As routine, secular, mundane, plain as a day may seem, God acts through me to accomplish great things. They may seem small, but in the eons of God’s plan, they’re like the mustard seed “which when full-grown is the largest of plants.”
I wonder how God wants to work through me today?
Spend some quiet time with the Lord.
