Homily for the Memorial of
Bl. Maria Romero, FMA
July 7, 2021
Matt 10: 1-7
Provincial House, New
Rochelle, N.Y.
In today’s gospel, Jesus
sends the 12 out after the lost sheep of Israel, Sr. Maria Romero was a
prodigious sheep-chaser, herself and teams of young volunteers she recruited.
Maria came from a prosperous, well-connected Nicaraguan family and spent her Salesian life as a servant of the poor and abandoned of Costa Rica.
After a routine start to
her FMA life as a music and art teacher, she conceived the idea of sending out
some of the older girls as catechists in the barrios. In this, as well as in subsequent projects,
she had to overcome initial opposition from her superiors.
Apart from meeting
surprising religious ignorance from both mothers and children, the girls met
with hostility because the people they went to were hungry, barely clothed,
unemployed. When Sr. Maria began to meet
those needs, catechesis could take place.
Then, as with Don Bosco, projects snowballed (if you can talk about
snowballs in Costa Rica): medical
assistance, alcohol and drug abuse programs, youth centers, a social center, and
more, so that Sr. Maria became a Central American hero.
Meanwhile, to her FMA sisters she was a model of focus on personal holiness: on obedience, humility, and absolute confidence in Mary Help of Christians, who did everything, she said, including healings with Sr. Maria’s “Lourdes water.” She’d told Mary: “We are so far away from Lourdes and can’t benefit from that blessed water. But all the water in the world is yours, even that of this tap. You are the Queen of Heaven and earth. So do me this favor and cure the sick even with the water available here.” And so it happened in some notable cases.
Sr. Maria did everything
imaginable to be a sign of God’s goodness and mercy, as her Collect says. That’s what saints do. We can try to do it too.
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