Prayer of Oscar Romero

I have a theory that you get a window into someone’s brain if you see what internet tabs they have open on their cell phone. Most millennials keep web-browser tabs open as a quasi to-do list to which they hope to return (but often don’t). When I suggest my theory people often blush and quickly check to see what they have open–it is a vulnerable exercise! It often ends with laughs, sharing, and a surprising level of intimacy with another’s mind. My tabs are currently an eclectic assortment: a video from the “Think Like a Jesuit” series on YouTube; the Oxford Classical Dictionary page for “Aion”; a dress I’m thinking about buying; a movie I’d like to watch; “49 best dumbbell exercises” from Women’s Health; and the Prayer of Oscar Romero.

As I saw the Prayer, I realized that I’ve had this prayer up since the spring of 2019 when a pastor recommended it to me. We were having coffee and I told him about how I felt called to social change on a large scale, but that I knew this line of work doesn’t usually produce quick change. I was worried about my ability to be patient. He reminded me that I’m the inheritor of so many people’s efforts to push for women’s ordination. My journey toward ordination didn’t feel radical or exceptional to me, but it would have been exactly that just two generations ago. In many traditions an ordained young woman is still very radical. Many people of faith planted seeds for me, and I–in turn–will plant seeds for others. Saint Oscar Romero’s prayer is one that I hold dear as a guiding light for my life and ministry. I hope it will inspire you!

A Prayer of Oscar Romero (From Bread for the World)

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Amen.

N.B. This prayer was written by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw and drafted for a homily by Cardinal John Dearden in Nov. 1979. The words of the prayer are attributed to Saint Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.

Text copyright © 2023 Grace Woodward. All rights reserved.