The Violence Of Love Quotes

“We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“We must overturn so many idols, the idol of self first of all, so that we can be humble, and only from our humility can learn to be redeemers, can learn to work together in the way the world really needs. Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation. Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty. True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God,who loves us and who wants to save us.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“Let us not forget: we are a pilgrim church, subject to misunderstanding, to persecution, but a church that walks serene, because it bears the force of love.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“Let us be today’s Christians. Let us not take fright at the boldness of today’s church. With Christ’s light let us illuminate even the most hideous caverns of the human person: torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness. The oppressed must be saved, not with a revolutionary salvation, in mere human fashion, but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man, who dies on the cross to cleanse God’s image, which is soiled in today’s humanity, a humanity so enslaved, so selfish, so sinful.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today's church more than ever is accentuating the idea of being a people. The church therefore experiences conflicts, because it does not want a mass; it wants a people. A mass is a heap of persons, the drowsier the better, the more compliant the better. The church rejects communism's slander that it is the opium of the people. It has no intention of being the people's opium. Those that create drowsy masses are others. The church wants to rouse men and women to the true meaning of being a people. What is a people? A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“A church that doesn't provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed -- what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don't bother anyone, that's the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we are the product of a spiritualized, individualistic education. We are taught: try to save your soul and don't worry about the rest.  We told those who suffered: be patient heaven will follow, hang on. No, that's not right, that's not salvation! The great leader of our liberation is the Anointed One, the Lord who comes to announce the good news to the poor, to give liberty to the captives, to bear news of the disappeared to bring joy to so many homes that are in morning, so that a new society may appear as in the sabbatical year of Israel...Christ has come precisely to announce the new society, the good news, the new times.”
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence Of Love

“It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualistic word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because il
belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.

What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God's wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God's reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws- out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the tights of God and of humanity.

That is the hard service of the word.
But God's Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for he is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming his reign to the people of all times.”
― Oscar Romero, The Violence Of Love

“It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualistic word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it
belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.

What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God's wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God's reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws- out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the tights of God and of humanity.

That is the hard service of the word.
But God's Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for he is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming his reign to the people of all times.”
― Oscar Romero, The Violence Of Love

“Everyone who struggles for justice,
everyone who makes just claims in unjust surroundings
is working for God's reign,
even though not a Christian.
The church does not comprise all of God's reign;
God's reign goes beyond the church's boundaries.

The church values everything that is in tune with its struggle to set up God's reign.
A church that tries only to keep itself
pure and uncontaminated
would not be a church of God's service to people.
The authentic church is one that does not mind
conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did-
and with Marxists and those of various political movements -
in order to bring them salvation's true message.”
― Oscar Romero, The Violence Of Love