Even though it has been exactly 20 years since my visit to Stanley Rother's home in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, the memories are as fresh as the scent of fresh coffee beans roasting, corn tortillas searing, and the sound of that ubiquitous rooster. As I read my journal today before this writing, my heart swelled again with love for those dear K'iche' Mayan indigenous people. I fully understand how Fr. Stanley Rother would give his life as a martyr for these people. He did it knowingly - he was informed that his name was on the government death squad's list. For this - but more than this - Stanley Rother is being beatified today in Oklahoma City, the second step to becoming a recognized saint in the Catholic Church.

          While on a 1997 mission trip in Guatemala, we viewed videos of Rother's life in preparation for a pilgrimage to his home. Yet I was not prepared. As I entered his study in the rectory, an invisible pall hovered in the room revealing that this space was holy ground. Directly across, was a small table on which rested a small box that held his heart and, on it, his brightly colored, locally woven stole. To the right, bullet holes in the cement floor, and blood stains. On that tragic July 28, 1981 morning, three men entered the rectory and shot him.

             --by Jan