Malachi, the prophet, breaks open Creator God’s word. “But for you who fear my name, here will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.”

I witnessed the healing rays of the sun of justice alive in Justo, a just one.  Justo was an Afro-Brazilian, below subsistence farmer and friend of Sister Dorothy Stang.  In the late ‘60’s I was living with Dorothy in Coroatá, Maranhão, Brazil.  She introduced me to her friend Justo.

Justo was a leader in his village ecclesial base community “CEB” as they are known.  Justo was full of wisdom as he described ecclesial base communities: “You will only understand community if you visit us. Come, be part of our lives; listen to God’s word and listen to us… hear our suffering, our needs and our dreams.  Listen to us as we pray and you will learn what really matters to us.  Enter into our poverty.  Isn’t this what God asks?  Come, be part of God’s dream.”

Already nurtured from childhood, the new wisdom seeds of faith-filled community life in Brazil flourished in Sister Dorothy Stang’s soul.  Oh, how they bore fruit!  Dorothy listened to her people and called them by name. How appropriate that one of her first friends carried God’s name:  The Just One. Dorothy was a gospel woman who learned from her people how God’s word illumined their lives and pointed toward a path of justice.  

This 20^th Anniversary year of Sister Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, martyred in the Amazon in 2005, has been widely celebrated.  In January Dorothy’s relics were placed in the Sanctuary of New Martyrs in Rome.  On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Pope Leo’s homily lifted up Dorothy’s evangelical fortitude as witnessed in her commitment to the landless in the Amazon.  When Dorothy met her assassins on that rainy Saturday morning, she reached for her Bible saying: “This is my only weapon.”  

Over her lifetime, Creator God’s presence accompanied Dorothy as she grew in awe, contemplating the interconnectedness of all creation.  She dwelt in the amazing beauty and dignity of all God’s handiwork. And so it was, that as communities of the landless, claimed their federally granted place in the Sustainable Development Project Esperança, it was simply too much for wealthy ranchers to tolerate.

Dorothy knew the price wealthy ranchers, in their greed, had placed on her head and still she said: “I know they want to kill me but I will not go away.  My place is here alongside these people who are constantly humiliated by persons who consider themselves powerful.”

Almost 40 years later, as Dorothy’s bullet ridden body folded into the muddy red clay of God’s earth… the earth she so deeply cherished, Luke’s words are fulfilled and give witness to the cost of Dorothy’s discipleship.  “… they will seize and persecute you; they will hand you over because of my name.  It will lead you to give testimony.  I myself shall give you wisdom to speak and all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.  You will be handed over and they will put you to death.   You will be hated because of my name.”  Luke 21, 5-19

Dorothy lived in the heart of Wisdom.  God was Dorothy’s friend and companion to the land and the landless too.  Dorothy witnessed to the belief that all creation is interconnected and innately good…every human person, the rainforest and all the universe is destined for goodness.  She believed that everyone, including those who hated her, could turn to goodness…to godliness where healing rays of the sun of justice will arise forever.