Although often attributed to Oscar Romero himself, who was beatified Saturday, the following prayer poem was actually written by the late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw and spoken in a homily by his friend, the late Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit. Dearden used the prayer in a Mass for departed priests in November 1979, a year before Romero’s 1980 assassination. Thereafter the poem was renamed as Romero’s prayer.
All three men — Romero, Untener, and Dearden — shared a passion for the poor and were known as fierce fighters for social justice.
A Step Along the Way: Archbishop Romero’s Prayer
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 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 not our own. Amen.
