Father Stanley Rother: Martyr of Quiet Courage

“But if it is my destiny that I should give my life here, then so be it…I don’t want to desert these people.” – Father Stanley Rother

Last Friday, Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche, Oklahoma celebrated the 36^th memorial Mass on July 28, 2017, in honor of Father Stanley Rother. He is the first US-born martyr recognized by the Catholic Church and, on September 23, will be the first US-born male to be beatified, the last step before canonization.

Young Stanley grew up in a rural farming community living the simple life of quiet diligence. He spent much of his time working on his farm, but felt God calling him to be a priest. Struggling through seminary, particularly Latin studies, he was advised by some to give up on his calling to the priesthood. Nevertheless, he persisted. After serving at various churches in Oklahoma, he volunteered as a missionary to Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. Serving his mission parish in the middle of rampant civil war, he faithfully ministered among the Mayan Tz’utujil people of the highlands of southwest Guatemala.

Despite fumbling through Latin in his formal education, Father Rother was determined to learn the language of his new home and family. He learned both Spanish and Tz’utujil, the unwritten, indigenous language of the Mayan people he served. Over the course of 13 years, he helped construct a community hospital, school, and radio station he used for catechesis. Necessity developed him into a man-of-all-trades. From pulling teeth to teaching literacy to preaching Scripture, he earned a reputation of a gentle giant. His childhood skills followed him as he plowed local fields and fellowshipped over soil. Most astoundingly, he played a crucial role in translating the New Testament into Tz’utujil. He performed the holiest of tasks using perhaps his greatest natural weakness.

All the while, political unrest was brewing. During the late 1970s, parishioners of the mission would mysteriously vanish and their corpses would reappear randomly alongside village roads. His name was even placed on a “death list” by oppositional militants who hated him for serving the rural poor. Amid this chaotic instability, he visited his parents and hometown one last time in 1981, and returned to Santiago Atitlan shortly afterward to continue his vocation in pursuit of an incomplete mission. When asked why, he replied in a letter, “A shepherd cannot run from his flock.”

On July 28, 1981, he was shot in his rectory and died immediately at age 46. The killers forced a teenager in the church to lead them to the “red-bearded Oklahoma-born missionary.” The teenager recalled hearing his priest yell, “Kill me here!” One of ten priests slaughtered in Guatemala that year, his body was buried in his hometown of Okarche, Oklahoma in the Holy Trinity Cemetery. Heartbroken at the loss of their father and friend, his Tz’utujil family requested that his heart be removed and buried under the altar of his Guatemalan church. And it was.

Quiet courage echoes through eternity. God’s power was perfected through Father Rother’s weakness. In the words of Tertullian, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” While Father Rother’s immediate impact is confined to a village, and perhaps a country, his eternal impact ministers to us all. His testimony of silent obedience, abiding love, and peaceful sacrifice draws us all closer to the One we adore. And on September 23, when I attend his beatification Mass with thousands of others in Oklahoma City, I will be thinking of that altar in Guatemala. His heart is still with His people.