The destinies of Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan were
joined together in just the last months of their lives. Murdered together by National
Guardsmen in El Salvador on December 2, 1980, their deaths became martyrdom
for a church of the poor in El Salvador and for thousands of Christians in the
United States.

On the evening of that December 2, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan drove their van to the
airport outside San Salvador to pick up Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford who were
returning from a Maryknoll regional assembly in Managua. After leaving the airport, their van
was commandeered at a road block by members of El Salvador's National Guard. They were
taken to an isolated location, abused and shot, then buried in a shallow grave along a roadside.
Their deaths are understood as martyrdom because the women did what Jesus of Nazareth did,
and what he told us we should do to show we are disciples in this world - they loved the poor,
and laid down their lives for them. In this way, they became "friends" of Jesus (John 10:15,
15:12-14, 13:34-35).

In doing so, in becoming martyrs, which also means "witnesses," their stories, their names
recited together now as a litany, speak to us on the most profound levels of faith - the meaning of the Christian journey, the meaning of discipleship, cross, and resurrection.

(An excerpt from the book A Message too Precious to be Silenced.
By Margaret Swedish. 1992)