{"id":4890,"date":"2025-12-01T16:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.maryknollsociety.org\/magazine\/?p=4890"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:57:15","slug":"guard-this-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.maryknollsociety.org\/magazine\/guard-this-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Guard This Treasure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/strong>n the city of San Salvador, a street mural portrays a memorable Mass. One side of the painted altar shows images of devastation. On the other, vivid colors bring to life a thriving community. A quote on the altar cloth reads, \u201cGuard this treasure<\/a>.\u201d Maryknoll Father John Spain has spent his life in mission carrying out this message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Spain, known affectionately as \u201cPadre Juan,\u201d began his five decades of service in Central America in 1971. Ordained the previous year at the age of 26, he studied Spanish in Bolivia<\/a> before arriving in El Salvador, a small country the size of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mural illustrates the reality Father Spain entered into as a young missioner. Depicted at the altar are martyrs of the Salvadoran church \u2014 including Saint \u00d3scar Romero<\/a>. \u201cI came in June, and I met him in August,\u201d Father Spain recalls. \u201cThe Church here has been shaped by him, along with so many others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Spain ministered first in the peripheries of the capital. Most residents lived in housing projects built for factory and construction workers who migrated from rural areas. \u201cOur pastoral challenge was to restore their sense of community and revive the faith they received growing up,\u201d Father Spain says. \u201cYou may have a job, and even housing, but where was your community?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer was found in base ecclesial communities<\/a>. \u201cThey start talking about their lives, Scripture, the teachings of the Church, and it gives them a community identity again,\u201d Father Spain says. \u201cPeople come alive with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Father
Father Spain visits a family in Tutunichapa, a poor area in metropolitan San Salvador settled by people displaced by war and earthquakes. (Eric Wheater\/El Salvador)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1978, Maryknoll was entrusted with the rural parish of San Pedro Ap\u00f3stol in Ciudad Barrios \u2014 \u00d3scar Romero\u2019s hometown. Parishioners included subsistence farmers and coffee plantation laborers. \u201cWe were invited in to share the deep faith and love of the land,\u201d Father Spain says. \u201cThere was poverty, but people had that sense of family, community, identity. They knew who they were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The missioner had served on the priests\u2019 council and worked under Father Fabi\u00e1n Amaya, director of the diocesan newspaper and radio; these roles gave him a wide panorama. In both urban areas and the countryside, Father Spain recounts, there was great excitement, \u201can effervescence,\u201d about implementing the teachings of Vatican II and the Latin American bishops conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saint Pope Paul VI\u2019s 1975 encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi <\/em><\/a>(On Evangelization in the Modern World) heightened the enthusiasm. \u201cThe encyclical came like the May rains,\u201d Father Spain says, echoing San Salvador\u2019s archbishop at the time, who was succeeded by Monsignor Romero<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cMay rains\u201d kept hope alive as El Salvador hurtled toward a civil war that claimed 75,000 lives. Social unrest grew throughout the country, and in the capital a state of siege was declared. Extrajudicial military units known as \u201cdeath squads\u201d targeted Church and community leaders suspected of \u201csubversion.\u201d \u201cWe knew different people who were killed,\u201d Father Spain recalls sadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archbishop Romero addressed the crisis in widely broadcast sermons<\/a>. \u201cThere is a way to know if God is near us,\u201d he said in a homily. \u201cGod is close to those who care about the hungry, the naked, the poor, the disappeared, the tortured, the prisoners, the suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe had that gift of expressing the voice of the people, the voiceless,\u201d Father Spain says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 24, 1980, while saying Mass, Monsignor Romero was assassinated by a sniper<\/a>. On Dec. 2 that same year, Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and the lay missioner Jean Donovan were murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did the sisters stay at what they were doing, in spite of threats? Why did Romero stay?\u201d Father Spain asks. They were committed, he says, \u201cto the basic conviction that this is what Jesus calls us to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Villagers
Villagers of the Ilopango parish outside San Salvador form a base ecclesial community to reflect on their lives in light of Scripture and Catholic tradition. (Eric Wheater\/El Salvador)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFather John Spain is a witness to the martyred North American churchwomen and Saint \u00d3scar Romero. He comes alive when talking about them,\u201d says Kevin McCarthy, who has led four immersion trips to El Salvador<\/a> with Maryknoll\u2019s Mission Formation Ministry<\/a>. \u201cHe has a historian\u2019s mind for details and facts, but because he knew them, the information he shares is lasting and powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir lives have not been in vain,\u201d Father Spain says resolutely. \u201cThey point a direction for our lives and what we should be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Troy, New York, John Spain was pointed in the direction of mission from an early age. The third of eight siblings, he grew up reading Maryknoll<\/em> magazine. \u201cOn Mission Sunday every year in our Catholic newspaper, there was a full-page spread of the 300 missionaries from the Albany diocese, including many Maryknollers,\u201d he recalls. Spain left Holy Cross College to join the Maryknoll Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year after Romero and the churchwomen\u2019s murders, Father Spain and other Maryknoll priests were asked by their superiors to leave El Salvador because of threats. He served for nine years in nearby Nicaragua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December of 1991 \u2014 the cusp of the signing of the peace accords<\/a> \u2014 Father Spain returned to the country he calls home. He joined two Maryknollers, Fathers Ronald Hennessey<\/a> and William Boteler, in San Ram\u00f3n at the parish of El Buen Pastor, which had lost some 600 members. Their main ministry, he says, \u201cwas to facilitate reconciliation and healing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Father
Father Spain and community members prepare a simple altar for a traditional feast day at Sant\u00edsima Trinidad Chapel of the parish of Jocoaitique in Moraz\u00e1n. (Sean Sprague\/El Salvador)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Father Spain eventually helped turn over the parish to the Archdiocese of San Salvador. Then he and Maryknoll Father James Lynch<\/a> opened a new parish in San Roque, where they rebuilt homes destroyed by earthquakes. \u201cStarting a new parish means getting to know the people,\u201d says Father Lynch, who is now vicar general of the Maryknoll Society. \u201cIt was important to listen to their stories, their joys and sorrows, because listening is the first step of evangelization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2005 the new parish church was inaugurated, with three chapels rebuilt, and that parish, too, was handed over to the archdiocese. \u201cMy mission has always been to support the local church,\u201d Father Spain says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven during the most difficult years, I didn\u2019t go through it alone,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the prized possession of my time here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Father
Father Spain chats with Cristo Salvador youth group member Ronald Gonz\u00e1lez Cornejo, whose mother and grandmother have served with Maryknollers. (Octavio Dur\u00e1n\/El Salvador)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Father Spain, 82, has served since 2010 at Cristo Salvador Church in the Zacamil neighborhood of Mejicanos in metropolitan San Salvador. The parish \u2014 an oasis for communities marked by emigration and gang violence \u2014 formerly included the territory of El Buen Pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pastor of Cristo Salvador, Father Joaqu\u00edn \u00c1lvarez Campos, says their friendship goes back even further. \u201cI met Father John when I was a seminarian,\u201d recalls Father \u00c1lvarez, who ministered throughout his country\u2019s civil war. He keeps a portrait of Saint \u00d3scar Romero in the church. \u201cHis expression fills me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gives me strength to help the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to maintaining the church and two chapels, the parish runs a youth ministry and a ministry for the sick, in which Maryknoll Father John \u201cJack\u201d Northrop<\/a> served until returning to the States last year. \u201cThey walk with the people,\u201d Father \u00c1lvarez says of the Maryknollers. \u201cWe make a good team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mission is about \u201cbeing close to the poor,\u201d Father Spain says. \u201cThey understand what suffering is, they know what loss is. But they also know what hope is. It\u2019s wonderful to be with people who know what life is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Father Joaqu\u00edn \u00c1lvarez Campos and Maryknoll Father John Spain (right) visit the tomb of Saint \u00d3scar Romero in San Salvador\u2019s cathedral. (Octavio Dur\u00e1n\/El Salvador)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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