Flashback. 1968. It was the middle of the night, and a police officer stopped my car, pulled me over, and began to interrogate me. I knew I was in trouble.

I was driving a borrowed station wagon filled with all sorts of strange things (donations for Madonna House), and I was ten miles over the speed limit. I had a beard, and I was wearing my Roman collar. And it was the 60s in Ohio—redneck country!

As the old nursery rhyme says, “Off to prison you must go….” And I did.

The reason I was in jail and the experience of it were certainly not comparable to those of Archbishop Romero, but there was one thing I believe we both experienced at that moment—namely, that fearsome sense of complete powerlessness.

It was the first time I had ever experienced this. And as I sat there in that cell on a well-stained mattress, with no pillow, no sheets, and no blankets, I, like him, wept.

The first thoughts I remember having were, I don’t belong here! I don’t deserve this!

Of course I was over-reacting and feeding my own anti-establishment fantasies and fears, but, like I said, I had never been in jail before!

Gradually over the last 35 years I have come to realize that not only did I deserve to be in that cell, but I needed to be there. I needed to be there because it taught me something vitally important.

For those few scary hours in a jail cell were my first in-the-flesh connection with my neighbors in prisons all over the world. Of course there is no comparison between their prisons and my silly little cell, but there is a connection, a oneness.

And the oneness I’m talking about is not about suffering with them or about human rights or about atoning for our sins against them. It is about divine revelation.

For it has been revealed to us that in Christ, God has taken on our human condition in order to be one with us and to teach us how God loves us so that we can love one another and ourselves in the same way. We will not understand or embrace that revelation in all its fullness until we know, deep in our flesh, that we are one.

For only then can we see ourselves as we really are: prisoners, seekers of truth and justice, broken and wounded, in need of being saved, utterly dependent on God—together.
This realization is not about politics or sociology or economics, but it is about how God loves in the flesh.

And this in-the-flesh oneness with our neighbors is what the Holy Spirit uses to guide us through all the social, political, economic, and religious terrors that keep us from loving one another as God loves us.

Archbishop Romero already knew in many ways that he was one with the poor and abused, and with all his neighbors in El Salvador.

But I believe the Lord wanted him to see it more clearly. When he cried out from his cell for an answer from God, and he heard nothing, I believe that in that awesome silence he experienced a new depth of his oneness with all his people, especially with those who had no power.

One could then imagine the Lord saying to him: “Don’t you see? You and I and your people are one, my friend. What happens to them and to you happens to me. That union is how we love each other.”

Why is it so hard for us to see and believe this divine unity of love between Christ, us, and our neighbor?

One thing that gets in the way is the semi-conscious mode that many of us live in—namely, that nothing is real or important until it affects me personally.

Thus prisons are not real to me unless I end up in one myself. Poverty is not real until I am poor. War is not real until the enemy is on my own soil. Evil is of no concern to me until it gets out of hand in my own house.

Christ says: no! Christ reveals that it is all happening to all of us because of our union with one another and with him. And we need grace and humility to see this.

How do we open our selves up to that grace in Christ? I can only tell you how I feebly try to do this.

I have to constantly try to stop my self-pity and think more about my neighbors all over the world who are going through something similar to what I am going through at the same moment.

Of course there is often no comparison between my puny little pain and their present agony, but I have to start somewhere.

So when I am locked in a traffic jam, I try to focus on my neighbors somewhere in the world who have been standing in line for hours just for a drink of water. I have to learn to cry out to Jesus about their pain which I am feeling just a little bit through my own.

And as my headache continues and the aspirin isn’t working, I try to focus on the hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are in pain, even dying in pain, with no medical help at all.

As I stand in line at the store and wait and wait for the clerk to check everyone out, I try to think about those people all over the world who have no place to stand in line at all—everything having been blown apart by war.

I need to cry out to Jesus for my neighbors, not for myself. And then gradually, as my focus moves from myself to others, I find myself resting in Christ who has already embraced me and my neighbors through our common pain.

Then when I am in that prayerful state, Christ can teach me how to love myself and my neighbor as he loves each of us.

Flashback: 33 A.D.—approximately.

That they may be one as you and I are one, Father, so the world will believe it was you who sent me (Jn 17:21). Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 15:12). And, love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:39).