“I'd gone to Central America because I didn't think politics was simply a matter of opinion. It wasn't about having the right "line," having an ideologically pure analysis. It had to be incarnate. And now I was seeing the same thing with faith. It couldn't be about wrangling over the Bible to find justification for your convictions. Like politics, faith had to be about action.”

“He's the thrilling, scary Boyfriend who's going to dare you to do things you'd never dreamed of, shower you with unreasonable presents, and show up uninvited at the most embarrassing times. Then he's going to stick with you, refusing to take the hint when you don't answer his calls.”

“Just like the strangers who'd fed me in El Salvador or South Africa, I was going to have to see and understand the hunger of other, different men and women, and make a gesture of welcome, and eat with them. And just as I hadn't "deserved" any of what had been given to me—the fish, the biscuits, the tea so abundantly poured out back in those years—I didn't deserve communion myself now. I wasn't getting it because I was good. I wasn't getting it because I was special. I certainly didn't get to pick who else was good enough, holy enough, deserving enough, to receive it. It wasn't a private meal. The bread on that Table had to be shared with everyone in order for me to really taste it.”

“Heavenly comfort, rather, is truth, which blows away human fantasies that we can live forever, control everything, or fake our lives before God.”

“Conversion was turning out to be quite far from the greeting-card moment promised by televangelists, when Jesus steps into your life, personally saves you, and becomes your lucky charm forever. Instead, it was socially and politically awkward, as well as profoundly confusing. I wasn't struck with any sudden conviction that I now understood the "truth." If anything, I was just crabbier, lonelier, and more destabilized.”

“I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine, poured out freely, shared by all.”

“Imperialism and exploitation,” he wrote, “spheres of influence, trade barriers, unequal distribution of the world's goods, starvation in the midst of plenty, slums with gold coasts next door, poverty supporting luxury: These are marks of an unChristian world.”

“Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical “proof.” It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act.”

“It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God's.”

“He recounted how, at a Jesuit retreat put on by the UCA, the fathers had been talking politics and discussing the issues of democracy in Latin America. Apparently they were sitting around castigating the FMLN for its authoritarianism. Then someone pointed out that in a real democracy, not just the priests but the women who were serving them lunch were going to have something to say about the way things were run, and one of the men blurted out, "You can't do that. They'd make horrible mistakes."Well, said Martín-Baró, that's right: Democracy definitely means that people will make mistakes. "And," he added, "we should welcome them.”

“In both roles, as journalist and as organizer, I'd learn that it's possible to fall in love with a revolution—then doubt it, fight with it, lose faith in it, and return with a sense of humor and a harder, lasting love. I would have to learn the same thing about church when I was much older, and it would be no easier.”