But at first it seemed that was not to be. He flunked out of the seminary, failing a few courses, notably Latin, which he could not seem to learn. But he was given a second chance, and enrolled at Mt. St. Mary Seminary in Maryland, where the boy who was used to working with his hands was more comfortable outside, restoring the school's grotto, than being cooped up in the school's library. He was finally ordained in 1963.
Fast forward to four years after he was ordained, and we find 33 yr. old Fr. Stan driving his Chevrolet over 2,000 miles to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma's mission in Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala. He had volunteered to work in a village of 2,000 Tzutujil Mayans on the shore of Lake Atilan. He would be their beloved priest for thirteen years. Originally he joined a mission crew of five priests, three religious sisters, and three lay people. But, by 1975, the others had left - getting married, retiring, moving on to other assignments. Fr. Stan was head of the mission by default. It was time for his sturdy German farm roots to really kick in.
Fr. Stan wrote to his Diocesan Archbishop, Charles Salatka, "Anyone who has made an advancement at all is being pursued. I still do not want to abandon my flock when the wolves are making random attacks." He reinforced the church and rectory with fences and locks, and he and his assistant avoided going out at night. At night, hundreds of parishioners slept in the church, catechists taking turns keeping watch. Yet in less then three months, eleven men were murdered.
Taking a serious risk, Fr. Stan set up a fund for the eight widows and thirty-two children of the murdered men, wryly commenting that "Shaking hands with an Indian has become a political act." He sheltered a catechist in the rectory who was known to be on a death list for openly criticizing the army. The man was captured by three masked men by the rectory steps; Fr. Stan would forever be haunted by the man's cry "Help me!" Soon other Catholic missionary priests were telling Fr. Stan that he too was on a death list, that he had to leave.
Unwillingly, he returned to the United States and his parents' farm in Okarche, Oklahoma, where he helped with the Spring harvest. But his family often found him in a darkened room, staring out the window. He only lasted at home for three months. He yearned to return to his Mayan people to celebrate Holy Week with them. Word had arrived that he was no longer on the death list, information that subsequently would prove to be false. But it was the excuse he needed to go back to the place where he had given his heart. His Archbishop and his friends warned him that he might not return to the U.S. alive. He said that if he died in Guatemala, it would be God's Will.
Fr. Stan did indeed celebrate Holy Week at his Mayan mission, and took up his work feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, burying the ever-increasing dead laid out in rows in the dirt plaza, under the sweltering sun.
Early in the morning of July 28, 1981, three tall men wearing ski masks and civilian clothing sneaked into the rectory and found forty-six year old Fr. Stan in the downstairs study he had converted into his bedroom. For fifteen minutes he struggled with them silently, overturning furniture, not calling for help so that no one else sleeping in the rectory would be endangered. But he had told friends that he did not want to be tortured as some had been whose bodies he'd found - eyes gouged, skin peeled off their faces, bodies with numerous cigarette burns. Finally men in the rectory heard him yell "Kill me here!" Two shots rang out. When the listeners finally had the courage to go to find their priest, they found his body in a pool of his blood, shot in the face and in the temple.
Fr. Greg Schaeffer, another missionary priest, arrived shortly after to find the Mayan parishioners gathered on the church steps and clustered throughout the dirt plaza. In the church, he found an elderly woman curled up in a pew, sobbing. "They killed my priest," she cried. " He was our priest. He spoke our language." Sister Linda Wanner, who'd visited with Fr. Stan recently, was on her knees in his bedroom, collecting his blood in a mason jar. She said that never had she understood so forcibly that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Fr. Rother's murderers were never found or arrested. A slug found was a nine millimeter shell used in a Smith and Wesson, a weapon used only by the army and government-backed paramilitary groups.
When word of the beloved priest's murder traveled back to Oklahoma, his own family wanted his body returned home to be buried in the family plot. His Mayan family wanted him buried at their mission. Both his families reached a compromise. His body was returned to his parents. His heart and the mason jar of his blood were enshrined in the small white colonial church in Santiago, Atitlan, the place where he had already given his heart thirteen years before. The room in the rectory where he was murdered is now a shrine, visited by a continuous stream of pilgrims.
The Catholics of Oklahoma remembered with tears the letter Fr. Stan had written home shortly before what would be his last Christmas at his mission. It said in part:
"The reality is that we are in danger...If it is my destiny that I should give my life here, then so be it....I don't want to desert these people....there is still a lot of good that can be done under the circumstances."
He ended the letter with what would become his most famous words:
"The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger. Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for our people, that our presence among them will fortify them to endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom."
Oklahoma City's Bishop Paul Coakley said "We need the witness of holy men and women who remind us that we are all called to holiness - and that holy men and women come from ordinary places like Okarche, Oklahoma."
Maria Scaperlanda, author of "The Shepherd Who Didn't Run," a biography of Fr. Stanley Rother, also reminds us that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things - people like you and me. She remarks,
"Although the details are different, I believe the call is the same - and the challenge is also the same. Like Father Stanley, each of us is called to say 'Yes' to God with our whole heart. We are all asked to see the Other standing before us as a child of God, to treat them with respect and a generous heart. We are called to holiness - whether we live in Okarche, Oklahoma, or New York City, or Guatemala City."
On December 16, 2016, Pope Francis officially recognized Fr. Stanley Rother as a martyr. He is the first-ever declared martyr who was born in the United States.
On September 23, 2017, Fr. Rother will be officially beatified, a step on the road to being declared a saint, at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City.
Once, people sneered "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" Perhaps once people thought that no one of importance could come from a rural farm in the heart of Oklahoma. Our God is full of marvelous surprises! And He wants to take your ordinary life and make it an extraordinary one, even if it is a quiet life.
Ask God to use your heart, your life, to reach out and touch many souls. Blessed - and blessedly ordinary - Fr. Stanley Rother, please pray for us!