presente

Last week I was participating in a huge remembrance celebration for people who had, over the years, been killed in Central America and Latin America. This demonstration was in Georgia at Fort Benning where there is a place called the School of the Americas. Part of the celebration and demonstration is a long procession and there were over 20,000 people there, so this is a very long procession, people walking in a line, four abreast. During that procession, a number of people read out names like "Oscar Romero" and everybody in the procession responds, "Presente!"-"he's alive, he's with us."
They go through the list of those tens of thousands of people, like the Jesuits who had been murdered on November 16, 1989 and the two women, the housekeeper and her daughter living with them. Or just unknown people, tiny children -- they'd always give the age of the person -- and the whole crowd would again cry out, "Presente!" As you walked along, you heard those names and you became aware, Yes, they are present because they're with God and God is present