Pope in Romania: I come as a
pilgrim of brotherhood
 |
| Pope Francis and the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Daniel |
Pope Francis meets with the Permanent Synod of the Romanian
Orthodox Church telling them he comes “as a pilgrim desirous of seeing the
Lord’s Face in the faces of my Brothers.”
By Lydia O'Kane
In his address to the Permanent Synod of the Romanian
Orthodox Church, the Pope spoke of the Lord’s resurrection, as
being at “the very heart of the apostolic preaching handed down and preserved
by our Churches.”
Suffering and sacrifice
He noted that in Romania, as in so many other places
nowadays, many had experienced the passover of death and resurrection in the
form of persecution. Pope Francis remembered those who were “martyrs and
confessors of the faith”. What these people suffered, said the Pontiff, “even
to the sacrifice of their lives, is too precious an inheritance to be
disregarded or tarnished. It is a shared inheritance, he
added, and it summons us to remain close to our brothers and sisters who share
it.”
Speaking to those present, the Pope recalled Pope John Paul
II’s address to this Holy Synod twenty years ago with the words. “I have come
to contemplate the Face of Christ etched in your Church; I have come to
venerate this suffering Face, the pledge to you of new hope”. Pope Francis told
them that he too had come to Romania “as a pilgrim desirous of seeing the
Lord’s Face in the faces of my Brothers.”
Unity and
Remembrance
Pope Francis also recalled the words of Patriarch Teoctist
in Bucharest over twenty years ago “Unite, Unite”. The Pope described this
proclamation as inaugurating a new time: “the time of journeying together in
the rediscovery and revival of the fraternity that even now unites us.” “The
remembrance of steps taken and completed together, he said, encourages us to
advance to the future in the awareness – certainly – of our differences, but
above all in thanksgiving for a family atmosphere to be rediscovered and a
memory of communion to be revived, that, like a lamp, can light up the steps of
our journey.”
Journeying together
Journeying together also means listening to the Lord, Pope
Francis pointed out, “especially in these more recent years, when our world has
experienced rapid social and cultural changes. He continued by saying
that, “technological development and economic prosperity may have benefited
many, yet even more have remained hopelessly excluded, while a globalization
that tends to level differences has contributed to uprooting traditional values
and weakening ethics and social life, which more recently has witnessed a
growing sense of fear that, often skillfully stoked, leads to attitudes of
rejection and hate.”
A New Pentecost
The Pope concluded that the, “journey comes to an end, as it
did in Emmaus, with the insistent prayer that the Lord remain with us.” He said
that, the path before us leads from Easter to Pentecost: from that Paschal dawn
of unity that emerged here twenty years ago, we have set out towards a new
Pentecost.”
Our own journey has begun anew, Pope Francis emphasized,
“with the certainty that we are brothers and sisters walking side by side,
sharing the faith grounded in the resurrection of the one Lord.”
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