Pope celebrates Divine Liturgy,
beatifies martyrs in Blaj: full text
 |
| Pope Francis during Divine Liturgy and beatification ceremony in Blaj (ANSA) |
On the last day of his apostlic visit to Romania, Pope
Francis visits the central city of Blaj. the highlight of the visit in the
morning is the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and beatification of 7 Greek
Catholic bishops who were martyred under the communist regime. Here is the full
text of his homily:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this
man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (cf. Jn 9:2).
The disciples’ question to Jesus triggers a series of actions and events that
will accompany the entire Gospel account and clearly reveal what really blinds
the human heart.
Jesus, like
his disciples, sees the man blind from birth. He acknowledges him and
gives him his full attention. After making it clear that the man’s
blindness was not the result of sin, he mixes dirt with his saliva and smears
it on the man’s eyes. Then he tells him to wash in the pool of
Siloam. After washing, the man blind from birth recovers his sight.
It is significant that the miracle is recounted in just two verses; everything
else has to do, not with the blind man who has recovered his sight, but with
the arguments that followed his healing. It seems that his life and
especially the story of his cure are of little interest, except as an occasion
of debate, irritation and anger. The man healed of his blindness is
questioned first by the astonished crowd, then by the Pharisees, who also
interrogate his parents. They question the identity of the man who was
healed; then they deny the act of God, with the excuse that God does not work
on the Sabbath. They even go so far as to doubt that the man was actually
born blind.
The whole
scene and the arguments that follow show how hard it is to understand the
actions and priorities of Jesus, who brings someone from the periphery into the
centre. It is particularly hard for people who think that “the Sabbath”
is more important than the love of the Father who wills all people to be saved
(cf. 1 Tim 2:4). The blind man had to live not only with
his own blindness, but also with the blindness of those around him. We
see the resistance and the hostility that can arise in the human heart when,
instead of putting people at the centre, we put special interests, labels,
theories, abstractions and ideologies, which manage only to blind everything
around them. The Lord’s approach is different: far from hiding himself
behind inaction or ideological abstractions, he looks people in the eye.
He sees their hurts and their history. He goes out to meet them and he
does not let himself be sidetracked by discussions that fail to prioritize and
put at the centre what is really important.
These lands
know well how greatly people suffer when an ideology or a regime takes over,
setting itself up as a rule for the very life and faith of people, diminishing
and even eliminating their ability to make decisions, their freedom and their
room for creativity (cf. Laudato Si’, 108). Brothers and
sisters, you were forced to endure a way of thinking and acting that showed
contempt for others and led to the expulsion and killing of the defenceless and
the silencing of dissenting voices. I think in particular of the seven
Greek-Catholic Bishops whom I have had the joy of beatifying. In the face
of fierce opposition from the regime, they demonstrated an exemplary faith and
love for their people. With great courage and interior fortitude, they
accepted harsh imprisonment and every kind of mistreatment, in order not to
deny their fidelity to their beloved Church. These pastors, martyrs for
the faith, re-appropriated and handed down to the Romanian people a precious
legacy that we can sum up in two words: freedomand mercy.
With regard
to freedom, I cannot help but note that we are celebrating this
Divine Liturgy in the “Field of Liberty”. This place, filled with
meaning, evokes the unity of your people, which is found in the diversity of
its religious expressions. All these things constitute a spiritual
patrimony that enriches and distinguishes Romanian culture and national identity.
The new Beati endured suffering and gave their lives to oppose an illiberal
ideological system that oppressed the fundamental rights of the human
person. In that tragic period, the life of the Catholic community was put
to a harsh test by a dictatorial and atheistic regime. All the Bishops
and faithful of the Greek-Catholic Church and those of the Latin-rite Catholic
Church were persecuted and imprisoned.
The other
aspect of the spiritual legacy of the new Beati is mercy.
Their tenacity in professing fidelity to Christ was matched by their readiness
to suffer martyrdom without showing hatred towards their persecutors and indeed
responding to them with great meekness. The words spoken by Bishop Iuliu
Hossu during his imprisonment are eloquent: “God has sent us into this darkness
of suffering in order to offer forgiveness and to pray for the conversion of
all”. These words are the symbol and synthesis of the attitude with which
these Beati, at the time of testing, sustained their people in confessing the
faith without compromise or retaliation. The mercy they showed to their
tormentors is a prophetic message, for it invites everyone today to conquer
anger and resentment by love and forgiveness, and to live the Christian faith
with consistency and courage.
Dear
brothers and sisters, today, too, we witness the appearance of new ideologies
that quietly attempt to assert themselves and to uproot our peoples from their
richest cultural and religious traditions. Forms of ideological colonization
that devalue the person, life, marriage and the family (cf. Amoris
Laetitia, 40), and above all, with alienating proposals as atheistic as
those of the past, harm our young people and children, leaving them without
roots from which they can grow (cf. Christus Vivit, 78).
Everything then becomes irrelevant unless it serves our immediate interests;
people are led to take advantage of others and treat them as mere objects
(cf. Laudato Si’, 123-124). Those voices, by sowing fear and
division, seek to cancel and bury the best that the history of these lands have
bequeathed to you. I think, for example, regarding this legacy, of the
Edict of Torda in 1568, which forbade all forms of radicalism and was one of
the first in Europe to promote an act of religious tolerance.
I would
like to encourage you to bring the light of the Gospel to our contemporaries
and to continue, like these Blesseds, to resist these new ideologies now
springing up. It is up to us to resist now, just as they resisted in
their time. May you be witnesses of freedom and mercy,
allowing fraternity and dialogue to prevail over divisions, and fostering the
fraternity of blood that arose in the period of suffering, when Christians,
historically divided, drew closer and more united to one another. May the
maternal protection of the Virgin Mary and the intercession of the new Beati
accompany you on your journey.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét