Vatican: A cry for peace in land of Christ’s birth
(Vatican Radio) Below we publish the homily of Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect
of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and President of R.O.A.C.O. at Santa
Maria in Traspontina, Tuesday, 18 June 2013, for the annual meeting of the Reunion
of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches.__________
Your Beatitudes,
Brothers in the episcopate and the priesthood, dear Friends of ROACO,
1.
At the Holy Eucharist we find ourselves in the heart of God through the love of the
Cross and the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which the Holy Spirit pours without
measure upon each one of us. We wish to open our Plenary Session by entrusting ourselves,
dutifully and trustingly, to God. May He raise up and direct our good intentions,
leading them to completion by His grace. This is our common prayer which we direct
to Him.
Our very first desire must be to remain strongly anchored in the Christian
vision of solidarity. This will be guaranteed by constant reference to the Pastors
and to the diocesan Churches, which support the ROACO agencies, together with the
coordination that our Congregation willingly offers, in response to the mandate of
the Bishop of Rome, which is to spread far and wide, among our brothers and sisters
in the East, fraternity and solicitude.
2. The Eucharist is always
able to reawaken in us the grace which we owe to God. Christ is the altar, which can
never be destroyed. He is the eternal high priest. And he is also the Spotless Victim
who makes perfect our own sacrifice, which includes the gift of our life to God in
the obedience of faith. Because Christ unites us to Himself, it is possible and necessary
to strive, as today’s Gospel asks of us, for the perfection which is found in the
Heavenly Father Himself. The journey towards Christian perfection is, nevertheless,
highly demanding, for it is measured by the paradoxical love of the Cross: “love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you”! When one thinks of the vortex of violence
- as unceasing as it is irrational - which has struck our brothers and sisters in
Syria and Iraq, as well as of the tension threatening in the Holy Land, in Egypt,
and in other places in the Middle East, one cannot avoid the fully paradoxical nature,
from a human point of view, of the Gospel’s command. It is so demanding: “If you love
those who love you, what merit do you have?” I think of the understandable temptation
for Christians to combat adversity with methods other than those of humble trust in
Divine Providence, which, obviously, works through dialogue and every other possible
initiative directed at safeguarding the right to religious liberty and safety for
all, including the smallest ecclesial communities, which need to be guaranteed the
right to participate fully in the civil life of their respective Countries.
With
these goals in mind, we bear all such persons before the heart of God in this Holy
Mass, at which we also remember the benefactors of the Eastern Churches, both living
and deceased. Indeed, those many who are presently suffering are very much our benefactors
also, because they face the burden of life with dignity and at great cost bring honor
to the name of Christian. Nor do we wish to forget the innumerable victims and the
enormous sufferings that are afflicting the motherland of Christianity. We beg the
Lord, therefore, that He render Eastern Christians strong and meek, filling them with
the consolation of the faith, along with all those who partake in their tragic fate.
We implore that they never ever respond to hate with hate; that they never give in
to blind vengeance; that they never doubt the power of God to set eventually by His
grace a limit to such great evils.
3. In the meantime, we are to be
the interpreters of their suffering before every organ of ecclesial and civil government,
with the humble resolve that ought to characterize ecclesial speech and action. The
public denouncement of the unbearable conditions of their life must be accompanied
by our very concrete solicitude to alleviate them. The always challenging words of
the apostle Paul offer today the most radical motivation for our solidarity: the example
of Christ. “Rich though he was, he became poor” so that we might become rich through
his poverty! Likewise, the first Christian community, “amid much testing of tribulation”
managed to turn “their overflowing joy and their very deep poverty ... [into a] rich
generosity”. While the developed West suffers from a serious economic crisis, its
duty to share the urgent needs of so many brothers and sisters, especially in Syria,
has not diminished but even increased; many migrants have been forced to find refuge
or at least some relief in the West, sometimes after having lost everything on a personal
or family level.
4. The presence of the “Heads and Fathers” of the Coptic
and Chaldean Churches, as well as the Apostolic Nuncios and other witnesses, makes
our cry for peace all the more heartfelt. We wish to embrace in the Lord all of the
Oriental Churches, including those who are seeking a new homeland for their children
in various parts of the world. As a result, they suffer the fear of losing their origins,
especially their spiritual roots. Together with our brothers and sisters of the East,
we would like “to sing praises to the Lord while we have life”, making our own the
response to the Psalm. Sing from our common faith and, at the same time, work with
persevering generosity so that all those in dire distress understand that the Lord
“keeps faith forever; he executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the
hungry”. In this perspective of accompaniment and participation, Mary Most Holy precedes
us by her example of the ever caring Mother. May she sustain us, so that the beneficiaries
of our charity never doubt that “the Lord sets the prisoners free... he watches over
the sojourners, upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he
brings to ruin”. Amen.