Abp Vasil SJ opens European Scout Jamboree

The 2014 EuroJam – the annual gathering of boy and girl scouts from all over Europe – opened Sunday in St Evroult-Notre-Dame-du-Bois, Normany, France.

More than 12 thousand scouts and guides from 18 different countries are participating in the weeklong programme of events based on the «venite et videte» maxim “Come and see!” – the  invitation Jesus gives to the disciples of John the Baptist at the banks of the river Jordan, after they ask him, “Master, where do you live?”

On Sunday afternoon The Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, Archbishop Cyril Vasil SJ, delivered the homily at the opening Mass – the full text of which can be found below.

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Our life is a mosaic of stories, memories, moments and events which make us grow, which form us, which make us become the persons that we are. In our minds we are able to go through theses images and memories as if it were an album of photographs or films which immortalize the decisive moments of our life, those adventures which we recount to our friends. In fact, going through a family album, one of the questions that children often have for their parents, which I also made to mine, and I suppose you have made to yours is this: “how did you meet each other?”, “when you met, what was your first impression? What was it that you found attractive in him? How did your story continue?”

Something similar happens when we speak of any true and deep friendship, which, having come into being and grown, has marked our life. Usually we remember the very moment when it really began; we can recall the particular motive that convinced us to open up to somebody and to share and entrust our life to that person.

In the Gospel that we have just read we see how the story of friendship between Jesus and his first disciples began. Today we call them the Apostles. They had the good fortune of meeting a very special person, a person that they had long been seeking, whom they needed in order to give sense to their lives: they met Jesus. At the beginning they called him “Master” with all respect, and, wishing to know him better, inquired as to where he lived. And he invited them to his house with the simple words: “Come and see”. That invitation changed their lives radically, as they will recall decades later. In fact, as the Gospel text indicates, they even remember the exact time of the meeting: four in the afternoon.

These young people accept the invitation and pass the word also to others, who thus become the disciples and companions of Jesus and the first propagators of his Gospel. They hear Jesus’ teaching, witness his miracles, admire the love and the power that emanates from his entire being. They recognize with others that “no man has ever spoken like this man” (Jn 7:46). At the end of their journey, aware that Jesus is “the Lord and Master”, it is he himself who wishes to be known by them as a true “Friend” and so he calls them no longer “disciples” but “friends”, for there is no greater friendship than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus came precisely so as to give his life for all, for all of us, for all his friends. In fact, “God so loved the world so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:16-17). Through Christ, with Christ and in Christ we can all have the true life, infinite, full of light, of joy, of truth. We can all experience his friendship with changes our life.

Jesus offers himself to his friends and for his friends. He does this in an unimaginable and incomprehensible manner: deciding to die for them, that is, for us, on the Cross. But his love does not stop at the Cross, at the moment of his death. Rather, in that moment which might seem a disappointing loss, he shows himself to be the font of new life. He becomes the conqueror of the fear of death because, as the Christians of the East sing in the Easter liturgy: “Christ is risen from the dead, and by death he has conquered death”. Thus, by his death and Resurrection, he confirms the truth of his teaching, of his message.

For this reason, in one of his last meetings with his disciples, the Apostle Thomas, having passed from the enthusiasm of the beautiful moments of initial trust, after having crossed through desolation, doubt and unbelief in front of the scandal of the Cross, drawing near at last to the Risen Jesus, dares to extend his hand again towards his glorious wounds, the wounds of love, and exclaims: “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus, responding to Thomas, but speaking also to all of us says: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn. 20:28-29).

The story of friendship between Jesus and his apostles described by the Gospel is also a model for us. In this story we can all find ourselves, each one individually has their own personal story. Jesus encounters us along the path of our life, he turns to us, looks us in the eye and asks: “What are you looking for?” He even calls us by name saying: “What are you – John, Francis, Paul, or Michael – looking for in life. What are you seeking, Sarah, Laura, Ivonne and Agnieszka?”

In a first moment maybe we do not know well how to formulate a response. We are a bit embarrassed and would like simply to say: We’re looking for happiness, for joy; we’re seeking a relationship or security. But all of these responses are partial and can be summed up in the following: “I’m seeking someone who will teach me to live, to live well; I’m seeking someone I can trust”.

In fact, we all are seeking someone in life whom it is possible to trust. We are ready to give our trust, and, as worthy Scouts, we consider it our honor to merit receiving the trust of others. But, in order to give and receive trust, it is necessary first to know each other.

Jesus is ready to make himself known: he calls us to his house. This call comes in various moments, in various stages of our life, through different transitions. The first invitation to his house is received at Baptism, when we are carried into the Lord’s house in the arms of our parents to receive the sacramental sign of birth to newness of life, life in the Spirit.

Then, his invitations continue to arrive on other occasions. The most significant certainly is the invitation to his table. After the first meeting with him in the Eucharistic mystery, after that “first holy communion”, Jesus himself keeps inviting us and awaiting us in his house, that is, in the Church, so that we might meet him regularly to hear his Word, to become ever more united to him, nourishing ourselves on him, on his Body and Blood in the mystery of the Eucharist, which is the memorial of his death and resurrection realized at every liturgical celebration, even right now.

Jesus gives us the gift of his Spirit to make us strong. In that same Spirit we are able to call our “Abba, Father”, calling “the hidden God, the God of Israel”, the God of the Old Testament by a new name, at once intimate and solemn. Jesus taught it to us: “Our Father who art in Heaven…” His Spirit, received at Confirmation, strengthens us to become courageous and convinced witnesses in the world in which we live.

Sometimes, however, despite all of these gifts of grace, we lose – through the fault of our egoism – the right orientation on our walk and fall into sin, just as the traveler in the parable who fell into the hands of brigands. Then it is Jesus again who, like the Good Samaritan, draws near, stops, bends down over us and binds up our wounds. Indeed, as the prophet Isaiah puts it: “Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows”; he has himself borne our sins on the Cross and therefore “with his stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:4-5). Jesus can heal the wounds of our sins, opening again to us the door of the house of the Father – that door which we have slammed in his face as we fled from him to waste his gifts. This healing takes place in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Thus we see that to the eternal question of all those who seek – “Master, where do you live? Where can we meet you today?” – Jesus answers “Come and see”. You can meet me in my house, in the Church, to which I have entrusted my sacraments, those efficacious and visible signs of my grace which are necessary for your salvation. You can meet me in the Scripture, where you will hear my voice. You can meet me also in your communities where you share the life of faith with your friends because “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20). You can meet me any time in your most needy brothers, in the “little ones”, for every time you do something good to one of the least of these, you do it to me (cfr. Mt. 25:40). You can meet me also in the silence of prayer, in that mysterious dialogue which opens the human soul to the measureless greatness of God. You can meet me in the voice of a well-formed and sensitive conscience, which invites you to do the good and avoid evil.

Today, as we come together for this Holy Mass to open our European meeting, let us welcome the invitation of Jesus to seek him and recognize him as the Way, and the Truth and the Life. Let us accept his invitation to meet him in his house, in the intimacy of that personal encounter which creates deep bonds of friendship. Come and see. Jesus makes this invitation to each one of us individually and to all of us together. Our meeting together is evidence of the fact that the personal search for meaning in life, for God, cannot be lived only as an interior and personal experience, without any community dimension. Faith is, on the one hand, a personal attribute, but on the other, it has necessarily a community dimension. To live and to share one’s faith: this is the way to build the Kingdom of God in the world of today. The little seed must grown, the good seed must bear fruit, notwithstanding the risks of being suffocated or crushed.

Our assembly today – in all of its beauty of diversity of language and culture, in the profound mystery of our union in faith and in the common sharing of scouting ideals – represents the best response possible to the great confusion which is now accompanying the history of humanity, wounded by sin. Such sin continues to inflict wounds on the life of many men and to put into conflict individual persons, groups, whole peoples, cultures, religions and various social systems.

The weeds of division and hatred, sown by the Evil One, have threatened many times to suffocate the good seed of the Word of God, sown in the world.

Let us remember just a few examples. In these days we are commemorating the 100^th anniversary since the outbreak of that senseless bloodbath which has entered into history as the First World War. The name of the region in which our Eurojam is taking place – Normandy – leads us to recall another dramatic clash which wounded the entire human race: the Second World War. Even when the armed fighting had ended, this conflict continued to bear consequences for all of Europe: a deep ideological and political division, expressed in a visible and drastic manner by the Iron Curtain extended along Eastern Europe and by the wall in Berlin.

Darkness is the absence of light and therefore it cannot remain forever, neither in the hearts of men or in the lives of nations. The light of Christ dissipates the darkness of this world.

Thanks to the realization of the dreams of the Fathers of a new and united Europe, thinkers and men of faith who valued the profoundly Christian tradition of the region, a project for an ever more united Europe developed.

Thanks to the untiring labor of so many anonymous builders of peace and brotherhood, among which are certainly to be included the creators of our scouting movement, Europe has not ceased searching for its Christian identity, aware of its responsibility to transmit it also to the next generation.

Thanks also to the historic contribution of one particularly charismatic church leader of these last decades of the XX century – St. John Paul II – the Iron Curtain began to crumble some 25 years ago. Thus began a new stage of European integration in the exchange of spiritual gifts and social solidarity between the various components of the continent.

Today we have come together from the East and the West, meeting as friends, as brother scouts, as Christians. Through this great encounter we wish to express that every scout, while loyal to his country is fraternally united with Europe and, conscious of his Christian heritage, is proud of his faith. He works to build up the Kingdom of Christ in all his life and in the world that surrounds him. In the realization of this desire of ours the apostles can serve as examples: men who did not content themselves with a mediocre life, who had the courage to make important choices and commitments, dedicating themselves to the following of Jesus.

There first meeting with him, recalled in the Gospel of today, brought them to a decision: the decision to remain with Jesus. They did this no longer on the testimony of John the Baptist, but because they had had a personal experience of encounter.

Likewise us, in our Christian formation have perhaps had many “precursors”, on the model of John the Baptist: our parents, our leaders and assistants – so many have pointed out to us with personal conviction Jesus as the model to follow. They have echoed the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. But today we must have also a personal experience of our own. Our path and my path both meet with that of Jesus. He turns and asks me: What are you seeking? Do not wander about in vain: come and follow me.

It was not we who found him. He has let himself be found. Indeed, he insists that he is not only ready to receive us in his house, but He seeks us out and wishes to enter into the intimacy of our houses, of our hearts: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

            The album of photos that we will take during this Eurojam will be for each of us a precious souvenir of an adventure lived together in joy and fraternity. We will show them at school and at home; maybe after years we will look at them again to recall the faces of our friends. The memories of these adventures, contests, and discoveries will serve to inspire our growth for years to come.

            But all of this would be very little indeed if in that album there were not a central page entitled – “my meeting with Christ during the Eurojam”. For indeed, recognizing him, deepening our acquaintance with him, finding him by following his footsteps and the road markers that he has posted – these things constitute for us the mot beautiful and  important game, a priceless treasure hunt, the discovery of the pearl hidden in the field.

            The apostles, disciples, holy men and women of every age, all those, who have truly welcomed Christ into their lives, send us today and invitation: “Come you, too, and see that it is worth it to follow Christ, to bind your destiny to his.” We have done it; we found in Jesus a person whom we could trust. We found a person who had trusted us first, inviting us into his house. This invitation is, moreover, an invitation to that house which he is even now preparing for us in Heaven, the key not only to a sensible and beautiful life on earth but especially to a life together with him for all eternity.