Upcoming Events View All
2
Speaker: Social Media and Teen Mental Health

Tuesday, 04/02/2024 at 6:30 PM

5
6
From the Heart Rummage Sale

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

6
St. Mark Book Fair

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

7
Poet Laureates Alive: Smith, Harjo, and Limon with Noeli Lytton

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

7
Divine Mercy Sunday

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 2:00 PM

9
Eco-Series Film for April: River Blue

Tuesday, 04/09/2024 at 6:30 PM

10
Where Art Serves the World

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

10
Made for More Speaker Series

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

12
Quarter Auction

Friday, 04/12/2024 at 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Pope Francis sprinkled holy water as he celebrated Pentecost Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 9. In a world of conflict and division and a culture of insult, people need to live filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the only one capable of bringing harmony and unity to diversity, Pope Francis said at Mass. “Those who live by the Spirit … bring peace where there is discord, concord where there is conflict.”
Pope Francis sprinkled holy water as he celebrated Pentecost Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican June 9. In a world of conflict and division and a culture of insult, people need to live filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the only one capable of bringing harmony and unity to diversity, Pope Francis said at Mass. “Those who live by the Spirit … bring peace where there is discord, concord where there is conflict.”
Photo Credit: Yara Nardi, Reuters

POPE’S MESSAGE | Trip to Romania illustrates value and necessity of ‘journeying together’

At his audience June 5, Pope Francis discussed his trip to Romania May 31-June 2

Brothers and sisters, good morning!

Last weekend, I made an apostolic journey to Romania, at the invitation of the president and the prime minister. I renew my appreciation to them and I extend it to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities and to all those who cooperated to bring about this visit. Above all I give thanks to God who allowed the Successor of Peter to return to that country, 20 years after the visit of St. John Paul II.

In sum, as the motto of my journey announced, I encouraged “journeying together.” It was my joy to be able to do so not from afar or from above, but by walking, myself, among the Romanian people, as a pilgrim in their land.

The various events demonstrated the value and need of journeying together, both among Christians, at the level of faith and charity, and among citizens, at the level of civil commitment.

As Christians, we have the grace of living a season of fraternal relationships among the different Churches. In Romania, the majority of the faithful belong to the Orthodox Church, currently led by Patriarch Daniel, to whom go my fraternal and appreciative thoughts. The Catholic community, both ‘Greek’ and ‘Latin,’ is alive and active. The union among all Christians, while incomplete, is based on the one baptism and is sealed by blood and by the suffering endured together in the dark times of the persecution, particularly in the last century under the atheist regime. There is also another Lutheran community that likewise professes faith in Jesus Christ, and has good relationships with Orthodox and Catholics.

With the Patriarch and the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, we had a very cordial meeting in which I emphasized the willingness of the Catholic Church to journey together in reconciled remembrance and toward fuller unity, which the Romanian people themselves prophetically invoked during the visit of St. John Paul II. This important ecumenical dimension of the journey culminated in the solemn prayer of the ‘Our Father,’ in the new, imposing Orthodox Cathedral of Bucharest. This was a moment of deep symbolic value, because the ‘Our Father’ is the Christian prayer par excellence, the common patrimony of all the baptized. No one can say ‘my Father’ and ‘your Father,’ no: ‘Our Father,’ the common patrimony of all the baptized. We showed that unity does not take away legitimate diversity. May the Holy Spirit lead us to live ever increasingly as children of God, and brothers and sisters among ourselves.

As a Catholic community we celebrated three Eucharistic liturgies. The first in the Cathedral of Bucharest, on May 31, Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, icon of the Church on the journey of faith and in charity. The second Eucharist in the Shrine of Şumuleu Ciuc, the destination of countless pilgrims. There, the Blessed Mother of God gathers the faithful people in the variety of languages, cultures and traditions. And the third celebration was the Divine Liturgy in Blaj, the centre of the Greek-Catholic Church in Romania, with the beatification of seven martyred Greek-Catholic bishops, witnesses to the freedom and mercy that come from the Gospel. One of these new blesseds, Bishop Iuliu Hossu, wrote during imprisonment: “God has sent us into this darkness of suffering in order to offer forgiveness and to pray for the conversion of all.” Considering the horrendous torture to which they were subjected, these words are a testimony to mercy.

The meeting with young people and families, held in Iaşi — an ancient city and important cultural centre at the crossroads of East and West — was particularly intense and festive. It is a place that invites us to open new paths on which to journey together, in the richness of diversity, in a freedom that does not sever roots but draws from them in a creative way. This encounter too had a Marian character and concluded with the entrustment of the young people and families to the Holy Mother of God.

The last stop of the journey was my visit to the Rom community of Blaj. In that city the Rom people are very numerous, and for this reason I wished to greet them and renew the appeal against all forms of discrimination and for the respect of people of any ethnic group, language and religion.

Dear brothers and sisters, I thank God for this apostolic journey. Let us ask him, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, to bear abundant fruit for Romania and for the Church in those lands.

— Pope Francis

Recent Articles Module

Other Recent Pope's Message Articles View All

From the Archive Module

POPES MESSAGE Trip to Romania illustrates value and necessity of journeying together 4122

Must Watch Videos

Now Playing

    View More Videos