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THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, 7 MAY 2000
ECUMENICAL COMMEMORATION OF WITNESSES TO THE FAITH PREPARATION
While the Holy Father, the Representatives of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities and the ministers enter the Colosseum for the "statio", the choir sings:
(Entrance song) Liturgical Greeting and Doxology The Holy Father:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. A Representative of the Greek Orthodox Church:
Blessed be the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now
and for ever and for all ages. (In Greek) A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities:
Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you
created all things, and by your will they existed and were created (Rev 4:11) A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities:
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and
might and honour and glory and blessing (Rev 5:12) A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities:
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and
by your blood you ransomed for God men of every tribe and tongue and people and
nation, and you made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign
on earth (Rev 5:9-10) A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities:
To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory
and might for ever and ever (Rev 5:13). Procession
The Latin Deacon signals the beginning of the procession towards the outside
of the Colosseum:
The assembly:
HYMN TO CHRIST, THE LORD OF THE MILLENNIA Introduction and Prayer When the procession reaches the place of the celebration the Holy Father says: Introduction Dear Brothers and Sisters: in this Jubilee year, the joy-filled memorial of Christ's coming into the world, in the Easter light of his Resurrection, we, as Christians, join in remembering before God and before the world the witnesses to the faith in the twentieth century. We celebrate this memorial here, at the Colosseum, and close to other places where so many of our brothers and sisters in the first centuries of the Church made their "noble profession" by the shedding of their blood which then became the seed of Christians. The twentieth century too saw the witness of many Christians who professed their faith amid persecutions, in prison, even to shedding their blood for their fidelity to Jesus and to his holy Church. Confirmed in faith and strengthened in hope y the example of so many followers of the Lamb who was slain, may all Christians be a sign of love and be recognized in this way as disciples of Jesus Christ. All pray silently. The Holy Father then says the following... Prayer
Let us pray.
II. READINGS The faith of the baptized tried by fire From the first letter of Saint Peter 1:3-9, 13-21
The wedding feast of the Lamb Second Reading
Surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses
The choir: The assembly repeats: Alleluia
The choir: Jn 12:24-25
He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world The assembly: Alleluia Gospel
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven The text is proclaimed in a Western and an Eastern language. At the conclusion of the Gospel, the assembly acclaims the Risen Christ in the words of the ancient evening hymn Phos hilaron, sung in Greek (or Slavonic).
The Holy Father gives the homily. III. CONFESSION OF FAITH, TESTIMONIES AND PRAYER The Sign of Peace UBI CARITAS
The choir: The assembly repeats: Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.
The Orthodox Deacon (in Greek):
The Latin Deacon:
And all exchange a sign of peace as a sign of fraternal communion.
The choir: The Holy Father: As we give thanks to God for the witnesses to Christ in the twentieth century, let us proclaim our faith: the faith of the Apostles and the martyrs, the faith of the undivided Church. For this faith our brothers and sisters suffered and gave their lives; often they set out for death professing in their hearts and on their lips their fidelity to the Gospel. (The profession of the Apostles' Creed follows.) The cantor: R/. Credimus, Domine. Amen. The assembly repeats: Credimus, Domine. Amen.
A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities: R/. Credimus, Domine. Amen.
A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities: R/. Credimus, Domine. Amen.
A Representative of the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities:
R/. Credimus, Domine. Amen. Testimonies e Commemoration The Holy Father:
Dear Brothers and Sisters: 1. Christians who bore witness to their faith under Soviet totalitarianism Testimonies His Holiness Tichon, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church His Holiness Tichon was born in 1865, became a monk in 1891 and a bishop in 1897. In November 1917 he was chosen by the local Council to lead the Russian Orthodox Church. He spent his life defending the faith and the Church during the period in which the Soviet regime first came to power, enduring attacks, defamation and pressures of every kind. He died on 7 April 1925. His funeral was Moscow's last mass display of religion in the 1920s. In an open letter dated 12 February 1918 and addressed to Nikolaj Troizkij, priest of the Eparchy of Tomsk, the Patriarch wrote:
********** Ol'ga Jafa, witness of the Solovki Islands Ol'ga Jafa, Russian teacher and painter, was born in 1876. She was exiled to the Solovki Islands from August 1929 to January 1931. At the time of her liberation she managed to salvage a series of documents concerning the history of the camp. She died in 1959. The manuscript of her memoirs, preserved in the city library of Saint Petersburg, is entitled The Island of Good Wishes. There we read:
"United in their labours, a young Catholic bishop and an Orthodox bishop
worked together. The latter was an old man, emaciated and gaunt, with a gray
beard, ancient of days but strong in spirit, who briskly carried his load . . .
Who among us will some day have the good fortune of returning to the world and
testifying to what we have seen here? And what we have seen is the rebirth of
the pure and authentic faith of the first Christians, the union of the Churches
in the person of the Catholic and Orthodox bishops who together shared in the
same undertaking, a union in love and in humility" Prayer
Remember, most merciful Father, all those who bore witness to their faith in
prisons, concentration camps and gulags. They are an immense and nameless
multitude which no one can count: Metropolitans and Bishops, priests and
deacons, monks and nuns, pastors and laypersons, men and women with unshakable
faith in the Resurrection of Christ. They experienced the Beatitude of the
persecuted and they found strength in your consolation.
Testimonies Joan Suciu, Romanian Greek Catholic Bishop Bishop Joan Suciu was born on 3 December 1907. A Romanian Greek Catholic, he was ordained a priest on 29 November 1931. He was particularly involved in youth ministry. On 20 July 1940 he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Oradea Mare and then, in 1946, Apostolic Administrator of the See of Blaj. Bishop Suciu gave a series of talks in the principal cities of the country, on which occasions he clearly stated that it was not possible to reconcile Christianity and atheistic materialism. In 1947 several priests who were among the Bishop's closest collaborators were arrested. On 24 May 1950 he himself was taken to the prison of Sighet where he suffered hunger, cold and sickness, together with numerous tortures. On 27 May 1953 Bishop Joan Suciu died in prison. In 1948 he had been the originator of a joint letter of the Romanian Greek Catholic Bishops, in which he affirmed:
"Good Friday has arrived for the Church. It is time, beloved faithful
people, to show whether we are with Christ or whether we are traitors like Judas
. . . Do not be deceived by vain words, by political parties, by promises, by
lies; remain strong, resolute, firm in the faith for which your parents and
forebears shed their blood . . . We have no desire to sell out Jesus or the
Church . . . If they take your churches, pray to the Lord, like the first
Christians did when the pagan emperors destroyed their places of prayer and
burnt the holy books" ********** Father Anton Luli, Albanian Jesuit Father Anton Luli, a Jesuit, was born in Albania in 1910. He was rector of the Jesuit College and Seminary in Shkodrë. During the Communist regime, he was imprisoned for seventeen years, followed by eleven years of forced labour, and he was prevented from exercising his priestly ministry. Released in 1989, he immediately began to administer the sacraments, despite the fact that religious freedom had not yet been restored. He died in Rome on 9 March 1998.
At the Special Assembly for Europe of the Synod of Bishops, which began on 28
November 1991, he gave this testimony: Prayer
Remember, O God and lover of life, all our brothers and sisters, Orthodox,
Catholic and Protestant, who in many European nations under Communism patiently,
even heroically, endured persecution, imprisonment, torture, abuse and death for
the sake of the Gospel and because of their fidelity to their Church, often
praying for their persecutors. They have experienced the Beatitude of the poor
and they have been found worthy of your Kingdom.
Choral Interlude (Easter liturgical chant from the Slavic tradition) 3. Confessors of the faith who were victims of Nazism and Fascism Testimonies Father Leonhard Steinwender on Lutheran Pastor Paul Schneider Paul Schneider, a Lutheran pastor, was born in 1897 and became a member of the circle of pastors founded by Pastor Martin Niemoller. He was deported to Buchenwald in 1937 because of his opposition to Nazism. In the concentration camp he was the object of maltreatment and torture because he refused to pay homage to Hitler's swastika. In April 1938, he was put in solitary confinement in the camp's bunker, and it was here he spent the last fourteen months of his life. From the bunker, however, he did not cease to preach, to denounce crimes and to offer comfort to his fellow prisoners. He died on 18 July 1939, as a result of torture and medical experimentation. From his cell, Pastor Schneider proclaimed the Word of God in the camp, as Leonhard Steinwender, an Austrian Catholic priest also interned in Buchenwald, relates:
"In front of the single-storeyed building of the camp there stretched the
immense parade-ground... On feast-days, in the silence of the roll-call,
suddenly from behind the barred dinginess of the camp, there echoed the powerful
voice of Pastor Schneider. He would preach like a prophet, or rather, he would
try to preach. On Easter Sunday, for instance, we heard to our surprise the
powerful words: 'Thus says the Lord: I am the Resurrection and the Life!' The
long lines of prisoners stood at attention, deeply moved by the courage and
energy of that indomitable will... He could never utter more than a few phrases.
Then we would hear raining down on him the blows of guards' truncheons" *********** Ignacy Jez, Bishop Emeritus of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg. Bishop Ignacy Jez was one of the many Polish priests interned in concentration camps. He was ordained a priest on 20 June 1937. In the fifth year of his priesthood he was brought to the camp at Dachau as No. 37196. He left the following testimony:
"The concentration camps were death camps. They were rightly called
Vernichtungslager, 'extermination camps', by those familiar with people who
spent time there. To clarify matters, it was said that 'the only road to freedom
for such people leads through the crematorium'. The title of my recollections of the three years I spent in in the lager at Dachau was taken from the canticles of the Old Testament: 'Light and darkness, bless the Lord' (Dn 3,72). To me those years seemed a time of immense darkness. But alongside the darkness, one could also see the truth of Saint Paul's words in the Letter to the Romans: 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more' (Rm 5,20). The signs of this were quite numerous. Our spiritual strength increased thanks to the priests who were also also interned, at times too because of the positive attitude of the lay persons who recited prayers in common each evening in the dormitories after lights off, and at other times because of Holy Communion, received from Block 26, despite the fact that it was officially prohibited by the camp regulations". Prayer
Remember, God of the darkness of Good Friday, God of the great silence of Holy
Saturday and God also of the joyful dawn of the Resurrection, all those
Christians who were victims of Nazism - Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and
Orthodox, together with their brothers and sisters of other faiths. They endured
the burden of forced labour, violations of their human dignity, hunger and
thirst, the obliteration of their memory and finally death in the gas chambers
and the ovens. They bore witness to the Beatitude and the power of Gospel
meekness. They did not succumb to the power of darkness; resisting evil, they
proclaimed the power of the God of life. 4. Followers of Christ who gave their lives for the proclamation of the Gospel in Asia and Oceania Testimonies Margherita Chou
Margherita Chou, a Chinese Catholic, was arrested at the age of 22 and spent
the years from 1958 to 1979 either in prison or in labour camps. She writes of
her experience:
"In the prison factory we worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.
The drums would wake us up at four every morning. Before long, due to extreme
fatigue, I lost my appetite. At night, I just collapsed on my bed without even
washing my face. The routine kept on for one year. ********** Bishop Philip Strong, Anglican Bishop of Papua New Guinea On 2 September 1942 Philip Strong, the Anglican Bishop of Papua New Guinea, was interned in a concentration camp together with his co-workers, eight ministers and two lay people. He refused to leave the country, despite the fact that the advance of the war had placed the lives of European missionaries at risk. Shortly before his arrest he wrote to his clergy:
"We must endeavour to carry on our work. God expects this of us. The church
at home, which sent us out, will surely expect it of us. The universal church
expects it of us. The people whom we serve expect it of us. We could never hold
up our faces again if, for our own safety, we all forsook Him and fled, when the
shadows of the Passion began to gather around Him in his spiritual and mystical
Body, the church in Papua".
(Source: The Book of Common Prayer of the U. S. Episcopal Church, Current (1979)
Edition, Lectionary, September 2; Celebrating the Saints Daily: Spiritual
Readings for the Calendar of the Church of England, Canterbury Press, Norwich,
1988. Calendar, September 2). Prayer
Remember, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, all those who not only believed but
also gave their lives for the Gospel which they preached in Asia and Oceania:
pastors and faithful, religious men and women, catechists and laity, mothers and
fathers, often united in their sufferings by a new bond of communion and
fraternity, and a readiness to give their lives for one another. They have shown
the power and the beauty of the Beatitude of the peacemakers and they shall be
called children of God.
Choral Interlude (chant from the Asian tradition) 5. Christian faithful persecuted out of hatred for the Catholic faith Testimony Manuel Irujo, Minister of Justice in the Spanish Republican Government
A Catholic, the Justice Minister Irujo tendered his resignation on 11
December 1937 after having failed to re-establish freedom of worship, but he
continued to be a member of the Government. At the end of 1937 he was given the
task of negotiating with some representatives of the Church, especially Cardinal
Vidal y Barraquer, Archbishop of Tarragona.
"Priests and religious have been arrested, thrown into prison, and shot in
their thousands without any form of trial, and these incidents, although fewer
in number, are still occurring. Not only in country villages where they are
hunted down and killed in savage fashion, but also in towns and cities. ...
Hundreds have been arrested and held in prison for no known crime other than
that they are priests or religious. ... The police, who are carrying out
house-to-house searches, making inquiries in homes, investigating the lives of
individuals and families, destroy with scorn and violence religious pictures,
printed materials, books, and anything connected with worship or which is a
reminder of it"
Bishop José de Jesus Manriquez y Zarate, Catholic Bishop of Huejutla Born in 1884, he studied at the Pio Latin-American College in Rome. He was Bishop of Huejutla (Hidalgo State) from 1922 to 1939. He was the most intransigent opponent of the anti-religious policy of President Calles. In May 1926, a few months before the outbreak of the Cristeros civil war, he was arrested and placed under house-arrest because of his criticism of the anti-clerical Constitution which came into effect in 1917. Later he was forced into exile with all the other Mexican Bishops. The Government imposed this exile as a condition for the pacification of the country, which was arrived at in June 1929. The Bishop returned to the country, but was exiled again in 1932. He died in 1951. On 30 October 1927, in Laredo, Texas, on the Feast of Christ the King, he had this to say:
And how has Mexico responded to all these wrongs? By proclaiming before the
world the kingship of Christ; by praising and blessing Christ and kneeling
before the Holy One of the Lord, to ask mercy and forgiveness. Mexico has had
the very high honour of proclaiming Christ the King on the battlefields in the
heart of the twentieth century, and, before the admiring gaze of other nations,
she has vigorously defended her faith, not only with prayers, not only with
reparation, but by pouring out her generous blood in torrents."
Remember, Father of holiness and fidelity, the immense assembly of all your sons
and daughters who suffered persecution in some nations, even traditionally
Catholic nations. They did not renounce the faith of their Baptism and in
various ways proclaimed the name of Christ the King and Saviour. They
experienced the Beatitude of those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake
and they remained faithful to the end. 6. Witnesses of evangelization in Africa and Madagascar Testimonies Jolique Rusimbamigera, a seminarian from Burundi
********** W.G.R. Jotcham, a young Baptist medical missionary from Canada, who died in Nigeria W. G. R. Jotcham, a young Baptist medical missionary from Canada, was born in 1915. Immediately after graduation he joined other missionaries working in the leprosarium in Katsina, in a Moslem area of Nigeria. In 1938, a meningitis epidemic struck the leprosarium and the nearby villages. Dr Jotcham worked tirelessly in the effort to assist the badly stricken population. He died at the age of 23, himself a victim of the epidemic. His first months of service were for him a great discovery of God's love, which he himself defined as a power capable of "reawakening the buried hopes of old people without love, of the blind, the crippled and those who have no voice".
Remember, Father of heaven and earth, all those Christians - Catholic, Orthodox,
Anglican and Protestant - who proclaimed the Gospel of truth and life in the
bountiful lands home to the ancient and yet young Churches in Africa and
Madagascar. With great effort they sowed the Word of life, watering it with
their blood; at every moment of the great work of evangelization, their lives
were images of that Word. They were witnesses of the Beatitude of the merciful;
they prayed and offered their lives for their friends and their persecutors.
Choral Interlude (chant from the African tradition) 7. Christians who gave their lives for love of Christ and their brothers and sisters in America Testimonies
Bishop Labaka was born in Spain on 19 April 1920 in the small Basque village of Beizama. He became a Capuchin friar and had a strong sense of his missionary vocation, which was later reinforced when he took part in the Second Vatican Council. This vocation led him first to China and then to Ecuador. Here he was Parish Priest of Pifo, Guardian of the Capuchins in Ecuador, and then Prefect and Vicar Apostolic of the Mission of Aguarico. He spent all his energies on behalf of the Amazonian people, the Huaorani, also known as the Acuas, internally divided among themselves into various sub-groups often at odds with one another and threatened with extinction. He gave his life for them. On 22 July 1987, together with Sister Inés Arango, also a Capuchin missionary, he was killed by the spears of the people to whom he had sought to proclaim the Gospel. While in Rome for the Council in 1965, he wrote to Pope Paul VI:
"I felt very strongly within me the command to preach to all peoples and
especially to these 'Acuas'. An effort to approach them began, but - and this is
my question - to what point can I put at risk the life of missionaries, of lay
people, and my own life 'propter evangelium'?... Most Holy Father: if in God's
plans it is necessary to sacrifice some lives in order to bring Christ to these
tribes, then please offer us up, together with the Divine Victim, in your Holy
Mass, so that we may be worthy of this grace and that we may obtain a special
blessing for all the missionaries and for all who have been entrusted to
us" ********** The Most Reverend Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve, Catholic Bishop of Strumniza (Colombia)
"Where will we find a more perfect gift, to be taught the bitter experience
of dying, if not in Jesus Christ?... It is my desire that death be the ultimate
moment of my incorporation into Christ, a sharing in his pain and an expiation
of my own sins and the sins of others. It is my desire, with all my frail
nature, to divinize my suffering and my fear, uniting myself to the terror of
the suffering Christ. Above all I confirm my faith in the Resurrection of
Christ".
Remember, Father of the poor and the outcast, all those who bore witness to the
truth and the charity of the Gospel in America, even to the sacrifice of their
own lives: zealous pastors, generous priests, courageous catechists, men and
women religious faithful to their consecration, laity committed to the service
of peace and justice, witnesses of fraternity without limits. They showed the
grandeur of the Beatitude of those who hunger and thirst for God's
righteousness.
May they find peace in the vision of your countenance and be for us witnesses of
hope. 8. Witnesses to the faith in different parts of the world Testimonies Dom Christian de Chergé, Prior of the Monastery of Notre Dame de l'Atlas (Tibherin, Algeria) The Trappists of the Monastery of Notre Dame de l'Atlas in Tibherin (Algeria) had devoted their lives to dialogue with Islam and had chosen to remain in their monastery, even though it was located in the mountainous region of Medea, a high-risk area. Dom Christian de Chergé had written: "Our state as monks [ruhban] binds us to the choice which God has made of us, which is for prayer and for a life of simplicity, manual labour, hospitality and sharing with all, especially the poor...". Seized by armed terrorists on the night between 26 and 27 March 1996, they were killed on 21 May 1996. In his spiritual testament, Dom Christian de Chergé had written:
"When the time comes, I would like to be able to have that moment of
lucidity which would permit me to ask forgiveness of God and of my brothers in
humanity, forgiving whole-heartedly, at the same time, whoever strikes me. I do
not see in fact how I could rejoice in the fact that this people whom I love
should be accused of my murder. It would be too high a price a pay, to owe what
might be called "the grace of martyrdom to an Algerian, whoever he may be,
above all if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam
[...].
And may it be granted us to meet anew, joy-filled thieves, in heaven, if it
pleases God, our Father, the Father of us both. Amen".
********** H.H. Karekin I, Supreme Catholicos of All Armenians
H.H. Karekin was born on 27 August 1932 in Kesab, Syria. After completing his
studies in Antelias, Lebanon and at Oxford, he was an Observer at the Second
Vatican Council and in 1963 was consecrated Bishop. He was the Catholicos of
Cilicia and on 4 April 1995 was elected at Etchmiadzin Catholicos of All
Armenians. On 23-26 March 1999 he made his last visit to Rome, meeting His
Holiness Pope John Paul II. He died, after a long illness, on 29 June 1999.
"Allow me to illustrate this basic truth by the experience of my own
Armenian people that I know best. Many historiographers have described Armenian
history as martyrology. Yes! Suffering, persecutions, destruction, massacres,
deportation or forced emigration, genocide, - and what else! - appear on almost
every page of our centuries-old annals. The survival of the Armenian people
seems to have been a miracle... Our history tells us that we have lost much in
the past; but we have succeeded in not losing ourselves. We have committed many
errors in the past; but we have not committed the error of losing faith and
hope. That has been, to my understanding, the secret of our survival . Prayer
Remember, God of our fathers in faith, all your children who have borne witness
to the glory of Christ's Cross as they dwelt in the midst of more numerous and
powerful peoples, even to the sacrifice of their lives: our brothers and sisters
of the ancient Churches of the East - Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Ethiopians and
Eritreans, Maronites - and of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities. Meek and
silent witnesses to your Kingdom in the nations of the Middle and Far East, they
were victims of intolerance and religious intransigence. They revealed the
splendour of the Beatitude of the pure in heart.
Prayer
Remember, O Lord, all these men and women. In your infinite mercy welcome all
the just who have died in your peace as courageous witnesses to the faith. You
alone, Father of all, knew their virtue, their goodness of heart, their
sufferings and their total fidelity to their religious beliefs. The Lord's Prayer The Holy Father: With the prayer of the sons and daughters of God which Jesus has taught us and which the Spirit puts in our hearts and on our lips, let us call upon our merciful Father. Let us ask his forgiveness and let us offer forgiveness to all, so that the Father's name will be blessed on earth as it is in heaven
Pater noster... Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
The Holy Father:
Father, you willed that the glorious death of your Son, the Victim slain for our
sins, should be the source of our reconciliation and peace. Grant that your
Church, in commemorating the witnesses to the faith in the twentieth century may
shine before the world with the splendour of the Beatitudes. IV. BLESSING AND DISMISSAL Invitation to keep alive the memory of the witnesses to the faith The Holy Father:
At the conclusion of this celebration I thank all of you, and in particular the
Representatives of the Churches and Ecclesial Communities gathered here to
commemorate the witnesses to the faith of the twentieth century. I exhort all to
keep alive the memory of our brothers and sisters and to imitate their example.
From their hands may the younger generation especially receive the torch of
faith in order to bear witness throughout the world to the Risen Christ, the
faithful Witness,
Final Choral Hymn
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