Papal Mass in Beirut: a call to communion and witness
A sea of white baseball caps and a backdrop of Lebanon’s snow covered cedars for the altar – an image that reminds one how the Lebanese love to say they can go for a day skiing in the mountains and then take a swim along the shore of this Mediterranean nation.
Sunday’s Mass overlooking that sea was one of communion and witness - the Catholic Churches of East and West represented by their Patriarchs and bishops celebrating with the Pope of Rome this historic day when he delivered to them the document they’ve all been waiting for: the Apostolic Exhortation concluding the 2010 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East.
“Communion and Witness” in fact, was the theme of that synod, and here at Sunday’s mass, we saw the Latin rite interspersed with chants and prayers of the eastern and Byzantine churches. In fact, the more than 350,000 people here came from all of the region’s seven Catholic rites and Orthodox and Protestants participated too in fraternal ecumenical communion.
The lecturn of the Mass a simple but poignant symbol of peace: the Bible cradled amid the gnarled branches of a centuries-old olive tree recalling the millennia that Christians have lived in these lands.
Sunday’s Gospel plunged us back into Jesus’s time, finding him on his way to Jerusalem where he would be crucified and then resurrected in a Holy Land of which Lebanon is a part. Pope Benedict called this moment a “turning point” in Jesus’ life. Perhaps this region, with its grand hopes of freedom and human rights but ripped apart by conflict, is also finding itself at a turning point.
And Pope Benedict showed Christians here the way to go, encouraging them to prepare for the Year of Faith beginning in October and being true servants to the needy and their neighbor. He said Christians have a vocation to serve others “freely and impartially.”
“Consequently", he said, "in a world where violence constantly leaves behind its grim trail of death and destruction, to serve justice and peace is urgently necessary for building a fraternal society.”
He said Christians can render an essential testimony here in cooperation with all people of good will and by being peacemakers wherever they may be. And he challenged clergy and lay people to put the Apostolic Exhortation - a roadmap to their future - into practice in their lives, to rediscover life’s spiritual dimension and to work for greater communion within their Church, among fellow Christians and all others.
At the Angelus prayer, Pope Benedict launched a dramatic appeal for peace in Syria and neighboring countries where the “tragedy of the conflicts and violence” are all too familiar. “Why so many dead?” he asked. “Violence and hatred invade people’s lives,” he said, lamenting that “the first victims are women and children.” He appealed to the international community and to Arab countries, “that, as brothers, they might propose workable solutions respecting the dignity, the rights and the religion of every human person! Those who wish to build peace,” he said, “ must cease to see in the other an evil to be eliminated.”
Invoking the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of Lebanon whom both Christians and Muslims revere, the Pope prayed for “the gift of peaceful hearts, the silencing of weapons” and an end to all violence in this country, in Syria and all the Middle East. “May men understand,” he said “that they are all brothers!”
On the final day of his Apostolic visit to Lebanon, Benedict XVI delivered his customary Sunday Angelus address at Beirut's City Centre Waterfront.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Let us now turn to Mary, Our Lady of Lebanon, around whom both Christians and Muslims gather. Let us ask her to intercede with her divine Son for you and, more particularly, for the people of Syria and the neighbouring countries, imploring the gift of peace. You know all too well the tragedy of the conflicts and the violence which generates so much suffering. Sadly, the din of weapons continues to make itself heard, along with the cry of the widow and the orphan. Violence and hatred invade people’s lives, and the first victims are women and children. Why so much horror? Why so many dead? I appeal to the international community! I appeal to the Arab countries that, as brothers, they might propose workable solutions respecting the dignity, the rights and the religion of every human person! Those who wish to build peace must cease to see in the other an evil to be eliminated. It is not easy to see in the other a person to be respected and loved, and yet this is necessary if peace is to be built, if fraternity is desired (cf. 1 Jn 2:10-11; 1 Pet 3:8-12). May God grant to your country, to Syria and to the Middle East the gift of peaceful hearts, the silencing of weapons and the cessation of all violence! May men understand that they are all brothers! Mary, our Mother, understands our concern and our needs. Together with the Patriarchs and Bishops present, I place the Middle East under her maternal protection (cf. Propositio 44). May we, with God’s help, be converted so as to work ardently to establish the peace that is necessary for harmonious coexistence among brothers, whatever their origins and religious convictions.
