“Să Mergem Împreună”: everywhere you looked in Romania—on TV and on billboards, churches and other buildings—you saw the image of a smiling Pope Francis together with these words. Translated, they literally say, “let us go together,” although the English language might favor an expression such as “let us walk together” as more precise and expressive. For Americans, “going together” implies a romantic relationship, and I don’t think romance is what Pope Francis had in mind!
But relationship most certainly is what he had in mind. The Holy Father has stressed relationship—with God, with nature, with one another—in so many ways and in so much of his preaching and writing that I thought it might be useful to me, in recalling my recent pilgrimage to Blaj, to reflect on the relationship each of us has with our parish, our Eparchy, with the rest of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, with the Universal Church, and, indeed, with Christ Himself.
The visit of Pope Francis to Romania was principally an event of, by, and for the Church. For many of us, sadly, our experience of church begins and ends with the Sunday liturgy and our attendance at it in a particular parish. Though the liturgy itself, in its beauty and in its spiritual depth and sacramental reality, can be as profound an experience of transcendence as any we are likely to have in this life, if our experience of church is limited to “going to church,” we are missing out on what it means to be Church.
When we are close to God, we become closer to one another. Spiritually speaking, we are never closer to one another than when we are gathered at the altar, celebrating the Divine Liturgy and partaking of the one bread and the one cup that is the Holy Eucharist. Participating sacramentally in the Body and Blood of Christ makes us one body with Christ, uniting us with one another in the bond of love brought about by the very sacrifice by which Christ reconciles the world to the Father: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17 NABre; see also Romans 12:5, Ephesians 4:4).
This is the relationship that is referred to by the word “communion”: an intimate sharing in the life of God and in one another’s lives. It does not stop when services are over, nor does it exist only within the walls of the parish church. It goes far beyond that: the Church exists to establish, extend, and serve the relationship of communion among all human beings and between humanity and God.
Extending far beyond the individual celebrations of the Divine Liturgy that occur in our parish churches, there is in reality only one Sacrifice, and each local celebration of the Eucharist is a participation in it. When we are gathered for this celebration in our parish, we are present together with Christ, as well as with all believers in all times and in all places. The relationship of communion transcends time and space.
But we humans, while we are alive in this world, must live in time and space. The transcendence of the Eucharist is something we experience now only mystically (that is, sacramentally), and so the Church, too, lives in time and space as well as in eternity. Thus, like anything else human, the Church has a structure. This structure is both similar to and different from other forms of human organization, so it has to be understood on its own terms. To understand the Church means to respect its similarities and differences with respect to the structures of “this world,” such as business, political, economic, or social structures.
In the first place, the Church is both local and universal, or “catholic.” The word “catholic” comes from Greek words that mean “with respect to the whole.” For Catholics, it is the Pope, the Bishop of Rome who, as the successor of the Apostle Peter, is the person whose task it is to serve the unity—the communion, in other words—of the universal church. But he does not do so “from the top down,” as a completely human organization might do, but as Peter, an apostle and companion: Jesus prays for Peter’s faith so that, after his threefold denial of Jesus, Peter may go back to strengthen his brothers’ (i.e., the apostles’) faith in their own trials and temptations: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32, NABre).
The Pope is a pastor, a shepherd. The shepherd does not own the flock but walks with it and cares for it as a servant of the flock’s owner and in the owner’s name. The flock shepherded by the Pope, which is to say the Catholic Church, belongs to Christ, and so Pope Francis went to Romania not to claim ownership of the flock and demand payment, as a business executive might, nor to demand obedience and create the kind of order inspired by violence and fear as might a king. No, rather it is the job of the shepherd to walk with the owner’s flock, to protect and guide it, and to give the flock the comfort of knowing that they are not alone as they journey. Such was the visit of Pope Francis to Romania.
I noted that the Church is both local and universal. Pope Francis does not shepherd all of Christ’s flock by himself, but together with the other successors of the apostles, namely the bishops, who share in the ministry of unity and communion at the local level. Each bishop is given a share of Christ’s flock to care for in solidarity and communion with the other shepherds and with Peter. Our Romanian Greek-Catholic Church is shepherded by the bishops who, along with our leader, Archbishop Lucian, make up our Church’s Synod, a word that means “on the path together.” It is the synod that is the leadership structure of our Church. Under Pope Francis’ leadership, the synod is also being rediscovered as the unique structure it is for the universal church as well.
It was our full Synod that gathered around the altar on the stage set up in the Câmpia Libertății (Liberty Field in Blaj) for the celebration of the Eucharist presided over by the Holy Father. From his throne, the Pope’s liturgical task was to preside, to say over and over, pax vobis, “peace be with you,” and to bless the assembled multitude again and again in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. His blessing extends to all of you, God’s people, through us bishops who are his co-pastors, and through our own co-pastors, the priests who serve your parishes by serving the celebration of the Eucharist that makes us all one.
By means of his visit to Romania, Pope Francis protected the flock of his Master by meeting with President Klaus Iohannis and the civil government of that country. He tended to wounds in the Master’s body (though without being able to heal them) by visiting with the leaders and shepherds of the majority Orthodox Church of Romania. He strengthened the minorities, both ethnic and religious, that make up the minority Catholic Church, by celebrating the Eucharist and praying together with them, from the Archdiocese of Bucharest and the Diocese of Iasi, to the famous Szekler shrine of Mary at Șumuleu Ciuc (Csiksomlyó), to the new, tiny parish church in the Roma neighborhood of Barbu Lăutaru in Blaj.
But there is one way in which Peter strengthened his brothers that, in my opinion at least, mattered the most during this visit. From a throne made literally from the bars of communist prisons, Pope Francis proclaimed as “blessed” (happy) seven of our bishops who have now been formally recognized as martyrs—witnesses—of the Church. By beatifying our martyr bishops, the Church proclaims their faith and their loyalty to the successor of Peter. Our new Blesseds have now become a source of hope, an inspiration to martyrdom, and a light upon the path not only for their fellow Romanian Greek-Catholics, but for the whole Church and, indeed, for all the world.
From their various places of their confinement around Romania, these martyrs showed that they were not, in fact, held in bondage by torture, walls, bars, and chains. They could have been freed at any time by giving in to the demands of their captors and renouncing their loyalty to Peter. But they were pilgrims, not prisoners. It was their dedication to freedom and mercy, as well as love for the Church and for their people, that held them fast and kept them in dark places where their light would shine the brightest. They followed the One whose most awesome title is “Good Shepherd.” Their martyrdom made them, as it were, a “synod of conscience” and of blood. Though locked in isolation behind doors, they traveled together, on one and the same path with Peter, as members of the one Body of Christ.
By God’s grace may we never fail to do the same.