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by Dr. Franjo Komarica Original title: U OBRANI OBESPRAVLJENIH Documents selected
by: Ivica Bozinovic M.A. Christmas message from the bishops of the Vrhbosna Metropoly THE DISPLACED AND HUMILIATED AWAIT THE DAYS OF TOTAL FREEDOM Brother priests, nuns, all the clergy and our dear faithful, all who have been displaced either within our dioceses or out of them: God’s blessing and peace be with you! Walking through the period of Advent we have come to our dear feast day of Christmas. This year, as it was last year, we celebrate Christmas in hardship and an air of war. We are reliving the fate of the exiled Holy Family, experiencing their pain because we too have been stripped of our right to stay in our homes and homeland just as the Holy Family did not find any room in Bethlehem in which to stay with the new born King, the Son of God. He came to his own, yet they did not take him in, even though he became a man so that man in his dignity could recognise him and live with the gift of God. This ever so important event - God’s son becoming one of us, one for all - is what we as believers wish to celebrate once again this year. We do not want our souls to break down but with the help of the great gift of God, the small weak Little God to whom we bow, we wish to rise from our pain and helplessness and from our heavy reality so that we can carry the belief that God is near us and that he is like us. We know that it is difficult to speak words of comfort while so many people are suffering, while we continue to witness so much bloodshed, so many bitter tears. But while we are celebrating the coming of the Saviour of the entire human race, during this joyous occasion of Christmas, we do not feel abandoned but rather as if God himself were with us. He encourages us, strengthens us and comforts us. This is why we too comfort you with our words in the confidence and security of our belief in the embodied God. We therefore invite you, now while we are celebrating Christmas, to relive God once again now while we are suffering, through our poverty and through our wounds to our body and soul. While in the mystery of Christmas we see the Holy Family fleeing the hand of evil, we feel God’s closeness for he too lived a similar life of exile and suffering. In the Bible we read that Herod predicted a horrific end but the Holy Family escaped his bloody hand to a foreign land, once again returning to their home. As part of God’s large family, His Church, we know from her long history that all the persecutor’s of God’s family sooner or later came to their downfall and end, while the innocent, humiliated exiled family lived to see freedom and just peace. We inspire and encourage all our priests who had to leave their parishes together with their faithful, and are now seeing their faithful being strewn across the globe in exile, to find a source of comfort in the Christmas mystery and to try and maintain some sense of unity amongst the faithful entrusted to them either in writing or by personally visiting them. We fervently pray to God that the calamities end as soon as possible and that everyone be enabled to reinstate their own right - to return to their hearths. The international community has proclaimed 1994 as the Year of the Family using the example of the Holy Family and the Church. We invite all our dear colleagues together that we may help the many families who have lost touch with their loved ones to once again find them which is more than important for the lives and future of our entire community. Let us especially focus on those families who have experienced all the horror of losing their dear ones so that in the spirit of the embodied God they can find a source of love, peace and fortune for their every day lives. While this war is destroying everything in its path, even our Christian morale, we renew our Christian consciousness and responsibilities in life towards our Catholic principles no matter where or when that may be. We appeal to those in authority in the regions of our dioceses, or rather wherever our faithful may be to decisively carry out their responsibilities worthy of caring for each man so that he may realise his fundamental rights and liberties which were guaranteed to him by God himself in the embodiment and in God becoming a man himself. By showing our closeness as pastors, we especially wish to forward our greetings and blessings to you dear children who have not been allowed “a childhood of peace”. We wish this for you too, dear youth, inviting you to give thanks to the light of God and with its rays may you build a happier future. We forward our blessings and greetings to you dear parents, who are living this war in a similar way to the Holy Family caring and afraid for your children and to all those whose souls and bodies have been wounded, may this year’s Christmas be a comfort and remedy. We forward our blessings and greetings to you, brother priests, so that in spite of the pressures you are experiencing, you remain faithful to your priestly vocation; you too dear sisters and clergy and may you continue to live and be a picture of poverty and blessing just like the child of Christmas. May you all have a righteous Christmas! May the coming of this year’s new-born Jesus be a blessing to you in the New Year, the year of the family. God giving it will be a year of just peace and a happier future. With our greetings and wishes we call on God’s blessing upon you all! Bol, Advent 1993 Your bishops: Msg. VINKO PULJIC, Archbishop of Sarajevo,
Metropolitan Next: “THIS WAR IS AN ACCUSATION AGAINST MODERN CIVILISATION” |
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