My great hope

When I first heard that Jorge Bergoglio had been declared Pope, I immediately looked him up on my Conclave Android app and my eyes were quickly drawn to the sentence which said that in Argentina he had been the Ordinary for Eastern-rite Catholics without an Ordinary of their own rite.

I was hopeful that, given this background, his pontificate would be particularly sensitive to the the Christian East. I have not been disappointed.

Even in these first few months that he has been Pope, both East and West have made gestures of friendship, building on the great work of their predecessors. Inspired by this, I started to consider what I could do.

As I was thinking about this, I remembered an article I had read over at Ramblings of a Byzantine Catholic where it said that the East and West remain divided “because our love has grown cold”. So, if that’s the case, what could I do to nurture and express love for our Orthodox brethren?

A family that prays together, gets back together

In the end, I decided that the best thing I could do would be to pray with my Eastern brothers and sisters. It was for this reason that a few months ago I visited St. George’s Serbian Orthodox parish for evening prayer. Then, a few weeks ago I attended Vespers at the St. Anthony Antiochian Orthodox parish.

When I was at St. Anthony’s, I was struck by the words of one of the prayers we prayed:

“This is the day of Resurrection
Let us be illuminated by the feast
Let us embrace each other!
Let us call “Brothers” even those that hate us
and forgive all by the Resurrection, and so let us cry:

‘Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life!'”

Could East and West be reunited? Could we each forgive past hurts? Could the Church once again breath with both lungs? Could we be one family again? The answer given by this prayer is clear: by the power of Christ’s Resurrection, all things are possible.

The article My Great Hope first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net