Pope Francis sent a message prior to his visit to Cyprus and Greece.
In his message, he expressed his joy for his upcoming trip, emphasizing that, “Only a few days remain for, our meeting and I am preparing to come as a pilgrim to your wonderful lands, blessed by history, culture, and the Gospel! I come to you with joy, in the footsteps of the first great missionaries, especially the Apostles Paul and Barnabas. It is good to go back to the roots and it is important for the Church to rediscover the joy of the Gospel. I look forward to this pilgrimage, and I ask everyone to help me with your prayer to prepare properly.
When I meet you, I will quench my thirst with the sources of brotherhood, which are so valuable now that we have just embarked on a global “synodal journey”. There is also a meeting; I would call it “a synodal grace”, an apostolic fraternity that I wish with great respect: it is the visit to you, dear Chrysostomos and Ieronymos, Heads of the Orthodox Churches of Cyprus and Greece. As your brother, I will have the grace to receive you and to meet you in the name of the Lord of Peace. And I come to you, dear Catholic brothers and sisters, gathered in these countries in small communities small flocks, loved so tenderly by the Father and in which Jesus, the Good Shepherd, repeats “Do not be afraid, my little flock” (Lk 12,32). I come with affection to bring you the encouragement of the whole Catholic Church.
The upcoming visit will give me the opportunity to drink also from the ancient sources of Europe: Cyprus, the extension of the Holy Land in Europe, and Greece, the homeland of classical culture. But even today Europe cannot ignore the Mediterranean, the sea that became the place of the spread of the Gospel and the development of great civilizations. The mare nostrum, our sea that connects so many countries, urges us to sail together and not to separate following different paths, especially at a time when fighting the pandemic still requires a common commitment and the climate crisis is weighing on us all.
The sea, which unites many peoples, reminds us with its open ports that the sources of coexistence are in mutual acceptance. Even now I feel welcomed by your love and thank those who prepared my visit. But I also think of those who in recent years and even today are being driven away by war and poverty, landing on the shores of the continent or elsewhere, and finding no hospitality, but hostility, even exploitation. They are our brothers and sisters. How many have lost their lives at sea! Today “our sea”, the Mediterranean, is a large cemetery. As a pilgrim to the sources of humanity, I will go to Lesvos again, believing that the roots of a common life will flourish again only in brotherhood and integration: together. There is no other way and with this hope, I come to you.
Dear brothers and sisters, with these feelings I eagerly long to meet you all, everyone! Not just Catholics, but all of you! And to all of you, I invoke the blessing of the Lord, bringing once again before Him your faces and your expectations, your worries and your hopes.
Source: ANA-MPA
