In his homily for Monday, September 7, Mass at St. Martha’s House, concelebrated with the Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, Francis spoke again about the Armenian massacre which took place a century ago
There are numerous Christians still being persecuted with the complicit silence of many powers. Francis returned to the issue of Christian persecution in his homily at St. Martha’s House. Pope Francis concelebrated Mass with the new Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, Gregory Peter XX Ghabroyan, to whom he conceeded ecclesiastical communion last July. Today the two confirmed the Eucharistic communion between the Bishop and the Church of Rome, through the exchange of the Sacred Species. Vatican Radio reported on today’s mass.
Commenting on today’s Gospel reading - which describes the anger the Scribes and the Pharisees feel towards Jesus, who dared to perform a miracle on a Saturday and the discussion over how to kill him – Francis reiterated that now, “perhaps more than in the early days,[Christians] are persecuted, killed, driven out, despoiled, only because they are Christians”.
“Dear brothers and sisters, there is no Christianity without persecution. Remember the last of the Beatitudes: when they bring you into the synagogues, and persecute you, revile you, this is the fate of a Christian. Today too, this happens before the whole world, with the complicit silence of many powerful leaders who could stop it. We are facing this Christian fate: go on the same path of Jesus.”
Francis then recalled the persecution of the Armenian people at the start of the 20th century. “The first nation to convert to Christianity: the first. They were persecuted just for being Christians,” he said. “The Armenian people were persecuted, chased away from their homeland, helpless, in the desert.” This story - he observed - began with Jesus: what people did, “to Jesus, has during the course of history been done to His body, which is the Church”.
“Today, I would like, on this day of our first Eucharist,” Francis continued, “as brother Bishops, dear brother Bishops and Patriarch and all of you Armenian faithful and priests, to embrace you and remember this persecution that you have suffered, and to remember your holy ones, your many saints who died of hunger, in the cold, under torture, [cast] into the wilderness only for being Christians.”
The Pope prayed that the Lord might, “give us a full understanding, to know the Mystery of God who is in Christ,” and who, “carries the Cross, the Cross of persecution, the Cross of hatred, the Cross of that, which comes from the anger,” of persecutors – an anger that is stirred up by “the Father of Evil”.
“May the Lord, today, make us feel within the body of the Church, the love for our martyrs and also our vocation to martyrdom. We do not know what will happen here: we do not know. Only let the Lord give us the grace, should this persecution happen here one day, of the courage and the witness that all Christian martyrs have shown, and especially the Christians of the Armenian people.”
