On his second day in Lithuania, Sept. 23, Pope Francis traveled 65 miles to Kaunas, the country’s second largest city, to celebrate Mass in Santakos Park for more than 100,000 people.
When John Paul II visited Lithuania 25 years ago, it was to celebrate with them their liberation from Soviet domination. Francis arrived to commemorate the centenary of their declaration of independence. He asked them to reflect on the sufferings they had endured under Nazi and Soviet rule. He asked them to pray for “the gift of discernment to detect in time any recrudescence of that pernicious attitude, any whiff of it that can taint the heart of generations that did not experience those times and can sometimes be taken in by such siren songs.”
His words are a wake-up call not only to Lithuanians but also to the other Baltic peoples. His speeches yesterday and his words at Mass today suggest that Pope Francis is profoundly concerned with the rise of a populist nationalism—though he never mentioned the words—in many countries of the European Union, which have enjoyed peace for over 70 years. Political observers have already begun to detect this risk in the election of governments or political parties inspired by populist-nationalist rhetoric in countries like Poland and Hungary. They have recognized rhetoric that rejects immigrants and all that is foreign and seeks to break with the European Union’s concept of solidarity. They see the risk, too, in the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and tensions in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
His words are a wake-up call not only to Lithuanians but also to the other Baltic peoples.
During his homily at Mass, concelebrated in Latin with the country’s bishops and 800 priests, Francis called on the 3.3 million inhabitants of Lithuania—80 percent of whom are Catholic—to remember their history if they want to build a future in peace and solidarity.
Later in the day, at the Cathedral at Vilnius, he told priests, nuns and seminarians that Lithuania is “a land of martyrs,” countless “anonymous martyrs whose burial places are not even known.” He encouraged them, saying, “Never forget, you too are the children of martyrs.”
At the Mass, addressing a congregation that included not only the country’s president but also representatives of the Lutheran and Orthodox churches, he recalled that Jesus had continuously emphasized the “experiences of the cross” to his disciples, and added that Lithuanians, too, had experienced the cross.
“Earlier generations still bear the scars of the period of the occupation, anguish at those who were deported, uncertainty about those who never returned, shame for those who were informers and traitors,” he said referring to their sufferings under Soviet and, for a while, Nazi domination.
“Earlier generations still bear the scars of the period of the occupation, anguish at those who were deported."
He recalled at Mass that the reading from the Book of Wisdom spoke of “the just who are persecuted, who suffer insult and punishment solely for their goodness.”
Looking at the vast crowd in front of him, many who arrived the evening before in the bitter cold, he asked: “How many of you can identify at first hand, or in the history of some family member, with that passage which we just read? How many of you have also felt your faith shaken because God did not appear to take your side?”
He revived deep, painful memories when he remarked, “Kaunas knows about this; Lithuania as a whole can testify to it, still shuddering at the mention of Siberia, or the ghettos of Vilnius and Kaunas, among others.”
As he spoke, he could see an Israeli flag with the star of David raised high in the crowd, a vivid reminder of the massacre of the Jewish people in this land in the 20th century. Before World War II some 200,000 Jews lived here but, by the war’s end, there was only 15,000.
Francis repeatedly urged Lithuanians not to forget their history. He warned them not to be like the disciples in the Gospel who were more interested in seeing “who was the greatest among them” than in hearing Jesus speak about sufferings and the cross.
Before World War II some 200,000 Jews lived here but, by the war’s end, there was only 15,000.
The congregation included pilgrims from Poland, Belarus, Russia, Latvia, Germany, Sweden, Iceland and the United States. The Jesuit pope addressed them all, saying, “Brothers and sisters, the thirst for power and glory is the sign of those who fail to heal the memories of the past and, perhaps for that very reason, to take an active part in the tasks of the present.” To deny their history and look for power and glory, he said, “is a fruitless and vain attitude that refuses to get involved in building the present.”
He recalled that when Jesus knew his disciples were discussing who among them was the greatest, he “provided them with an antidote to their struggles for power and their rejection of sacrifice” by placing a child in their midst, “the kind of child that would earn a penny for doing chores no one else would care to do.” He followed up by asking: “Whom would Jesus place in our midst today, here, on this Sunday morning?”
Then, drawing on the reality of life in Lithuania today, Francis suggested an answer: “Perhaps it is the ethnic minorities of our city. Or the jobless who have to emigrate. Maybe it is the elderly and the lonely, or those young people who find no meaning in life because they have lost their roots.”
He encouraged Lithuanian Catholics “to be a Church on the move, unafraid to go out and get involved."
He encouraged Lithuanian Catholics “to be a Church on the move, unafraid to go out and get involved, even when it might seem that we pour ourselves out, lose ourselves, in going forth to the weak, the neglected, those dwelling at the margins of life.” He explained that this going forth “also means to halt at times, to set aside our worries and cares, and to notice, to listen to and to accompany those left on the roadside.” It means “to spend our lives in joyful service, and thus to make known to all that Jesus Christ is our one hope.”
At the end of Mass, before reciting the Angelus, Francis spoke again of “the persecution of the righteous, those whose ‘mere presence’ annoys the ungodly.” He described “the ungodly” as “those who oppress the poor, who have no compassion for the widow, show no respect to the elderly.” The ungodly, he said, “use their power to impose a way of thinking, an ideology, a prevailing mindset” and “they use violence or repression to subject those who simply by their honest, straightforward, hardworking and companionable everyday life, show that a different kind of world, a different kind of society, is possible.” Francis said, “the ungodly are not content with doing anything they like, giving into their every whim; they do not want others, by doing good, to show them up for who they are. In the ungodly, evil is always trying to destroy good.”
He recalled that this was seen 75 years ago with “the final destruction of the Vilnius Ghetto; that was the climax of the killing of thousands of Jews that had started two years earlier.” Later, he went to pray at the monument for them, and also prayed for the other Lithuanian victims at the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights.
Francis recalled that Jesus speaks of “a temptation of which we have to be very careful: the desire for primacy and domination over others, which can dwell in every human heart. How often has it happened that one people considers itself superior?” He reminded them that Jesus proposed “the antidote when this impulse appears in our heart.” Jesus reminds us to be a “servant of all; to go to the place where no one else wants to go, where no one travels, the furthest peripheries; to serve and come to know the lowly and the rejected.” If the Gospel of Jesus Christ were to reach the depths of our lives, then “the ‘globalization of solidarity’ would be a reality.”
Francis called on all Christians to “remain steadfast in our intention to respect others, to heal wounds, to build bridges, to strengthen relationships and to ‘bear one another’s burdens.’”
Francis urged people “to beg Mary to help us all to plant our own cross, the cross of our service and commitment to the needs of others, on that hill where the poor dwell, where care and concern are needed for the outcast and for minorities.” By doing so, he said, “we can keep far from our lives and our cultures the possibility of destroying one another, of marginalizing, of continuing to discard whatever we find troublesome or uncomfortable.”
The crowd, who remained silent during Pope Francis’ homily, erupted into applause at the end of Mass, when he wished them in Lithuanian: “Gražaus sekmadienio! Skaniu pietu!” (“Happy Sunday, Enjoy your lunch!”)
Pope tells Baltic people to be extremely luke-warm?
Does he really think the dulling of the spirit brought about by prosperity and secularism and materialism was a good thing to happen to those peoples? They needed time to heal, convalescence.
The curse of Babel has not been lifted, the terrible danger of humanity all unified of one mind and one spirit under one leadership remains, universalism is poison and it is only a miracle that it has not totally destroyed Christianity, but we can all see that it is a terrible danger particularly now.
Atheistic Communism and Islam are universalist, that should give us pause. Under Christendom, kingdoms flourished and diversified wisdom and knowledge and skills and beauties, the EU is a retrograde, man-made artificial scheme already bearing bad fruit and being shown for the tyranny within by its treatment of Britain in attempting to leave.
We need the wisdom and experience of the Eastern European and Baltic Christians as well as that of the Asian and African and South American Christians to carry the spiritual warfare further towards the last days, with us all found with our hands on the plough, not fat and placid and content.