Newsletter - Summer

Congreavit Nos in Unum Christi Amor

This beautiful verse is taken from a hymn, which is sung on Maundy Thursday, exactly when the priest bends down to wash the feet of the twelve persons, who represent the Apostles. Those words  mean: "The love of Christ gathered us together in one".  It reminds us of the commandment that the Lord Jesus gave us at the Last Supper: "Love one another as I have loved you" (Jn 13: 34).

I would like to apply these words to the local situation of our Church of the Holy Cross. The members of our community have been increasing strongly in the last fifteen years. This fact has been the consequence of the opening of frontiers to people coming especially from Asia and Africa, looking for work and a better living.  In a few months we saw the church filled up, little by little, by Catholics coming especially from the Philippines, from Sri Lanka, from India.  Other people from other Asian and African countries joined them. Furthermore, but in lesser number, persons from Europe and the Americas came: technicians, professors, specialised manpower, etc.  We can add also some personnel from the UN contingents, stationed in Cyprus, and finally some members from the diplomatic corps missions.  

It is true, all these people have come to Cyprus each with his own purpose and aim. Some remain for a few months, others for years, but not a few find their home on the island, marrying local people.  They are different in colour, in culture, in formation. They are different in their way of speech, in their mentality, in the manner they face their problems and difficulties. They come to the Holy Cross Church, the only Latin Catholic Church in Nicosia, which they recognize as their own Church. On Sundays over a thousand people come and worship. Among the Catholics, often there are also Christians of other denominations, and even non-Christians, so much so that our Church has become the "meeting place" for many people.

Each had his own purpose to come to Cyprus, but we must believe that we all are led by God, his will, his providence. And when we come to the Holy Cross Church, although different in colour, culture, formation, mentality, we all are united in Christ's love. Together we form a family, a body, his Body.  I think that we must be nourished by this thought when we pray together, when we listen to his word, when the sacraments are administered, when the Eucharist is celebrated.

"The love of Christ gathered us together in his love". Jesus presented himself as a servant and, at the same time, he wanted his disciples to participate in his condition of servant. Also today, all those who come to the Holy Cross Church are drawn by the same words and the same example.

N. B.: On the third page, the names of the nations, represented in our parish of the Holy Cross, can be read.

TRADITION AS CONTINUITY
 
Tradition is the communion of the faithful around their legitimate Pastors down through history, a communion that the Holy Spirit nurtures, assuring the connection between the experience of the apostolic faith, lived in the original community of the disciples, and the actual experience of Christ in his Church.

In other words, Tradition is the practical continuity of the Church, the Holy Temple of God the Father, built on the foundation of the Apostles and held together by the cornerstone, Christ, through the life-giving action of the Spirit: "So then you are no longer strangers and pilgrims, but you are fellows citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you are also built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit" (Eph 2: 19-22).

Thanks to Tradition, guaranteed through the ministry of the Apostles and by their successors, the water of life that flowed from Christ's side and his saving blood reach the women and men of all times. Thus, Tradition is the permanent presence of the Saviour who comes to meet us, to redeem us and to sanctify us in the Spirit, through the ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Father.

Concluding and summing up, we can therefore say Tradition is not the transmission of things or words, a collection of dead things. Tradition is the living river in which the origins are ever present, the great river that leads us to the gates of eternity. And since this is so, in this living river the words of the Lord are ceaselessly brought about: "I am with you always, till the end of time" (Mt 28: 20).

(Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, 31/5/06)

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