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Holocaust Memorial Day Reflection: The Ecumenism of Suffering: part 1


In their joint declaration of November 30th 2014, Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew mentioned the ecumenism of suffering:

‘…we can say that there is also an ecumenism of suffering. Just as the blood of the martyrs was a seed of strength and fertility for the Church, so too the sharing of daily sufferings can become an effective instrument of unity. The terrible situation of Christians and all those who are suffering in the Middle East calls not only for our constant prayer, but also for an appropriate response on the part of the international community’.

Earlier on in a joint statement of January 2014 they both noted the new emergence of a real ecumenism of blood, in other words how denominational difference is not taken into account when Christians are facing certain death by insurgents and terrorists. Those who now attack and persecute the Christian community in the Middle East and elsewhere are not interested in the particularities of division only that people are Christian.

This negative grouping together of different people as one common entity in order that they may suffer is not new, it often occurs when we identify other groups as lesser humans, something all too real in our present age. This can all too easily become a mythology of culture, the persecutors can ease their consciences by relegating groups or individuals to that catch all term of ‘being different’, a method of exclusion which in this sort of case can have as its basis indifference to the other and ignorance of them.

The twentieth century is littered with persecutions based on ignorance, exclusion and difference, the genocide of the Armenians 100 years ago, the terrible murderous events of the Holocaust 70 years ago where the genocide of the Jewish, Roma and other peoples was articulated in those terms of sub-humanity, the pogroms of Communist Soviet Russia and China, Rwanda, and now in the twenty first century, the terrible events in the Middle East and elsewhere. As Christians we cannot remain indifferent because that implies some form of acquiescence, even acceptance, with what took place and even now is sometimes still being carried out.

We have just celebrated Christian Unity Week, in recent years less of an event than it was when I was a younger priest. However the contemporary incursion of the media into global events means that as far as Christianity is concerned we cannot claim unawareness of what is being done to our brothers and sisters in faith, let alone others.

Maybe we need to start looking at the ecumenism of suffering a bit more. In these situations the structures and supports of faith are torn away so that the foundations of faith are laid bare. This doesn’t take away the need for dialogue or discussion, but it reminds us of the heart of what we share, be of Christ!

One of the Naval Commando Chaplains once stationed in Afghanistan, spoke movingly about this ‘ecumenism of blood’ when he spoke of the bare foundations of faith that emerge when death faces the soldier each and every day in such a place. ‘You live life to the full’ he said, and by doing that you strip away everything until you come to the basics of faith; doing what Jesus asked us to do, love and care for one another, ‘that way you take away the sting of death’. What he meant was that in face of that death we are all equal in the loving sight of God and our task is to accompany each other as best we can. We begin with our family of faith, but then as Jesus did, move out to others even our enemies.

As we remember the Holocaust and other terrible events perhaps we can remind ourselves of what Pope Francis said about faith and hold on to that as a thought for this time: Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness but a lamp which guides our steps in the night…. God does not provide arguments which explain everything: rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence. (Lumen Fidei June 29 2013)

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