Easter Message from Cardinal Puljić: Let's Build Peace Within Ourselves and Our Families

The Easter message from Cardinal Vinko Puljić, Archbishop Metropolitan of Vrhbosna, is fully conveyed by the Patria News Agency:

Dear brother priests, dear monks and nuns!
Dear brothers and sisters!

In John's Gospel, we read: “And when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors of the house where the disciples had met were shut for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” (John 20:19).

We have taken these words of Jesus as the motto for the meeting with Pope Francis, who will visit our country in June this year. Together with the successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ, we want to feel how this peace of Christ flows into our hearts, into our land, and into all the peoples within it. In order to welcome this event as prepared as possible, and to experience the pastoral visit of the Holy Father with joy and pride, we want to prepare ourselves for this event through the celebration of Christ's resurrection, which fills our hearts and our days with His peace.

The peace of the Risen Christ fills the soul through every one of our contrite prayers, especially if it is experienced in community with those closest to us, within our families, or with those with whom we share our daily existence. The peace of the Risen Christ inhabits our hearts especially in the sacrament of confession, where through contrite repentance for our sins, we receive the grace of God's forgiveness. The peace of the Risen Lord fills the heart and soul also when, by the power of faith, we forgive one another, leaving judgment to God, and freeing our hearts and minds from all bitterness, hatred, and desire for revenge. The peace of the Risen Lord fills our entire being especially when we radiate active love, recognizing our neighbor in need and offering them our love, attention, and closeness. The peace of the Risen Lord is born in us in a special way when we become neighbors to one another by celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist, in which we are closely united with the Lord, truly present under the appearances of bread and wine, and thus through the celebration of the Eucharist, which is the source and origin of our faith, we more clearly manifest our communion.

Today, when our days and our times are marked by fears within and around us, and we are often forced to make difficult and hasty decisions, concerning leaving our homes or other decisions that compel us to flee from our reality, I believe we need to experience the Risen Christ in our midst, in our families, and above all in our hearts, and hear His word of comfort and encouragement. May the words of the Risen Lord ignite our hearts so that, like the disciples from Emmaus, we may say: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). The example of the disciples from Emmaus should be a paradigm for us in the constant discovery of God's presence among us, and of His peace and witness-bearing strength that such presence bestows upon those who experience it and surrender to it. The structure of the text presented by the evangelist Luke (Luke 24:13-35) reveals to us the experience of transformation that goes from: “But their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (v. 16) to “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (v. 31).

The conditions that facilitate our reaching the witness and recognition of the Risen Jesus as “living” (v. 23) and that lead us to inner conversion can be summarized in three extremely important elements:

First, the remembrance of Jesus through the reading and interpretation of Holy Scripture, which freed the disciples from sadness and despair: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (v. 21) and led them to conversion: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (v. 32). Trust in God present in Holy Scripture is an extraordinary path that leads us to an encounter with the living and Risen Lord, who is capable of changing and transforming human hearts.

The second essential element in this process is the breaking of bread – this is the first name for the Christian Eucharist and has always been a decisive place for recognizing the Lord. We read in the passage from Luke's Gospel: “Then they told what had happened on the road, and how they had recognized him in the breaking of the bread” (v. 35). The Eucharist calls us to an encounter with the Lord, it mediates the living God to us, in it God reveals Himself in a real way: “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb,” we hear at every Mass. The Eucharist is always lived in hospitality: “Stay with us, for it is toward evening […] and he went in to stay with them” (v. 29). Our God is not a violent God, He is not an intrusive God, He does not enslave us, but awaits our invitation, openness, readiness, and prepared heart.

The third step in recognizing the Risen Lord is the apostolic community gathered in Jerusalem as the Church being born and as a place where Easter testimonies are accepted: “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” (v. 34), the two disciples testified to the apostolic community. The apostolic community is the place where the experience lived on the road to Emmaus is verified, the place where the recognition of the Risen One in the breaking of bread is verified.

Therefore, the living Word of God as a remembrance of Jesus filled with hope, or rather, a remembrance that leads to lasting conversion, then the Eucharist lived in community in which Jesus is recognized, and the apostolic community which proclaims the resurrection and watches over the journey of the disciples from Emmaus are the three conditions for recognizing Jesus as living and proclaiming Him as Risen and the bringer of peace.

May the presence of the Risen Christ, whom we discover through Holy Scripture, the Eucharist, and the apostolic community, permeate our lives, so that we may overcome all the fears imposed on us by today's culture of living. May the strength of faith and a fervent heart, like that of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, be restored to us through the encounter with the Risen One, so that we may face all the challenges of the time and space in which we live. May the presence of the Risen Christ shine permanently among us and enable us to be witnesses of His love and builders of peace, so that together with the psalmist we can say: “For the sake of my brothers and my companions I will say, ‘Peace be within you!’” (Ps 122:8).

The Risen Christ guarantees us peace, He brings us His peace. His peace is not the peace that this world gives, just as His kingdom is not of this world. Christ's peace is not like the peace of the powerful of this world, which is actually unrest, because it creates peace for the benefit of the stronger and more powerful, and to the detriment of the small and weak. The peace of the Risen Christ is the peace of the heart, His peace respects every person and is not denied to anyone. On the contrary! It is a permanent offer to all people of good will. Christ pours His peace into the hearts of all people so that we, too, can become builders and bearers of peace.

Therefore, celebrating the mystery of Easter, let us open our hearts to God's peace and build peace within ourselves and in our families, so that harmony, justice, equality, and solidarity may prevail in our society. He who has opened himself to the peace of the Risen Christ is ready to eradicate all evil, violence, and injustice, which, if not resolved and cut at the root, always give rise to even greater injustice, violence, and hatred. Such evils then ultimately destroy the basic unit of our society – the family.

May the peace of the Risen Lord encourage and inspire us to work together with others in our country to build a more just society in which every person – a beloved child of God, and every nation and every religion, will have equal rights and equal human dignity.

With these thoughts, I wish you a happy and blessed Easter, and I invoke upon you an abundance of God's blessing.