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The Greek-Catholic Bishop of Cluj-Gherla, PS Claudiu, sent the Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

To the honorable co-ministering clergy, to the pious monks and nuns, to the beloved Greek Catholic faithful and to all God-loving Christians.

Grace, peace and blessing from our Lord Jesus Christ!

Beloved believers,

The Feast of the Resurrection leads us soulfully to the central truth of the Christian faith, inviting us to celebrate the victory of Jesus over sin and death and to open our hearts to receive the Risen One into our lives. We have been celebrating for nearly two thousand years this unique event in our history, in which the Son of God transforms death into a passage to true life.

The resurrection of the Lord represents the epicenter of a radical change in humanity, the turning point in which and from which time is flooded with eternal life. If until then sin seemed to rule man’s freedom, and death displayed its omnipotence, condemning man to silence and resignation, Jesus Christ redeems us from the slavery of sins, gives us the grace to live in holiness, makes us partakers of life in the present eternal and guides our steps towards resurrection.

The liturgical chants at the Resurrection Service illustrate this truth, calling Holy Easter “the feast of feasts and the feast of feasts” and instilling in Christians a holy joy: “Day of the Resurrection, let us be enlightened, people! Easter of the Lord, Easter! That from death to life and from earth to heaven, Christ God has passed for us, those who sing songs of victory”!

The liturgical celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus means to meet Him, to allow Him to enlighten us, to be the Lord of our hearts and our brother in trials and sufferings. Naturally, the liturgical encounter with Him must be continued in daily life, where every Christian, following the example of Mary Magdalene, is called to say, through words and deeds, that he has seen the Lord (cf. John 20:18). Although we confess with our lips this mystery of our salvation and sing “Christ is risen from the dead”, the real challenge is to make it present in every moment of life, for us and for the world in which we live.

We know the world we live in quite well. It is a world of war within us and between us. We have wars at the border of the country and in other parts of the world, we have wars in our hearts. We have wars in families, in our circles of acquaintances, in society, between peoples and between Churches. We have online wars and these, even if they seem easier to fight, being under the protection of anonymity, have a real power of destruction. This situation, in which the world allows itself to be led by petty interests, selfishness and hatred, using its resources against life, dignity and freedom, stands in obvious contrast to the purpose of the Lord’s Resurrection: “I raise Jesus from the grave, as he said before, he gave us eternal life and great mercy”.

The spread of the epidemic of violence and injustice puts us in front of an essential question: in what way does the Resurrection of the Lord actually illuminate these dark places for us who call ourselves Christians, for us who consider ourselves the people of faith? Everything has to start with us and nothing can really change unless we are willing to change first. Belief in the Savior’s Resurrection brings us a responsibility that concerns us personally, a duty that we cannot delegate to someone else and that we must assume!

This year we live it under the sign of prayer, both in the Diocese of Cluj-Gherla and at the level of the entire Catholic Church. The reason is quite simple: when we pray we create a channel of communication between us and Heaven, so that, through prayer, part of the harmony of the Kingdom of Heaven reaches our lives and through us the world in which we live. In prayer, the light and joy of the Resurrection banish the shadows of war from our lives and we become, as the prayer of Saint Francis says, instruments of reconciliation between people.

The Holy Apostle Paul invites us to pray constantly (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17), because without prayer we are not capable of anything. By ourselves we are like pieces of metal, cold, amorphous, obscure. When we let the fire of prayer engulf our lives, the piece of metal becomes incandescent, similar to the fire it is engulfed in. But if we let the fire of prayer go out, we become dark and cold again.

Baptism brought a spark of the light of the Resurrection into our souls, but we need to maintain this spark every day so that it grows and ignites, lighting up our whole life. In this way, we will meet the Risen Christ, present in the Holy Eucharist and in the Word of Holy Scripture, we will feel his comforting presence when we are assailed by trials and we will become messengers of God’s light and mercy for all those in difficulty, for those suffering or marginalized by society.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

It is five years since the beatification of our martyred Bishops. On the Freedom Plain in Blaj, the voice of Blessed Father Lucian resounded strong and full of emotion, asking the Holy Father Pope Francis, on behalf of the entire United Romanian Church, to proclaim Blessed the seven Bishops who gave their lives for Christ and for communion with His Church. The solemn ringing of the bells of the Major Archbishop’s Cathedral accompanied the assent of the Successor of Peter. For us, that moment was a moment of healing, a moment when the shadow of Peter, who was healing on the paths of Galilee in the first years after the Resurrection, reached us. It was the moment of a new beginning, a moment of grace in which our gaze, bewildered by the wounds of persecution, received vigor and brightness. Peter’s voice, which echoed in Lida (cf. Acts 9:32-41), has reached us, coming from the lips of his successor, in Little Rome, for our Church: “Daughter, arise!”, and we began to sing with the psalmist: “I will not die, but I will live and speak the things of the Lord” (Ps 117,17).

That moment was full of grace because, through our martyred Bishops, we learned that the true and only way to win a war is to stop it in our soul, not to let it go on, to leave us crucified to win. The more intense the persecution, the stronger was the flame of faith, the fire of love and the light of God in their souls! There is nothing innovative in their attitude, because this is only the way of Christ, but although we knew all these things theoretically, at the moment of beatification they became even more part of the being of our Church.

What is this way? It is the one from the moment of the beginning of Jesus’ public mission in the synagogue in Nazareth. The Savior announces a year of God’s mercy, quoting from the prophet Isaiah who at the same time speaks of a year of vengeance, of God’s wrath.

How can these two aspects be reconciled? When can God’s mercy and wrath coexist? Only when the same God, who bestows mercy, also assumes the punishment of sins, when the Only Begotten Son takes upon Himself our sins and crucify them on the Cross in His Body. This is the scene we contemplate in Holy Week, how suffering, mockery and crucifixion become, from signs of death, places of salvation, redemption and resurrection.

Starting from the moment of the Annunciation, passing through the crucifixion and death on the Cross of Jesus and reaching our lives, everything is marked by this paradox of the co-presence of joy and pain, love and suffering, the Cross and the Resurrection. When the Archangel Gabriel gives good news to Mary of Nazareth, it is a moment of joy not only for her, but for all of humanity.

Happy Iuliu Hossu

At the same time, however, a short distance away, in the Temple in Jerusalem, Simeon says to the Holy Mother: “a sword will pass through your soul” (Lk 2:35). At the moment of the crucifixion, Mary is present at the foot of the Cross, carrying in her heart the promise of the Archangel, but a sword passes through her heart, because her beloved Son, who must reign eternally, dies on the Cross. In this war, between what God promises her and the reality she sees with her eyes, the Holy Mother chooses the Word and the promise of God and that is why she sees the Resurrection.

It is the same for our Church and for each of us. Blessed Iuliu Hossu chooses the perspective of Heaven beyond what the world and worldly people present to him as the only possible perspective.

The cardinal, for whom faith and life are one and the same, is convinced that the Church founded on Peter’s rock cannot disappear and cannot be defeated, believing strongly in the moment of coming out to the Light that we live today, of which we today we rejoice: “The cross, redemption; death, resurrection to all who believe in His most holy Name! I wait, we wait for the resurrection of the dead; we are waiting, Lord, strengthen our faith, to see Your glory: the resurrection of Your Church, the resurrection of our nation, the liberation of our country”.

Dance of joy

It is the same in our lives. A dance of joy and suffering accompanies us every moment.

We can choose despair and worldly war in our souls and the world we live in, or the Christian perspective in which we understand that nothing that happens can exist without God’s will or permission, and in this case we understand that the Lord is ever present in our lives, even if in a secret, hidden way. Instead of fighting with those around us, let’s choose to fight the fight of Christ, which is not against people, but against evil spirits, against sins and all forms of injustice, living and proclaiming the Gospel of Love.

Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Blessed Martyr Bishops, I ask our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to protect you and bless you with heavenly graces! May the resurrection of the Lord be our light, hope and strength in our daily struggles!

Christ is Risen!

† Claudius

Bishop of Cluj-Gherla