Let’s continue to grow in unity, Francis urges Coptic Orthodox patriarch

May 10, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, May 10, 2017 / 11:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Following his trip to Egypt last month, Pope Francis sent a message Wednesday to the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Tawadros II, expressing his hope that their Churches will continue to work toward unity in the sacraments.

“Along this path we are sustained by the powerful intercession and example of the martyrs. May we continue to advance together on our journey towards the same Eucharistic table, and grow in love and reconciliation,” Pope Francis said in his letter to the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch May 10.

“I take this opportunity to offer my prayerful best wishes for your peace and health, as well as my joy and gratitude for the spiritual bonds uniting the See of Peter and the See of Mark.”

Pope Francis’ message marked the fourth anniversary of his meeting with Tawadros II in Rome on May 10, 2013; the day has become an annual celebration of fraternal love between the Catholic and Coptic Orthodox Churches.

Pope Francis and the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch also met April 28 during Francis’ two-day trip to Cairo. During the encounter, the two signed a joint declaration indicating their gratitude for the chance “to exchange a fraternal embrace and to join again in common prayer.”

In his letter to the patriarch, Francis thanked the leader for his hospitality and for the common prayer they shared during the meeting.

He also noted, in particular, the agreement made that both Churches would acknowledge the validity of baptisms performed in the other Church.

Quoting from the statement, Francis said he is “especially grateful that we have strengthened our baptismal unity in the body of Christ by declaring together ‘that we, with one mind and heart, will seek sincerely not to repeat the baptism that has been administered in either of our Churches for any person who wishes to join the other.’ Our bonds of fraternity 'challenge us to intensify our common efforts to persevere in the search for visible unity in diversity, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit'.”

The Pope also gave assurance of his continued prayers for Tawadros II and for peace in Egypt and the Middle East. He called on the Holy Spirit, especially during the Easter season, to “fill our hearts with his grace and kindle in them the fire of his love.”

“May the Spirit of peace bestow on us an increase of hope, friendship and harmony,” he continued.

He concluded the letter saying that “with these sentiments, on this special occasion which has rightly become known as the day of friendship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, I exchange with Your Holiness a fraternal embrace of peace in Christ our Lord.”

The Coptic Orthdox Church is an Oriental Orthodox Church, meaning it rejected the 451 Council of Chalcedon, and its followers had historically been considered monophysites – those who believe Christ has only one nature – by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, though they are not considered so any longer.

The May 2013 meeting between Francis and Tawadros marked the first visit of a Coptic Orthodox patriarch to Rome in 40 years. Shenouda III, Tawadros' predecessor, visited Bl. Paul VI in 1973, and St. John Paul II returned the visit to Egypt in 2000.

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Pope Francis: ‘The Church advances through prayer’

May 10, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, May 10, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- Church leaders must put prayer before all other things, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Sunday.

Speaking in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence, the pope said May 10 that praying must be a bishop’s first priority.

He said: “The bishop’s prayer, the first task: to pray. And the people, seeing the bishop pray, learn to pray. Because the Holy Spirit teaches us that it is God who ‘does things’.” 

“We do a little, but it is He who ‘does the things’ of the Church, and it is through prayer that the Church advances. And that is why the leaders of the Church, so to say, the bishops, must go ahead with prayer.”

In his homily, the pope reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading, John 14:1-14, in which Jesus tells his disciples that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through him.

He described the passage as Jesus’ “declaration of access to the Father.” It was, he suggested, as if Christ “opened the doors of the omnipotence of prayer.”

Believers should pray with trust and courage, he said. He gave the examples of Abraham “haggling” with God to save Sodom in Genesis 18:20-33, and Moses asking the Lord to spare his people in Exodus 32:1-35. Therefore Christians should not pray timidly.

“To pray is to go with Jesus to the Father who will give you everything,” he said. “Courage in prayer, frankness in prayer.” 

The pope then turned to the day’s second reading, Acts 6:1-7, in which the apostles respond to complaints about food distribution in the early Christian community. 

He noted that, in order to focus on prayer and preaching, the apostles “enlightened by the Holy Spirit, ‘invented’, so to speak, the deacons,” selecting seven men of good reputation to oversee food allocation.

He said: “This is the bishop’s task: to pray and preach. With this strength that we have heard in the Gospel: the bishop is the first one who goes to the Father, with the trust that Jesus gave, with courage, with parrhesia [bold speech], to fight for his people. The first task of a bishop is to pray.”

The pope recalled “a holy parish priest” who whenever he met a bishop would ask him how many hours a day he prayed. 

Prayer is a bishop’s primary task, he said, “Because it is the prayer of the head of the community for the community, the intercession to the Father so that he might guard the people.”

He concluded: “It is sad to see good bishops, good people, good people, but busy with many things, the economy, and this and that… Prayer in first place. Then the other things. But when the other things take space away from prayer, something doesn’t work…”

“This is how the Church goes forward, with prayer, the courage of prayer, because the Church knows that without this access to the Father she cannot survive.”

The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope recalled two recent commemorations. May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. May 9 was the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, leading to the foundation of the European Union.

He said: “Let us ask the Lord for Europe today to grow united in this unity of brotherhood which makes all peoples grow in unity in diversity.”

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