Holy Mass in Osnabruck (16 November 1980)

On 16 November 1980, the Pope celebrated Holy Mass in Osnabrück, Germany. In his homily, he spoke of the difficulties faced by Catholics, displaced by World War II to northern Germany, which was solidly Evangelical (Lutheran). And so the Pope prayed for unity among believers.

Venerable confreres, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord!

1. When the evangelist John, due to his family relationship with his teacher and the profound knowledge of the loving heart of Jesus, elaborated the words of today's Gospel, the Lord's farewell prayer, he had before him the first Christian communities: only with difficulty and slowly were they formed, first in Palestine, then following the first persecution and flight, in Antioch and from there under the missionary impulse of Saint Paul as far as Asia Minor and Greece and finally in Rome. However, their consistency always remained rather small, and exposed to dangers; these communities lived as a minority among the vast majority of pagans in the Roman Empire.

The evangelist wants to comfort and corroborate these Christians by writing to them how Jesus Christ prayed for them: to them Jesus revealed the "name" of God; to them he has given his “glory” of him; in them must remain the "love" which exists between God the Father and the Son; they must "be perfect in unity", as Jesus is with the Father. Powerful words of comfort and intimate corroboration for a tiring life in the "dispersion", in the "diaspora"!

My brothers and sisters! Today I bring you all this Gospel, this happy message, this efficacious prayer of Jesus: it applies to you, the faithful of this ancient and venerable diocese, which recently celebrated the 12th centenary of its founding; and it applies to all Catholics in the diaspora in northern Germany and Scandinavia, whom I would like to address in particular today from this city of Osnabrück, the seat of the northernmost diocese in the country.

I greet with particular joy the Bishops present here from this diocese and neighboring ones, especially from Berlin and Scandinavia, and also the priests and faithful from the regions and countries of the Diaspora. The supreme pastor of the Church, which lives united among many peoples, has come to you to thank God together for the courage of your faith and also to strengthen you in it, so that you may still be living witnesses of our redemption in Christ.

2. The state of faith of Catholics in this vast diaspora is very different and difficult. Precisely in the dioceses of northern Germany, it is still decisively characterized by a particular historical situation. At the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of people, including many Catholics, had to leave their homeland, emigrate and establish their residence in the vast territories of these dioceses, which had previously had an exclusively Evangelical population.

Together with the small luggage, which constituted all their material possessions, they brought with them, as a precious possession, above all their faith, often symbolized only in the small prayer book of their ancient homeland.

Many of you, dear brothers and sisters in the faith, still remember how then they had to look for a new home, get busy to provide for the most indispensable vital needs, and how at the same time hundreds of new Catholic communities had to be founded. Under the guidance of industrious bishops and priests you have built new churches and erected new altars. Although suffering from poverty and living in great concern for your families, you also immediately committed yourself to the realization of ecclesial life, making many sacrifices. You thus revealed to the whole world that you remained safe in the faith nor did you let yourselves be embittered by the cross imposed on you, indeed you could even transform pain into blessing, and discord into reconciliation.

In looking back on the development of ecclesial life in those difficult years, we also gratefully recall the many Evangelical communities of this country, which for a long time also made their churches available to Catholics, thus enabling their pastors to gather again the lost flock.

3. Indeed, these troubled times have inflicted bitter wounds; but the Lord also healed and helped. It seems right to remember it today, because your country remembers with a "day of national mourning" the innumerable fallen of the last war. However, the same Lord Jesus Christ, who assisted you yesterday with his consoling support, will also confer today and tomorrow the strength of his love for him, so that you remain, amid the trials of the present time, credible witnesses of his message of liberation. .

Thus - according to the words of the second reading of today's liturgical celebration, taken from the first letter of Peter - you even have good reasons to be "filled with joy, even if now you must be afflicted with various trials for a while, because the value of your faith, much more precious than gold which, though destined to perish, is nevertheless tested by fire” ( 1Pt 1,6.7). The test of your faith: this is your "chance"! An intimate faith, mature and aware of its own responsibility: this can be your gift to the whole Church! And thus you yourselves can "achieve the goal of your faith, your salvation" ( 1Pt 1:9), which will be granted to you "in the manifestation of Jesus Christ". “You love him without having seen him; and now, without seeing him, believe in him” (1Pt 1.8). Through his resurrection from the dead you have "living hope" for the "inheritance that does not rot or rot and is kept for you in heaven" ( 1Pt 1,3.4). It is the very "power of God" that strengthens you in this faith (cf. 1Pt 1,5), if you - we may add - do everything possible to keep your faith alive and effective. Your status as Christians in the Diaspora is therefore a particular challenge.

Very few of you today can only be supported in the practice of your faith by a strong believing environment. We must therefore consciously decide to want to be professing Christians, and to have the courage to distinguish ourselves, if necessary, from our environment. The prerequisite for this decisive witness of Christian life is for us to perceive and understand faith as a precious life opportunity, which transcends the interpretations and customs of the environment. We must use every opportunity to experience how faith enriches our existence, works in us authentic fidelity in the struggle for life, strengthens our hope against the attacks of all kinds of pessimism and despair, it urges us to avoid all extremism and to work thoughtfully for justice and peace in the world; it can finally console us and relieve us in pain.

The task and "chance" of the diaspora situation is therefore to experience more consciously how faith helps to live more fully and profoundly.

4. No one can have faith for himself alone. The Lord has called his disciples to a communion, to be God's people on pilgrimage, to the Church, which works as a body with her life force. Where more of the faithful gather for a profession of faith, a celebration, a prayer and a common action, there the Lord comes to meet them. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in their midst" ( Mt 18:20). Wishing the Lord to refer precisely to a situation of diaspora with these words, he does not speak of a thousand, or a hundred, or ten, but of "two or three". Already here the Lord promises us his invigorating presence!

Your dioceses and parish communities also offer multiple possibilities for meeting not only with one or two believers of the same Christian faith, but with all communities and groups. At this point I would like to cordially thank all the priests and their lay collaborators who, despite great difficulties, tirelessly commit themselves with full zeal and self-denial to an active and efficient community life. At the same time, I invite all believers to use every opportunity that presents itself to improve their faith and their future. Be particularly faithful and constant in participating in Holy Mass on Sunday or Saturday evening. And where the Sunday Eucharistic celebration cannot be reached due to great distances, take part in at least one liturgy of the word with the eventual distribution of holy communion! “Where we are gathered in the name of Jesus, there he is present among us”.

5. Above all, however, I would like to encourage you to seek and deepen contact with your evangelical brothers in sincere faith. The ecumenical movement of the last few decades has shown you clearly how united Evangelical Christians are with you in their concerns and joys and how much you have in common with them when together you sincerely and consistently live your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We therefore thank God wholeheartedly because the different ecclesial communities in your regions are not set against each other by misunderstandings and even less do they close each other with fear. Rather, you have often already had the happy experience that mutual understanding and acceptance were particularly easy when both sides knew each other's faith well, they professed it with joy and valued concrete communion with their brothers in the faith. I would like to encourage you to continue on this path.

Live your faith as Catholics with gratitude to God and to your ecclesial community; give in all humility and without any self-satisfaction a credible witness to the intimate values ​​of your faith and also encourage your evangelical brothers in a timely and amiable way to bear witness to their faith, to strengthen and deepen their forms of religious life in Christ. If all churches and communities truly grow in the fullness of the Lord, most certainly his Spirit will show us the way to achieve the full internal and external unity of the Church.

Jesus himself prayed for the perfect unity of his followers: “May all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17:21 ). We have just heard it in the Gospel. And once again Jesus insistently prays to his divine Father: “And the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, so that they may be one like us. I in them and you in me, so that they may be perfect in unity and the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me” (Jn 17 :22.23).

By Christ's will, this prayer for unity must also be valid for all those Christians who support and confirm one another in the faith: "I do not pray only for these - prays Jesus again - but also for those who for the their word they will believe in me" ( Jn 17:20). We can therefore confidently hope that all the ecumenical dialogues, all the common prayers and actions of Christians of different denominations are already included in this tender prayer of Jesus: “May all be one.

As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be one in us." The credibility of the message of redemption through Christ's death and resurrection depends on this unity: "so that the world may believe that you sent me" ( Jn 17:21). In the same prayer, the Lord places a condition: "I have made your name known to them and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them" (Jn 17:26 ) . We will pray and act truly ecumenically "in the name of Jesus" only when we keep the love of Christ among us and place it at the basis of all efforts for deeper unity.

I firmly trust that this prayer from the Son of God, our Lord and brother, will one day bear its full fruit. We want to pray to him to realize what the prophet announced to us in today's first reading: "Thus says the Lord God: I will take you from the nations, I will gather you from every land and I will bring you to your land. I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be cleansed... I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit within you... I will put my spirit within you and make you live according to my precepts and make you observe and put into practice my laws; you shall be my people and I will be your God" ( Ez 36:24-28).

6. Dear brothers and sisters! You certainly live your faith in difficult conditions. Other dioceses of your country, better located, are however close to you with various forms of solidarity, above all through the much praiseworthy experimented institution of the house of St Boniface. Associated with it is the work of St Ansgarius, with whom you support and fraternally assist the dioceses of Scandinavia. In the kingdom of God he loses nothing who knows how to participate; on the contrary, he then becomes a true disciple of Christ, who made himself poor for us, to make us all rich (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).

The existence of the Christian in the diaspora must be supported by the awareness of belonging to a large community of men, to the people of God gathered from all the peoples of this earth. Even in the "dispersion" you are together with your priests and bishops united in many forms with the universal Church. Therefore I consider it a very happy event to be able, as Bishop of Rome, to be among you today, on the second day of my visit to Germany, precisely in this episcopal see connected as far as the extreme north of Europe, and to celebrate the holy Eucharist with you .

The Eucharist means thanksgiving of the believing community to the Lord "in communion with the whole Church", as we pray in the first canon of the mass. Today, with all believers in God, we want to thank him for all the gifts with which he has confirmed and consolidated your faith and your love for the Church even in difficult circumstances and times of severe trials. The celebration of Mass itself is an inexhaustible source of strength for religious life and the consolidation of every Christian in the faith. It preserves and nourishes our communion with Christ through living communion with his mystical body, which is the Church.

Likewise, when in holy communion the bread is broken and his body is offered to us, we live and realize in a clear and perceptible way the most intimate unity with the body of Christ, the communion of all believers. Gain today, in happy gratitude, a new awareness of this profound and intimate unity of the whole Church beyond every human border and barrier! Carry this awareness as a precious treasure in your communities, in your neighborhood, in your families! In fact, as believers, you are never "few", never "alone", but always united with "the many" who in the vast world follow Christ with you in faith and hope, and bear witness to his redemptive love. He is the strength of our faith and the foundation of our trust. May he bless you and your families and guide your pilgrimage as Catholics to his eternal goal, definitive gathering of all believers from the scattering of this world to the one homeland of his everlasting kingdom. Amen.

© Copyright 1980 - Vatican Publishing House

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