"We are calling on return, by this occasion, too. We consider that as our sacred duty and we shall not stop to do it"
Sarajevo (IKA )
EASTER MESSAGE OF VRH-BOSNIA BISHOPS TO PRIESTS, FRIARS, NUNS AND TO FAITHFUL BELIEVERS
Sarajevo, 4. 4. 1996. (IKA) – “While the scenes of the Stations of the Cross Road are passing by in front of our eyes and we remember of the divine rhymes of Our Lady#!s cry, by which the faithful people of this ancient Archdiocese has sorrowed after The Savior and has comforted himself recognizing His suffering as its own, a question could he put if our suffering, our contemporary pains and dying are our way to eternity? To eternity as a destination – without which all our desires, in spite how important to us could seems, are undefined”, says at the beginning of Vrh-Bosnia bishops#! Easter message to priests, friars, nuns and to faithful believers. Talking about the situation in which Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina happened to find itself after Dayton peace agreements, bishops are sending the message: “Frightened by the dimensions of the aggression, the responsible persons at home and in the world, who prepared or approved it, are trying to find ways to return peace to this country, now. The arms are silent, now, thanks God, the roads are more and more usable, even crowded by plenty of military machinery, but this kind of intervening and forcing the peace becomes also a barrier. The nature of that peace will turn us for a short time to Christ#!s Resurrection, but after it, we have to come down from the mount and to surrvive the temptation. We know that the peace is a matter of justice and there is no peace without justice. We feel with pain how many injustice is built into the peace what we were offered or inputted to. And while we cry for peace and reconciliation, we are left thirsty and hunger of justice without which it is hard to believe in the future of this country”. Emphasizing that almost two third of Vrh-Bosnia diocese had been totally destroyed, Vrh-Bosnia Archbishop Vinko Cardinal Puljić and Sarajevo assistant bishop Pero Sudar, at the moment “when our disappearance is so painful that we could not speak up and so fast that those, who are dying with us, do not believe us entirely” and “our cry does not reach those who should, for their sake, help us”, call for more courage to believe in the message Christ confined us and “the readiness not to deny his miracles at this country. ” “While this world call and force us to move to others#! homes, to others#! territories, to others#! past, Christ calls us to return to our homes, to the land of our ancestors, to our future. That is our human, religious and national temptation. Our Getsemani; our GoIgota. We are calling on return, by this occasion, too. We consider that as our sacred duty and we shall not stop to do it”, bishops call because “we do not want to believe that the, frost of this war had killed our, deep roots in this beautiful country and that, this spring, there will be no signs of life. ” “In this meaning, we call and encourage you to be together as brothers around the Resurrected Lord so that each of us could join the spiritual and material renewal and to feel how Easter morning dawns upon us”, says at the end of the Easter message of Vrh-Bosnia bishops to priests, friars, nuns and faithful believers.