May it not be an empty word

Brussels: the Chapel for Europe, also called the Resurrection Chapel, in Van Maerlantstraat, is just a few steps away from Wiertzstraat, where is located the EU Parliament building whose external façade is embellished with the images of Croatia, the 28th Member Country of the European Union as of July 1st 2013. The two venues are close to one another, as they are separated only by rue Belliard, but a great intangible distance appears to separate the small church from the great palace. In one of the sites people gather for silent prayer, while the other is marked by lively political debate and institutional activity. The distance seems to be an unbridgeable gap. What can a silent chapel communicate to a large building with multi-language debates?There appears to be neither occasion nor possibility for encounter. Moreover, these two places are separated by a road, not by a wall.  Indeed, you have to be careful, as rue Belliard is a highly trafficked street, but you can cross and re-cross at any moment. It isn’t an insurmountable barrier. This depiction of the street exemplifies the basic ideas underlying the “Week for hope”, proposed a few days ago in Brussels by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) to reinterpret with original language the pastoral post-synod exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa” by John Paul II in the tenth anniversary of its publication on June 29, 2003.  In crossing the road separating so close yet so distant sites guidance is provided by the saints, martyrs and faith witnesses who across the centuries, states COMECE president cardinal card. Reinhard Marx, “have marked European history”. Jerzy Popieluszko, Pino Puglisi, John Henry Newman, Josef Henry Cardijn, Hildegarda Burjan, Bernardino da Siena, Karl Leisner, Gabriel Piguet, Christian de Cherge, Hildegard von Bingen, Pedro Poveda, Willibrord “invite us to advance with security in the experience of alterity among European peoples, among different religions, believers and humanists, men and women, in order to invent not only a market but also an art of coexistence, whereby the contribution of one is echoed in the contribution of others. They are inscribed within our political constructions, which sometimes may appear remarkably laborious, within the mysterious design of the Father, a design of unity”. The reflection refers to the monks of Thibirine, kidnapped and killed in 1996. But on the wake of the European martyrs in Africa we find all those who travelled along the streets of Europe in epochs that were not less difficult and sad than today’s, never failing to fulfil their desire to express with their own lives the reasons for hope. Theirs was an intense -albeit also tragic and suffered – communication with the realms of culture, society, politics and science. They followed the footsteps of Peter, marked by rectitude, respect and amiableness.  Today, which is the message of those who have been at the relentless service of others and who remind us that “serving” stands for “political action?” In order to reach out to the conscience of those inhabiting the realms of politics and institutions, some messages are not tabled. They are conveyed at unforeseen times and follow unpredictable itineraries, timeframes and approaches. There is a kind of communication that escapes old and new media barriers. There are houses near the chapel and near the EU building. The messages of Europe and for Europe raise questions in the consciences of those who  are called to elect the representatives of EU bodies in ten months, to “invent not only a market, but most of all, an art of living together, whereby the contribution of one is echoed in the contribution of others”. It is the time of wait, as underlined not only by experts’ forecasts but also by the spiritual and intellectual heritage of those for whom hope – in periods less dark than the present times – was their personal, concrete gift to Europe. A multi-coloured European horizon is possible also thanks to memory. Memory is a presence-absence, which in the churches, in homes, cannot remain confined to framed portraits or in books. Rather, it should become the facet of all those who before those portraits and those books feel the strong call and the personal responsibility without which hope, even for Europe, would be an empty word.