Seven Homilies to the Youth: Part II

By Fr George Calciu.
Continued from Part I.

Below is the second recorded homily given in opposition to the law, in a series of “seven homilies to the youth” delivered as lenten meditations by Fr George Calciu to the youth in Romania. Under communist rule in Romania, Fr George was taken prisoner by the authorities for refusing to become a puppet of the government. He preached the truth openly to a society that was being contorted into a materialistic one, being stripped of all spiritual life. In the face of cruel imprisonment and unimaginable torture for which he suffered for many years, Fr George delivered to the youth a series of homilies of consolation, leading them away from the pernicious lies of a totalitarian materialistic society in order to find freedom in Christ–the Godman who was outlawed.

Homily II.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)

YOU REMEMBER, young person, how I told you last time that a new voice is calling and that this is the voice of Jesus? But from where and to what does He call you? What alluring promise to assuage your thirst for knowledge and truth does the Saviour make? The voice of Jesus calls you to His Church.

You live within a family, within a society, within a world. You are bound to your family by the unbreakable bond of blood, which you cannot reject and which seeks vengeance, if ever you betray it, through your suffering. You live in the midst of a people with which you feel to be one metaphysical entity — not a group of isolated individuals, but one immense and united soul in which you are the whole and in which the whole lives through you. And finally you exist in a world of suffering and joys to which you respond because something in you unites and binds you inextricably to all your fellow human beings.

Where then is the Church of Christ to which you are called? She is everywhere. She holds within her all human life, and more, she contains all heavenly beings too. For the Church knows no history; her history is the spiritual present. Family and society bear within them the tragic fate of their own limitations through the cir­cumscription of history. History is, by definition, the chronology of unhappiness, yet the road to salvation. But you, my young friend, are called to the Church of Christ which was conceived in God’s eternity and which bears within her perfection, just as the world bears within her her own limited nature. Society considers you as a simple constituting element, one brick lined up alongside other bricks. Your freedom is to function as a brick fixed once, for all time. Your freedom in society is the freedom of constraint and in this lies your drama. For your true freedom lies within you, but you do not know how to discover it in its true meaning, nor how to use it if you could discover it. You have been told that you are not free, that your freedom is the understanding of necessity and that necessity is imposed upon you from the outside by a foreign element. You are just like a lifeless construction.

In contrast, the Church of Christ is alive and free. In her we move and have our being, through Christ Who is her head. In Him we have full freedom. In the Church we learn of truth and the truth will set us free (John 8:32). You are in Christ’s Church whenever you uplift some­one bent down in sorrow, or when you give alms to the poor and visit the sick. You are in Christ’s Church when you cry out: “Lord, help me”. You are in Christ’s Church when you are good and patient, when you refuse to get angry at your brother, even if he has wounded your feelings. You are in Christ’s Church when you pray: “Lord, forgive him”. When you work honestly at your job, returning home weary in the evenings but with a smile upon your lips, when you repay evil with love —you are in Christ’s Church.

Do you not see, therefore, young friend, how close the Church of Christ is? You are Peter and God is building His Church upon you. You are the rock of His Church against which nothing can prevail. You are a liberated rock, a soul that is fulfilled within His Church, and not one condemned to stagnation. Let us build churches with our faith. Churches which no human power can pull down. A church whose foundation is Christ. Let us build churches in our enlightened hearts where there shines the bright Sun of Righteousness, Who is Christ Himself, He Who has told us that by faith we are free from sin.

Feel for your brother alongside you. Never ask: “Who is he?”. Rather say: “He is no stranger; he is my brother, He is the Church of Christ just as I am”.

Friend, you look behind you and you tremble with fear. But look ahead; rejoice. History is a series of ossified events in which from time to time living testimonies of princely faith have been raised, now embodied in churches and monasteries. These are treasures of the Romanian, Christian soul. They are the spirit which gives life to our national identity. All which falls outside this spirituality is destined to perish. Mountains have been leveled, forests burnt down, and people have died, but churches have remained alive and monasteries continue as censers offering a continuous smoke of prayer to heaven. If we destroy the churches which express the national identity, we cannot affirm the continuity of a Romanian spirituality, nor can we sustain that we have preserved unaltered the tradition and soul of Romania. There are no references to Romanian princes destroying the foundation of churches, or of Michael the Brave ordering the disappearance overnight of an Enea Church. No. Nor can any scientific atheism or scientific argument stop you, dear friend, from inquiring about the meaning of life, and about God and salvation.

This search is the proof of your freedom in the face of any constraint, and in the face of matter. It is your road to the Church, the gate through which you will enter into her. Do not waver on the doorstep, friend. Come in! How long will you stand in the shadows of the Church without knowing her? How many years will you hear the voice of Jesus saying to you: “He who comes unto Me, I will not cast out?”

The world will throw you on one side. It oppresses you and alienates you. Jesus wants to receive you, comfort you and return you back to yourself. Come and build churches with us. Let us reconstruct in our own souls an Enea Church, princely, Christ-centered, alive and immortal, until we see in truth a steadfast witness to our Christian faith and to our national identity rais­ed up again on her site.

Without church or monasteries we are aliens. Whoever destroys churches, destroys the substance of our material and spiritual endurance on this land given to us by God. Young man, you are no longer alone; you belong to Christ’s Church.