Letters from the Synod is written by Br Mark O’Connor FMS.
Currently in Rome for the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, Br Mark will be providing regular updates and news from the Synod.
Letter Number Two.
Pedro Casaldáliga, who is bishop emeritus of the Amazonian diocese of São Félix do Araguaia, Brazil, has penned a prophetic poem – ‘Deixa a Cúria, Pedro!’
Pope Francis is living out this poem in front of our eyes.
Here is an English translation of the poem:
LEAVE THE CURIA PETER!
Leave the Curia, Peter,
disassemble the Sanhedrin and the walls,
order all the impeccable scrolls to be changed
to words of life and love.
Let us go to the garden of the banana plantations,
undercover and by night, at any risk,
for there, the Master sweats the blood of the poor.
The tunic/vestment is this humble disfigured flesh,
so many cries of children unanswered,
and memories embroidered with the anonymous dead.
A legion of mercenaries besieges the frontier of the rising dawn
and Caesar blesses them in his arrogance.
In the tidy bowl, Pilate, legalistic and cowardly, washes himself.
The people are just a “remnant”,
a remnant of hope.
Leave them not alone among the guards and princes.
It’s time to sweat with His agony,
It’s time to drink the chalice of the poor,
lift the cross, devoid of certainties,
shatter the building — law and seal — of the Roman tomb,
and wake up to
Easter.
Tell them, tell us all
that the grotto of Bethlehem,
the Beatitudes,
and the judgement of love as food,
remain in force and steadfast.
Be no longer troubled!
As you love Him,
love us,
simply,
as an equal, brother.
Give us, with your smiles, your new tears
the fish of joy,
the bread of the word,
roses of embers …
… the clarity of the untrammeled horizon,
the Sea of Galilee,
ecumenically open to the world.
Br Mark O’Connor FMS is the Vicar for Communications in the Diocese of Parramatta and the Pope Francis Fellow, Newman College, University of Melbourne.
The Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region will be held in the Vatican from 6 to 27 October. For more information, click here.
