The patriarch of Lisbon, Rui Valério, said today that Portugal must “find the strength and will to overcome its difficulties” in order to “overcome a certain paralysis it suffers from”, recalling the 50th anniversary of April 25.
“Exactly 50 years ago, and in the middle of Easter time, [Portugal] took to the streets to bring about a change that brought democracy and gave the people a voice and a place. Today, Portugal must once again go to the fountain of resurrection and find the strength and will to overcome its difficulties,” he warned in the homily of the Easter Sunday Mass.
In the Easter ceremony that took place this morning in Lisbon’s Cathedral, Rui Valério stressed that the country has to “overcome a certain paralysis it suffers from, caused by complacency and, not infrequently, resignation”.
The cleric also recalled the “Easter of the Resurrection of Jesus” as a “source of inspiration” for peoples and nations, so that they “undertake renewed revolutions, or profound transformations in their social and political fabric”.
In his homily, the Patriarch of Lisbon emphasized that life is made up of “unforeseen and unnoticeable events most of the time”, exclaiming that there should be no fear.
“We must not be afraid, we must not be prisoners of what our eyes show, or our ears feel, or our intelligence understands. To do so is to be held hostage, to remain buried in the darkness of death… It is necessary, it is urgent, to connect with the source of life and what it teaches us and gives us that is beautiful,” he said.
For the religious, only faith in the resurrection “contemplates springs of new life, where the eyes see only misfortune and loneliness”.
Rui Valério evoked Christ’s resurrection, noting that it “offers every man and woman the possibility of being reborn”, as well as “implanting eternal life in the very existence of humanity” and “illuminating the world with the light of hope, to build paths and bonds of peace between nations”.
“It is also the resurrection, and only the resurrection, which, by its very renewing character, communicates the indispensable strength to rebuild lives and existences; stories and paths of a new world, where everything is lived in common and the horizon is the eternity of love, because the source is in the newness of Easter,” he added.
