Invisible handshake

The wind always blows in the Carpatian Basin. Sometimes it arrives from a closer, sometimes
from a further place. Near and far are relative concepts. There are times when we feel the
person sitting next to us very far and those who are thousands of kilometres away very close.
Today, the wind brings the chime of bells. They will chime in Hungary and over its borders.
Their sounds meet in the air to make all nations remember that once we lived in peace. But
one hundred years ago everything has changed with a stroke of a pen.
It has been exactly one hundred years when the peace treaty of Trianon has been signed. With
the redrawing of the borders, nations and churches got into a very undeserving and difficult
situation. The Hungarian Catholic Church has suffered serious losses of its area as well many
of its followers. People were torn apart from each other. Families, communities, nations were
fragmented and the expression of border was given a new, bitter meaning. Being a Hungarian
here suddenly meant something very different than being a Hungarian over the border. And
being a follower of the Catholic Church inside the borders of a new, shrinked Hungary was
not the same any more as outside the country.
There is much pain in these hundred years. Today when the bells toll, let’s try to remember
not only the tragedies. There are so much value and beauty among the nations around us.
Let’s try to find the common points, the ways of finding back to each other and see the good
things in each other. We are Christians which can not depend on borders, nations, external
decisions. Our Christianity comes from us, our faith and devotion.
Today afternoon, when the bells start to chime at 4.30, don’t just pray – act as well. We all
have relatives and friends over the borders. Call them. Send them a message so that for at
least until those 100 seconds while the bells toll, let’s create an invisible net of souls where all
people of the Carpathian Basin can belong, bound with the ancient memory, in the name of
true Christianity and reconciliation.

Forrás: NEK

Fordítás: Orsolya Gyarmati