A recently opened chapel in Hungary, commemorating the two occasions that preceded the primary riots in the West, is a prayer shrine for global peace.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — What if Hungary’s enduring Christian identity embodied a message to the West?
This option is advisable through the unexpected convergences in time between the first International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) in Hungary, held in May 1938 when Europe was about to plunge into a war of unprecedented atrocity, and the one held in September 2021. , a few months before the resumption of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which once again disappointed the geopolitical balances of the Old Continent.
For many Hungarian faithful, this moment is not a coincidence, but rather part of a larger plan of God, who history has distilled his messages to various parts of the world, whether through apparitions or occasions of wonderful symbolic significance.
For them, the two events, which counted as usual on the advance of a deep popular fervour, constituted a spiritual preparation both for the supply of the faithful and for the universal Church, on the eve of the tribulations for Europe and the West.
Driven by this deep conviction, the local communities joined forces to erect a chapel commemorating the two events, destined for a foreign pilgrimage site for the peace of peoples. Located in the center of a nature park on the outskirts of Budapest, the new sanctuary was inaugurated. last December through the Primate of Hungary and Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Cardinal Péter Erdő.
“The 1938 Congress was a special moment of grace, marked by a wonderful and intense prayer for peace, with special fear for the Catholics of the German Empire who might not attend [Hitler had forbidden their participation in the event],” Cardinal Erdő said in his speech in an interview with the Register.
The International Eucharistic Congress is a devout gathering of clergy and laity with the goal of evangelizing the world through the adoration of the Eucharist. In 2021, the 52nd foreign congress will be held in Budapest, which will take place since its launch in 1881 in Lille, France.
Held from May 25 to 29, 1938, in a climate of deep fear as the risk of war in Europe became evident, that year’s collection attracted thousands of people from all over Hungary and many other countries, united in their unwavering religion. in Divine Providence and Eucharistic devotion.
It was precisely to forge a common front of Christians opposed to the rise of the unholy ideologies of the time – Nazism and Communism – that Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, papal legate who would become Pope Pius XII a few months later, appealed to the other 150,000 people. gathered in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square on the opening day of the celebrations.
“This Eucharistic Congress represented a kind of religious preparation for all the others represented, on the eve of the terrible trial that was World War II,” Cardinal Erdő said, noting that Pius XII himself would later mention this event as a special spiritual gift offered in Hungary, to help her overcome the war and the Soviet race that oppressed her people until 1989.
In September 2021, more than 80 years after the first CIS in Budapest, the second assembly was held in a world deeply shaken by the COVID-19 outbreak. It is the first large-scale Catholic event since the start of COVID lockdowns in March 2020. , which resulted in the suspension of all religious observances in most Western countries, as well as a gigantic number of other public civil liberties. No one imagined then that just a few months later, war would once again be at the gates of the Old Continent. in Ukraine in February 2022.
The revival in 2021 of the chorus of the official hymn of the 1938 Congress — “O adorable Redeemer, Jesus in the Eucharist, bless this land of peace and honor” — increases, according to the Primate of Hungary, the providential dimension of the Gospel of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“This CIS 2021 was a very hard religious experience, an unforgettable encounter that culminated in the wonderful candlelight procession and the final Mass of Pope Francis the next morning,” Cardinal Erdő continued. It is the first time in 21 years that a pope has attended this foreign event.
“When the war broke out in Ukraine, a few months later, many of us felt that Providence had returned once again to give a wonderful sign to all the faithful, to make it easier for them to suffer and face the new difficulties of history. who were opening up to us with a spirituality that was in fact Catholic.
He pointed out that St. John Paul II was also in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square during the failed 1991 coup d’état in Moscow, which formalized the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The preference for more permanently rooting those religious gifts in the Hungarian draped landscape temporarily spread among the faithful after the 2021 celebrations. This preference was learned through the construction of a memorial chapel as a center of prayer for peace.
Located in the Normafa Nature Park on the outskirts of Budapest and inaugurated on December 8, the new chapel is symbolic in more ways than one.
While several chapels were built in the territory thanks to peasant communities after the country’s liberation from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 17th century, it was on the site of a chapel dedicated to St. Anne that is projected to pray for peace. they were initiated.
At that time, the local faithful had expressed the usual desire to erect an expiatory chapel in honor of the Virgin Regina Mundi (“Queen of the World”). At the end of World War II, the same network followed the tradition, initiated through Cardinal József Mindszenty, of the Rosary of Atonement every first Saturday of the month, still nurturing the same hope that its chapel assignment would come to fruition.
But it wasn’t until the 2021 CIS, and then the war in Ukraine, that his movement gained the momentum to make it a reality, as candlelit processions for peace and new rosary chains were prayed in the vicinity.
“In fact, I was moved by the fervor of those teams of faithful, and after celebrating a Rosary Mass on the first Saturday of the month, the day after the CEI, I promised to help them,” Cardinal Erdő said.
A fund-raising campaign was then launched among the faithful of the region, which in a few months managed to raise the mandatory amount.
“It may not be a commission of the magnitude imagined 80 years ago, but the result is at the same time modern, undeniable and very aesthetic,” said the cardinal, who fondly remembers the beautiful snowy day on which he inaugurated the chapel. on the occasion of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. “Warnings from the authorities about the threat of diversion that day did not dampen the motivation of the crowd, who came despite the crowds to welcome this new prayer center, and the birthday party was truly memorable. “
Among the faithful present was also a group of pilgrims who arrived from Poland on horseback in classic costumes, and others from Romania, a sign of the universal success of the new prayer center.
The parallels between 1938 and 2021, which leave room for interpretation, the Lord’s tactics being inscrutable, nevertheless seem, for many, to send a message to European Christendom that is facing an unprecedented convergence of existential threats.
This is also warned by Cardinal Erdő, who pointed out that his local country has been constantly threatened with extinction throughout its history, being subject to wars, invasions and political crises. What has preserved the Hungarian people, he believes, is their determination to stay alive. as a network founded fundamentally on its not unusual Christian identity.
Indeed, according to tradition, the first king of the country, St. Stephen, having no heir to the throne and fearing for the survival of his people, entrusted his crown to the Virgin Mary before his death in 1038, thus bringing his kingdom under her protection. This founding history underpins the entire history of the country, known as the “Kingdom of Mary. “In his 1938 speech, Cardinal Pacelli described Hungary as a “bulwark of Christian Europe in tragic times. “
“It is certain that our liberation from the Turkish profession has also been attributed to the intercession of Our Lady, as evidenced by many icons in our national shrines, such as the one in Máriapócs, with the icon of the weeping Virgin,” Cardinal Erdő said. Said.
And this dynamic, which in painting for more than three hundred years, has lost none of its relevance in the face of the demanding situations of the world of fashion.
“While today we are told that minor nations, cultures and languages will have to be forgotten,” the Hungarian primate concluded, “we believe that, in the midst of all the crises we face in the West, our providential task is to remain alive as a state-community, keeping our gaze fixed on Christ.
Solène Tadié Solène Tadié is the European correspondent for the National Catholic Register. After graduating with a degree in journalism from Roma III University, she began reporting on Rome and the Vatican for Aleteia. He joined L’Osservatore Romano in 2015, where he worked successively for the French segment and the cultural pages of the Italian newspaper. He has also collaborated with several French-language Catholic media outlets. Solène holds a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas and recently translated into French (for Salvator Editions) Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy Through the Father.
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