Magyar Egyház, 1966 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1966-11-01 / 11-12. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 11 life. This is true of both the poor and the rich, those who suffer from injustice or war, and those who do not. They long to know who they are, the source and purpose of their lives, and the ways they should relate to one another. Christians are too seldom helpfully involved in the spiritual needs of Mother people. We know Jesus Christ is the answer to our own deepest spiritual longings. We know sharing him is like offering food to hungry people. We do feed some people. But j many of us hesitate to share our Christian faith. We believe Jesus Christ is in the midst of life and will have the last word in history. Therefore we must not hesitate to proclaim the gracious God and live as the gracious neighbor. Out of these basic Christian convictions we in this Assembly call upon the constituents of this Council to concern themselves actively with the great responsibilities that have confronted this Assembly, including the basic need of men to know the living Christ and, under His Lordship, seek the elimination of racial injustice, poverty, hunger, war, and the disunity in the household of Christ. Individually and together we are involved in the sin that continues to threaten mankind. Let us repent and ask forgiveness of God and of our fellow men. Let us rejoice in the gains that have been made and commit ourselves afresh to further study and action. Let us profess together our faith by deed and by word THAT THE WORLD MAY KNOW. The retiring president, Bishop Reuben H. Mueller The new president of the National Council Dr. Arthur S. Flemming Tibor Toth Pilgrims Of The Night As we look back on the events of the past and peer into the yet undiscovered future we think of nomadic Abraham of old who looked for a city which had foundations. Even the pilgrim is looking for some fair port where he may disembark. But are we really pilgrims or sojourners? Are we here to stay or here on some vaster way, on which our life today is but a lap? Is there any truth more inescapable than the fact that we are pilgrims? I’m a pilgrim and I’m a stranger. I can tarry, I can tarry but a night. Do not detain me, for I am going To where the fountains are ever flowing. I’m a pilgrim, Tm a pilgrim, I can tarry, 1 can tarry but a night. The ceaseless stars confirm our pilgrim faith. So do the courses of nature. So does human experience, whether recorded on the pages of history or on the tablets of our personal memory. We are pilgrims. Who is the practical man of affairs, he who takes no account of the basic fact of life’s pilgrimage and acts as though the universe had given him a nine hundred and ninety-year lease on a corner of the earth, or he who ponders deeply the mystery of life, and who strives to live as pilgrims should, with a high sense of destiny? You know the true answer! Are you living in the light of it? Are you under the compulsion and thrill of it? We are pilgrims, pilgrims of the night, but not pilgrims whose destiny is night. We are pilgrims of the night but the eternal day is our fair haven. Toiling, struggling, fainting, “weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning.” “Why must it have been that my beloved son should have been stricken down at his post of duty in Vietnam?” cries an anguished mother of her darling lad, whose life was snuffed out in one bold, brave moment of heroic adventure. Why was it? Only the everlasting day will tell! Yet it is ever so that out of the bloody travail of pilgrims through the night, the day is born. On every great scientific and industrial field, in the bivouac of battle and on the highways of human struggle and toil, destiny lays its fateful load upon the shoulders of the pilgrims of the night. The argosies of the seven seas are not carried on excursion boats but upon craft that put out into the face of the deep, “gainst storm and wind and tide.” So once again come what may it shall be full sail ahead. And out of the darkness of the pilgrim night shall presently, yes, even suddenly, break the dawning light of the endless day. With two hands upon the helm, yours and His, you shall come to your desired haven.
