“Be renewed!” Asks the Motto of this Year’s Pentecost Pilgrimage of Șumuleu Ciuc

MTI-Hungary Today 2024.05.19.

Only with a living and active faith can we create peace in this war-torn world, when physical and spiritual warfare is upon us, and this is why we need renewal and strengthening in faith and love, stressed László Felföldi, Bishop of the Diocese of Pécs, the speaker of this year’s Pentecost Pilgrimage of Șumuleu Ciuc (Csíksomlyó), in his sermon.

Despite the rainy morning on Pentecost Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world came to the Holy Mass in front of the “Hármashalom” (“Triple hill”) Altar. This year’s event is organized under the motto “Be renewed!”.

Photo: MTI/Kátai Edit

Fact

The Pentecost Pilgrimage of Şumuleu Ciuc is the largest religious and ritual event of Hungarian Christians and Catholics in the Carpathian Basin, an event in the area around the Franciscan monastery. The pilgrimage and the local sacred rites look back onto a history that dates back hundreds of years. The Pentecost Pilgrimage of Şumuleu Ciu began in 1567, and has become the most significant pilgrimage of Hungarians since 1990. Each year during Pentecost, tens of thousands of pilgrims flood the center of the Csík Basin and the roads that lead to Şumuleu Ciuc. According to tradition the village-based groups called, in Hungarian, ‘keresztalja‘ process to Şumuleu Ciuc from villages all around the site carrying banners with images of their village’s patron saint.

László Felföldi said that the message that shapes and renews our lives does not come from outside. “It is born in our hearts and thus becomes a resolution and then a realization.

However, it requires a living relationship with God and with each other. Living and sustaining prayer is the essential foundation, sustaining force and source of the renewal that awaits us,”

he emphasized. In his sermon, he dedicated a special section to young people, warning them against the dangers of the digital world and pointing out that they, “young people who are pursuing the future, building the future”, also need the joy of faith.

Photo: MTI/Kátai Edit

He asked the faithful not to be mere spectators or observers, but active participants in the communities of their lives.

Photo: MTI/Kátai Edit

László Felföldi thanked the young people for their presence, emphasizing that they have to walk a path in life that no one has ever walked before, and asked them to be good role models, friends, and to be demanding not only of their clothes, but also of their spiritual and intellectual nourishment.

Do not let the evil of the virtual world destroy your human dignity!”

the speaker highlighted.

Photo:MTI/Kátai Edit

He underlined that only by living faith can families and children be saved from the confusion and inhuman ideas on the Internet, and the honor of reason, the sanctity of the family table and the saving power of human community.

Photo: MTI/Kátai Edit

This year, many people arrived on foot, with several of them taking the last kilometers in pouring rain. Others came on the three pilgrimage trains from Hungary, while some people arrived from different parts of Transylvania by car, bus, bicycle or horseback. Among the pilgrims were Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, János Árpád Potápi, Secretary of State for National Policy and Hunor Kelemen, President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) party.

Photo: MTI/Kátai Edit

Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén underlined that Hungarians from Transylvania, Slovakia, Transcarpathia, Vojvodina, the motherland, the United States and everywhere else had come to the celebrations at Şumuleu Ciuc.

This strengthens us in our Hungarianness, our togetherness and our Christianity,”

said Zsolt Semjén, emphasizing the power of being together.

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Via MTI; Featured image via MTI/Kátai Edit