Posted on 09/16/2013 11:40:20 AM PDT by NYer
FULL TITLE:
“On the contrary, mercy is the true force that can save man and the world from the ‘cancer’ of sin, of moral and spiritual evil. Only love fills the emptiness, the negative chasms that evil opens in hearts and history.”
During his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis focused on the three parables in today’s Gospel—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son—and on the centrality of mercy to the Christian life. “If, in our hearts, there is no mercy, no joy of forgiveness, we are not in communion with God, even if we observe all his precepts because it is love that saves, not only the practice of his precepts,” the Holy Father said.
If we live according to the law of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, we cannot come out of the spiral of evil. The Evil One is smart. He dupes us into thinking that human justice can save us and save the world. In fact, only God’s justice can save us! And God’s justice revealed itself on the Cross. …
All three parables speak of God’s joy. God is joyful! That is something interesting. What is God’s joy? Forgiveness. God’s joy is forgiveness! It is the joy of the shepherd who finds his sheep; the joy of the woman who finds her coin; it is the joy of the father who welcomes home a son who was lost, who was as good as dead, but is alive again, back home. This is the whole Gospel. This is the whole of Christianity!
Yet, there is nothing sentimental about it, nor a sense of ‘doing good’! On the contrary, mercy is the true force that can save man and the world from the ‘cancer’ of sin, of moral and spiritual evil. Only love fills the emptiness, the negative chasms that evil opens in hearts and history. Only love can do this and this is God’s joy.
Jesus is all mercy, all love. He is God made man. Everyone here is the lost sheep, the lost coin, and each of us is the son who has wasted his freedom following false idols, the illusions of happiness, and lost everything. He is a patient father. He respects our freedom, but remains loyal. And when we return to Him, he welcomes us as children, into his house, because he never stops, not even for a moment, to wait for us, with love. And his heart celebrates every child who comes back. He celebrates because it is joy. He celebrates when one of us sinners comes back.
What is the danger? To think that we are just; that we can judge others; that we can judge God because we think he should punish sinners; condemn them to death, instead of forgiving them. That is when we risk remaining outside of our Father’s house! Like the older brother in the parable, who instead of being happy because his brother was back, got angry with his father who welcomes him and celebrates. …
Only God’s justice can save us! And God’s justice revealed itself on the Cross. The Cross is God’s judgment on all of us and on this world. But how does God judge us? By giving his life for us. Behold the supreme act of justice that defeated once and for all the Prince of this world. This supreme act of justice is also one of mercy. Jesus called us all to follow this path. “Be merciful,” he said, “just as [. . .] your Father is merciful” (Lk, 6:36).
Now I ask you one thing. Let each one of you think about a person with whom you do not get along, with whom you are angry. In silence, think about this person, pray for this person and let yourself become merciful towards this person.
“...and if they read Romans through Philemon”
Salvation in another thread renounced Paul and all his epistles, saying he didn’t meet Jesus in person. So, she won’t “read Romans through Philemon” any time soon.
Something tells me God won’t be asking her about her knowledge of saints and their recipes of the day. He WILL be asking her of Paul’s message in this age of grace (Romans 2:16). Especially since this is the time she is living. To each his own, I guess. Perhaps she can impress Him with the St. Lucia Lasagne, but I’m thinking no...:)
I completely agree with you on that. A false, disordered compassion --- which ends up further corrupting the guilty while being endlessly cruel to the innocent --- is the moral affliction of our age.
Why are you bringing things from one thread to another — as if gossiping?
I thought it was against the Religion Moderator’s rules. Look at his homepage.
Why are you bringing things from one thread to another — as if gossiping?
I thought it was against the Religion Moderator’s rules. Look at his homepage.
WHAT “one thread to another”??? PLEASE, stop being paranoid, Sal. Religion Moderator, I have absolutely NO CLUE as to what Salvation is talking about here. There is NO “gossip” going on. And certainly no “bringing things from one thread to another”. That would entail me actually KNOWING what is on one thread to put it on another. And I can ASSURE both you and Salvation I do NOT have the time, energy, or desire to look backwards. Cripes, give me a break here...
Post 26 is for you, also. In my shock, I forgot to include your name.
Oh, just stop it, Salvation. You cannot handle your unhappiness with me for yourself? You MUST run to the RM with your uncomfortable and uneasy attitude toward me and my posts? How about you just tell me? You know the public posts position. Hang around in the caucus if you don’t want to be virtually offended. I cannot help you overcome shadow offenses. They exist only in your mind. Now, try to relax and have a nice evening. Your lips are gonna get stuck in that pursed position if you don’t learn to lighten up.
From the Religion Moderator’s page linked above:
Linking to Previous Posts on the Religion Forum:
The objective, on the Religion Forum, of not bringing forward disputes from prior threads is to discourage flame wars spreading, in particular the needling or badgering of other posters by bringing up their past remarks, again and again.
However, if you were to say “I recall your saying something else on an earlier thread” and the poster challenged you “Oh yeah, where?” then you would be obligated to link to the previous thread and I would not pull it.
If you want to argue the previous claim, then go back to the earlier thread, ping all the interested parties and say something like “Here you say the sky is green. Why?” The respondent will be obligated then to explain the green comment in context with that particular thread and parties involved in it.
If however you are seeking to “impeach the witness” by showing he waffles back and forth THAT is “making it personal” and I will pull it to avoid a flame war.
And if you are trying to embarrass another Freeper by recalling his inconvenient comments from prior threads, THAT is also “making it personal” and I will pull it to avoid a flame war.
A poster may quote himself from a prior thread. And he may link to articles he has previously posted. That is not “making it personal” - he is merely reasserting his own views. He may link to articles posted by others or other posters’ remarks which are not part of any dispute, e.g. “You hit the nail on the head when you said...”
If however he is linking to an article posted by someone else - and that article was a “caucus” of which he was not a member - then I might pull the post anyway if I think it would have the affect of defeating the caucus label. Besides, he can always quote the source article directly without seemingly trying to work around the caucus protection.
you were pinged, Salvation. That’s what makes it NOT GOSSIP. Keep on. I’m asking the RM if they can update their rules and guidelines by including a paragraph or two on how to deal with fretters and bed-wetters on this forum. You were pinged, deal with it.
“One of my pet peeves is the misuse of scripture to preempt opposition to evil. People twist “An eye for an eye” to prevent fitting punishment for crimes, “Judge not” to prevent discernment of right and wrong, “Thou shalt not kill” prevents self-defense or temporal justice, etc.
This is a common tactic of the Left and those who espouse an effeminate faith. “Sure, he raped and murdered that little girl, but who are we to judge? We must forgive him and he must be allowed to live.”
People who think this way say “God is love” but they mean “Love is God.”
Bingo!
“One of my pet peeves is the misuse of scripture to preempt opposition to evil. People twist “An eye for an eye” to prevent fitting punishment for crimes, “Judge not” to prevent discernment of right and wrong, “Thou shalt not kill” prevents self-defense or temporal justice, etc.
This is a common tactic of the Left and those who espouse an effeminate faith. “Sure, he raped and murdered that little girl, but who are we to judge? We must forgive him and he must be allowed to live.”
People who think this way say “God is love” but they mean “Love is God.”
Bingo!
smvoice, this is not the place. Please behave
Thanks.
welcome
just as soon as you post the same to Salvation. She is the one, after all, who began this ridiculous rant. And please do not tell me to “behave”. Anyone who is falsely accused of something would “behave” in the same manner.
It’s my fault, since I mentioned Salvation’s recent renouncing of the Apostle Paul, since someone recommended she read his epistles. I didn’t think it would cause such a hubbub.
No, it’s not your fault, GPH. It’s about power and hurt feelings. That’s IT. It seems to me that once a person makes a statement on an open forum, he owns it. And it’s his to defend. Running and tattling to the RM when a person gets his rosary in a bunch is quite a way of standing strong in the faith. I am as willing as the next person to forget it and move on, but “sometimes being a *!_@U is all you’ve got” (Kathy Bates, Dolores Claiborne), not me, Salvation, “cursing again”, a QUOTE.
I’m going to leave this post for now. It’s only going to deteriorate further from here. Salvation, DO NOT post to me again. Your comments, suggestions, recipes, or “walking in the beatitudes” is not welcome. That’s all I will say.
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