Pope Francis speaks to pilgrims during his Wednesday General Audience on April 23, 2014 Credit: Kyle Burkhart/CNA
Posted on 05/15/2014 2:15:20 PM PDT by NYer
.- Pope Francis reflected in his daily Mass on how the apostles evangelized by first telling the history of God’s people, explaining that it’s impossible to understand a Christian without this association.
“You cannot understand a Christian outside of the people of God. The Christian is not a monad,” but “belongs to a people: the Church,” the Pope observed in his May 15 homily.
“A Christian without a church is something purely idealistic, it is not real.”
Beginning by looking to the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, the Roman Pontiff addressed those gathered in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse by recalling how when Paul preached in Antioch, he did so by first recounting the whole of Israel’s salvation history.
“Jesus does not make sense without this history” because he “is the end of this story, (the end) toward which this story goes, toward which it walks,” he noted, so “you cannot understand a Christian outside of the people of God.”
“You cannot understand a Christian alone, just like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone” the Pope went on to say, explaining that “Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us.”
“No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history.”
Pope Francis then described how a Christian without a history, a nation or the Church “is incomprehensible,” saying that it’s “a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life.”
Drawing attention to the importance of remembering this “dimension of history,” the Bishop of Rome observed that a Christian is “a living memory of his people’s journey, he is the living memory of his Church.”
“Then, where is this people going? Toward the ultimate promise. It is a people walking toward fullness; a chosen people which has a promise for the future and walks toward this promise, toward the fulfillment of this promise.”
In order to do this Christians within the Church must be men and women “with hope: hope in the promise,” the Pope went on, noting that “It is not expectation: no, no! That’s something else: It is hope.”
“Right, on we go! (Toward) that which does not disappoint.”
Explaining how a Christian is also someone who remembers, the pontiff encouraged all present to “seek the grace of memory, always” so that by doing so and also looking forward with hope they might be a Christian who “follows the path of God and renews the covenant with God.”
This type of Christian constantly tells the Lord “Yes, I want the commandments, I want your will, I will follow you” he continued, adding that “He is a man of the covenant, and we celebrate the covenant, every day” in the Mass, therefore a Christian is “a woman, a man of the Eucharist.”
Concluding his reflections, Pope Francis encouraged all present to “think about our Christian identity,” stating that “Our Christian identity is belonging to a people: the Church.”
“Without this, we are not Christians” he observed, noting how “we entered the Church through baptism: there we are Christians.”
“For this reason, we should be in the habit of asking for the grace of memory, the memory of the journey that the people of God has made,” the pontiff said, and “also of personal memory: What God did for me, in my life, how has he made me walk…”
Praying, the Roman Pontiff asked “for the grace of hope, which is not optimism: no, no! It's something else,” and asked “for the grace to renew the covenant with the Lord who has called us every day.”
“May the Lord give us these three graces, which are necessary for the Christian identity.”
Thanks.
YHAOS: Liberals are trying to inflict their culture, which includes a monstrous perversion of Christianity, on Western Civilization Culture. And I must say they have been largely
successful at the enterprise.
Spirited: Permit me as well to suggest a slight correction. Rather than the opaque, nearly meaningless term ‘liberal’ why not say:
Evil-minded natural men, ‘beast-men’ to early conservative intellectuals, are inflicting our culture with their disordered passions—pride, jealousy, covetousness, lust, envy—and resulting words and behaviors—insufferable self-righteousness, bullying, endemic lying, threats, slander, theft, perversion of youth, etc. Their success can be seen by the evil condition of our culture described by St. Augustine as libido dominandi.
What you are describing, I think, is the Liberal’s vision of how to get things done.
You would be WRONG...
The “right-wing”.. to me are left wing..
I’m soo far to the right.. I fell off the bird..
In contrast to the socialist pope who calls for “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State"?
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Actually, I think a lot of the change in definition of the term *Christian* has come from within the church.
*Christian* is a noun, a person who is a follower of Christ, born again according to Scripture.
Our culture has come to use the name as an adjective, saying that the person is a Christian person, meaning they behave as would be expected from a Christian, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have ever put their trust in Christ.
Or sometimes people say they’re a Christian, because they’re not Jewish, or Mormon, or Muslim, or whatever. It’s a label, not a true description of who they are.
So I find it useless to ask someone if they are a Christian, because most people would say yes, meaning they think they are good people, but not because of their identifying with Christ.
When the Pope is taking about being a member of the Church, he mentions Mass. Guess where Mass is held? He was referring to the Christians that comprise the Catholic Church, and Orthodox Church, not ecclesial communities, which protestants are a member of. Everything he said is true.
or at least they hope it is
Said pope number 3.
Lots of little pope hats running 'round this joint.
And...they're battling it out...
Who will prevail this go 'round? The always second-guessers? The "what he really meant to say was" pope jrs? Or the pope-corn poppers who snack while watching all the kerfuffle-ing?
I copied and pasted it from your post #78! Your exact words! Go back and look!
Some exercises are left to the student.
But I'll bite anyway. Why would you think the earthbound perception of time applies to heaven? God created Heaven before time itself existed.
Those quotes make my point exactly. Compare those quotes with Francis’ quotes. Totally not the same.
More 'science' the church teaches?
Genesis, actually. Its right near the front of the bible, you might want to give it a once over.
My attention has been so directed. What am I supposed to see/conclude from these narratives? IOW, what am I MISSING?
“You left out “nanny nanny boo boo”.”
It clearly wasn’t necessary since you resorted to saying it.
“The childish back and forth with freepers who either can’t follow a logical argument, of refuse to do so because it would cause them to admit they are wrong gets really tiring.”
Your feelings are your problem. If you feel tired, take a nap.
“I made a logical argument.”
No, actually you didn’t.
“You won’t accept it. I’m not going to engage in a poisonous tit-for-tat with you.”
Take your ball and go home.
“I’m droping out here.”
You barely showed up here to begin with.
As a general rule, I only lurk on RCC-themed threads. With my "tact", my comments are sure to offend someone on one side or the other... '-)
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