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.”
My mom, who is a very Christian lady and has been so as long as I have known her, hasn’t been to church in 15 years, because she physically cannot go.
Her body is failing and has been for some time.
People in this thread want to tell her she doesn’t know Jesus?
That is just infuriating, and quite frankly I do not want to know them or anything they do.
God Bless you and your mom, MamaB.
Where do hermits fit into the Pope’s idea of Church?
Thanks, Chris. My mom was an awesome lady. We all miss her very, very much. She influenced many, many people over her long life time.
Protestant
Do you believe that in your heart of hearts?
What intense hatred must be in your heart to condemn those who seek the Lord in ways different than your own, but completely in keeping with Scripture.
How can such hatred coexists with the Love of the Holy Spirit?
My question to you is this...is your heart filled with the Holy Spirit? If so, how can you hate your brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do you mean that we don’t have to go through a Bureaucracy of men to get approval with our Lord?
Is this the same Pope who basically said we can be saved if we just followed our own conscience? Which means a lot of bad people are still going to heaven?
Your mom has nothing to worry about; she is a member of the actual “The Church”, i.e., the body of born-again believers. Catholics co-opting the term “The Church”, referring only to that specific denomination, is blasphemous — not Biblical in any way.
Bless your mom! My mom is 90, and reaching the point where she can’t attend all the time and it’s hard for her. She was a minister’s wife for 60 years, is a wonderful Christian, and I’d like someone to tell her she doesn’t know Jesus. Oh, yeah... I’d buy tickets to that show!
I can not believe a Freeper said what you did. You must have a heart full of hate which does not go with being a real Christian. How can you truly think something so hateful? You need to read the Bible more. It teaches love.
The bible makes a BIG deal about being deceived. I don’t pay any attention to what he says.
Episcopalian.
What do I win?
and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - equal in importance to the issue in this thread
If I could Photo shop I would have morphed Joe Pesci and Sarah Palin and gave you a picture of A Pescipalin as a reward.
No, thank you.
(((
Yet you came to a thread about a sermon by the RC pope. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is leading you. Prayers up.
No Sir, I can 100% tell you that Christ himself died for yours and my sins, and it was 100% effective, no partial sacrifice there, and we get a direct line! I know, it’s pretty awesome!
Prayers up for your mother’s health.
Man...that is quite a judgment.
I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.
I don’t think God would mind (and I know He is picky about that) if I said, Bless You.
[badumbum!]
Is that your goal?
There was a time when I thought of becoming a Catholic. But it was the anger and hatred of Catholic Freepers who convinced me otherwise. They, for the most part, demonstrated a singular lack of inspiration by the Holy Spirit.
I in no way mean to imply that there aren't Catholics who are filled with the Holy Spirit. It's just that I have not personally met any...and certainly not on FR.
Though I hesitate to assign motives -- how else could one arrive at the conclusion of there being "entire churches" full of unbelievers", even if just guessing at it?
Which means I can very much agree with you here, vladi.
Agreed, while not being necessarily picking upon Christians in Catholic settings more so than those whom are not within those settings.
It could as well be the other way around if one were to be comparing "select" prime of one church assembly membership which is "Catholic" with some select not-so-prime elsewhere (even before making it to outer fringes of what could otherwise possibly be regarded as generally orthodox "Christian") with the "Catholics"possibly winning out handily in at least some form of head-to-head competition (as if there could such a thing in this context).
I wouldn't bet my life on it being uniformly different -- or else I at least HOPE it's not so lop-sided one way or another, while I have good enough reasons to harbor reasonable suspicions as towards those "pesky Christians" being genuine enough in many places...pretty much anywhere they can be found.
Grace may not be "easy", for it certainly was not easy for Christ to obtain for us, compared to how easy it is to too casually take for granted.
No, we were bought and paid for with a price.
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