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.”
Who says I can’t understand? Seems to me the existence of the role of the Church (RC or otherwise) is the central issue around which this question revolves.
Thanks for your reply. Illuminating, as always. Nothing I can add.
Thank you for your encouragements, dear brother in Christ!
“No post mentioned “times”. That’s your addition, (to save face).”
First of all, your comment that I am doing anything to “save face” is a faulty attempt at “mind reading as to motivation” and therefore is ‘making it personal’ and violates the rules of the board. Second, the verse YOU posted said this: ““Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:8”
Now, “when” - is a word related to TIME. Also, Jesus clearly has not YET returned to earth. Thus, the passage is clearly about a TIME which has not yet happened.
“He let us know it was a possibility and therefore not “A figment of your imagination”.”
If you’re going to attack what I said, at least attack my comments in regard to what I actually responded to. I said it was a figment of your imagination that there is “a church full of fake Christians”. I never said it in relation to anything stated by Christ EVER. Care to make up any other false things while you’re at it?
“And, logically, that possible state of faithlessness would probably exist for some time BEFORE his coming.”
Which hasn’t happened so you can’t know if that even works out “logically” according to time.
“So your argument in moot.”
Nope. My argument is perfectly sound and stands completely unrefuted by you. And that won’t change.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
and raise you the fall of the son's of Eli, whom were their own father's sons and Priests before God and Israel (having that priesthood as inheritance unto themselves) whom despised the things of the Lord, making those sacrifices to be things of hatefulness for the people and which they grew to abhor, turning the people from the things of God by their own corruptions, and casual selfish greed.
27 Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? 28 Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? 29 Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’ 30 Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed. 31 Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. 32 And you will see an enemy in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever. 33 But any of your men whom I do not cut off from My altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age.
Do you wonder at this passage?
The Lord God Almighty is the same today as He was yesterday, and shall be forever.
Matthew 3 John the Baptist Prepares the Way
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
from the Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers Matthew 21:
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?”41 They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
Ah,but unless you can read hearts, how do you know they are fake?
What are we arguing about here? Francis thinks we’re all part of the same Church. Nowhere does he say that one needs to be Catholic and part of the Catholic Church. He never does.
When he is born again. Followers of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch.
Those who claim to be Christians, or rather Christian, who don’t put their trust in Jesus are only acting out Christian behavior, which is not what makes one a Christian.
Our culture has perverted the meaning of the label of Christian.
Nonsense. God never set that criteria. That's man-made legalism.
WOW!!!
The irony of that coming from a Catholic...
It's palpable.....
“The irony of that coming from a Catholic...”
There’s no irony at all - and I bet just about every other Catholic here would have posted the same thing.
There are two things we cannot know because we are not God: people's interior dispositions (unless they tell us); and people's eternal destiny (i.e. we can't say if a person is damned.)
So even if a person's observable behavior can be judged, the inner state of their soul cannot. You don't know if the person acted on the basis of ignorance or delusion, if they were under inner or outer coercions, if they were drunk or on drugs or just plain crazy. And you can't know with moral certainty whether they've just been repented and been forgiven the 70x7th time.
Judge exterior things justly. Don't presume to judge things only God can know. Such as, whether they are believers. Sometimes it's obscure to the human eye.
:o)
Did they run out of room for the masthead?
A Christian without the CATHOLIC Church is purely idealistic, Pope says
Are they 'really' a Christian?
You are half right...
“Nope. My argument is perfectly sound and stands completely unrefuted by you. And that won’t change.”
You left out “nanny nanny boo boo”.
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.
I made a logical argument. You won’t accept it. I’m not going to engage in a poisonous tit-for-tat with you.
I’m droping out here.
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