Jesus not found outside the Church, Pope preaches

Catholic News Agency ^ | 04/23/13 | Estefania Aguirre

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Jesus not found outside the Church, Pope preaches :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/jesus-not-found-outside-the-church-pope-preaches/

April 23, 2013

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in St. John Lateran on March 29, 2013. Credit: Stephen Driscoll/CNA.

Vatican City, Apr 23, 2013 / 07:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said that people cannot be fully united to Jesus outside of the Church during a Mass to commemorate Saint George, the saint he is named after.

“You cannot find Jesus outside the Church,” he said April 23 in the Apostolic Palace’s Pauline Chapel.

“It is the Mother Church who gives us Jesus, who gives us the identity that is not only a seal, it is a belonging,” he declared in his homily.

The pontiff spoke about Christian identity as well as persecution, making it the sixth time in two weeks he has mentioned those who suffer for the faith.

Speaking about the Gospel reading for today from Saint John, Pope Francis underscored that “the missionary expansion of the Church began precisely at a time of persecution.”

“They had this apostolic fervor within them, and that is how the faith spread!” he exclaimed.

It was through the Holy Spirit’s initiative that the Gospel was proclaimed to the Gentiles, the Pope noted, and the Spirit “pushes more and more in this direction of opening the proclamation of the Gospel to all.”

The pontiff also repeated a line from his April 17 homily in St. Martha’s residence, when he emphasized that being a Christian is not like having “an identity card.”

“Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these (the apostles) belonged to the Church, the Mother Church, because finding Jesus outside the Church is impossible,” he said.

“The great Paul VI said it is an absurd dichotomy to want to live with Jesus but without the Church, following Jesus out of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church,” he added.

Pope Francis said that “if we are not sheep of Jesus, faith does not come” and that it is “a rosewater faith and a faith without substance.”

The Pope also commented on Barnabas, who was sent to Antioch and was glad to see that the grace of God had encouraged people there to remain true disciples.

“Let us think of the consolations that Barnabas had, which is the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing,” he preached.

“Let us ask the Lord for this frankness, this apostolic fervor that impels us to move forward, as brothers, all of us forward,” he remarked.

After the Mass in the papal chapel, the Swiss Guard band offered a brief musical performance in the Courtyard of Saint Damaso for the Pope’s name day.

[ShadowAce]

OK. So it's obvious that He's not a vine or a door, but He is definitely a piece of bread.

Got it.

[FatherofFive]

but He is definitely a piece of bread.

That is what He said. You don't believe Him?

[ShadowAce]

He also said He is the vine. Why don’t you believe that?

[FatherofFive]

He also said He is the vine. Why don’t you believe that?

I do believe that. He is the vine. We are the branches.

[FatherofFive]

But answer the questions in post 257

[GeronL]

Salvation is between me and God through Jesus. Not a building and not a bureaucracy and not 10,000 dead humans some call “Saints”.

[ShadowAce]

I’ve been answering it.

[ShadowAce]

So—He is a literal vine.

[FatherofFive]

He is ‘the’ vine. Not ‘a’ vine. He never said he was a vine.

[ShadowAce]

Just like He never said He is the piece of bread you get during communion these days.

[FatherofFive]

I’ve been answering it.

No You have been avoiding the questions. Answer the questions asked. Please.

[FatherofFive]

Just like He never said He is the piece of bread you get during communion these days.

What pat of "This IS My body" don't you understand?

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The early Church knew how to deal with heretics...

St. Jerome[3] mentions that St. Polycarp met at Rome the heretic Marcion in the streets, who resenting that the holy bishop did not take that notice of him which he expected, said to him, "Do you not know me, Polycarp?" "Yes," answered the saint, "I know you to be the firstborn of Satan." He had learned this abhorrence of the authors of heresy, who knowingly and willingly adulterate the divine truths, from his master, St. John, who fled out of the bath in which he saw Cerinthus.[4] St. Polycarp kissed with respect the chains of St. Ignatius, who passed by Smyrna on the road to his martyrdom, and who recommended to our saint the care and comfort of his distant church of Antioch, which he repeated to him in a letter from Troas, desiring him to write in his name to those churches of Asia to which he had not leisure to write himself. St. Polycarp wrote a letter to the Philippians shortly after, which is highly commended by St. Irenaeus, St. Jerome, Eusebius, Photius, and others, and is still extant. It is justly admired both for the excellent instructions it contains and for the simplicity and perspicuity of the style, and was publicly read in the church in Asia in St. Jerome's time. In it he calls a heretic, as above, the eldest son of Satan.

[evangmlw]

In order to ever understand you “must be born-again.”

[FatherofFive]

In order to ever understand you “must be born-again.”

I have been born again. Answer the questions in post 257

[Teacher317]

Gosh, how nice of Christians to condemn hundreds of millions of souls to eternal damnation for the centuries before their Word spread to the Western Hemisphere.

[johngrace]

The pilgrims came because of the Anglican church. True facts.

[CatherineofAragon]

"That is what He said. You don't believe Him? "

Now why does that sound familiar...?

[Mad Dawg]

In what I reasonably think to have been a rejected offer here, I put up links to the discussion of the Eucharist in the third part of the Summa.

I mention this because when I read, "but He is definitely a piece of bread," I can see the misunderstandings already.

He 'is' not, we hold, definitely a piece of bread. That particular thing in his hand WAS a piece of bread and 'now' only 'looks like' bread but IS Him. It would be better to say,"What just now WAS a piece of bread is now He," which is critically different from saying He "is a piece of bread."

One of the reasons I so enjoy Eucharistic Theology is that is goes it so many directions.
-- I'm not even sure what a piece of bread is, or wine.
-- I think we have to ask what the "esse" or the "substance" of "Body" and "Blood" are, especially if we are now talking about resurrected Body and Blood.

I refer to Aquinas, not because I think he's right (though I do think he's extraordinary) but because a lot of the questions that come up in these flailing conversations are addressed in his treatment.

Iscool, for example, thought that there was no breaking of the bread in our Mass, while it is so much a feature of the Mass that Aquinas discusses it. Others, evidently unacquainted with the Mysterium Fidei, tell us as though it were news that the Mass is the proclamation of the Lord's death until he comes again.

Again, Iscool and others protest the withholding of the chalice. Very well. It is admittedly controversial. But the issue was not raised for the first time yesterday. We've had almost two thousand years to think and to pray and to worship, and we've reached some conclusions. It might, it just might, make sense to acquaint oneself with the way our thinking goes BEFORE attacking it.

For example, we think the Risen Christ is incorruptible, as Paul saith, undivided, and indivisible. SO SURE are we of this, that we think the WHOLE Christ is received under either species. So someone with an allergy to wheat products is not harmed or deprived if he only receives the Precious Blood.

Of course, one can disagree. Butt then one needs to think about whether the Risen Christ is divided. When Paul asks (I Cor 1:13),"Is Christ divided," I'd guess he expected everyone to say, "No, of course not!"

In our approach to the Blessed Sacrament, we hold that he cannot be divided.

We are called superstitious and materialistic, but we tell the story at every Mass, we proclaim the resurrection, we remember his death. In certain externals we may fail to duplicate what took place in the upper room that last night. But I guess we would hold that the question of leavened or unleavened or whether every piece is actually broken would be, well, materialistic, external, in a certain way even superstitious.

There is so much misunderstanding, which is sad and bad. But what is remarkable is that there is insistence that we say what we do not say and teach what we do not teach. There is also a certaiankind of circularity to the attack: We are vicious. Why? Because we do such and such. But what's wrong with them? They are vicious! Why? Because we, who are vicious, do them.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I don’t think it was Christians. Think about it.

Paul said that the laws of God are written on the human heart and that none will have an excuse at the final judgment. Jesus said that through him alone is salvation. Obviously God has a way to reconcile both of those true statements, but I can’t say for certain.

Christians can only follow what God said in the Bible. He says all men need to hear about the path to salvation. He said that it is a Christian’s duty to tell the others and spread the message to the ends of the earth.

I don’t see anything in that about Christians condemning anyone to eternal damnation. That is what sin does.