Pope Francis greets the faithful at the May 8 General Audience (Credit: CNA / Stephen Driscoll)
Posted on 09/07/2013 3:49:35 PM PDT by NYer
.- In his daily homily on Saturday, Pope Francis reflected on the question of authentic Christianity and rejected the practice of focusing more on devotions than on Christ himself.
Jesus is “the center” of faith, said the Pope. “A commandment is valid if it comes from Jesus: I do this because the Lord wants me to do this. But if I am a Christian without Christ, I do this and I don’t know why I have to do it,” he said to the congregation at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta on September 7.
Like the Pharisees, he said, there are some people who “make so many commandments the center of their religiosity.”
Others who have a false sense of religiosity “only seek devotions” or “things that are a little uncommon, a little special, that go back to private revelations,” noted Pope Francis.
“If your devotions bring you to Christ, that works. But if you remain there, something’s wrong,” he explained.
“If Jesus is not at the center, there will be many other things,” so that people become “Christians without Christ.”
Remembering that Jesus is the center of faith “regenerates us, grounds us.”
Pope Francis further explained the mark of a true “Christian with Christ.”
“The rule is simple: only that which brings you to Jesus is valid, and only that is valid that comes from Jesus. Jesus is the center, the Lord, as He Himself says.”
Christians can avoid false religiosity by adoring Jesus as “the Lord, the only Lord.”
“If you aren’t able to adore Jesus, you’re missing something,” warned Pope Francis.
The sign of a true “Christian with Christ” is one who does “that which comes from Jesus” and that which leads to Jesus.
Such adoration bears true fruit in the life of a Christian, encouraged the Pope.
He said that Jesus also gives “the grace of loving Him so much, of following Him, of going along the path that He has shown us.”
A “Christian with Christ” has the courage to proclaim Jesus as Lord.
Pope Francis exhorted Catholics not to focus on false piety, but rather evangelize and “take the Gospel!”
Now I think you are just being obtuse for the heck of it! Are you familiar with the term "object lesson"? You may remember the commercial for the Say No to Drugs campaign that showed a sizzling frying pan with an egg. The narration went, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.". Is this coming back to you or are you too young to remember? The pan and egg didn't do the teaching, they were objects used to relay some kind of teaching. That is what is meant by God's grace being demonstrated through the church with the church being the teaching aid - the object lesson. A little more clear now?
We can play twenty question all night if you want, though I am planning on signing off now. Your own Catechism states that a person can be saved even if he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. Do you agree with this?
Tell us why Maccabees was part of a group of books called the "Deuterocanonicals"?
How could anyone tell whether Bible verses were “typed by hand” versus copied and pasted??? LOL!
Often, I use one of my programs called "MacSpeech Dictate". It is not current with my OSX 10.8, so some of the functions don't work. But, I can just boot it up, put on my headphone/microphone and start talking. But, most of the time I just use my fingers.
But, when it comes to quoting Scripture, it makes more sense to just C&P. It resolves the issue of mistyping, and of missing a few words. Of course, I also rely on His Holy Spirit to send me to the right place in those 1189 chapters (66 Books). He is reliable!!!
John 14: 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Where have I claimed my interpretations of Scripture are always correct?
Please post a link to that post.
Well, that's pretty obvious to anyone with a lick of sense.
Yep - Jesus did not rely on sola scriptura.
I never said He used “Traditions of MEN”. Care to make any other false claims while you’re at it?
Your analogy doesn’t work. The Church is not an inanimate object. The Church is the Body of Christ.
“That is what is meant by God’s grace being demonstrated through the church with the church being the teaching aid - the object lesson.”
Manifest wisdom of God. That is what is taught by the Church to the angels, not “God’s grace being demonstrated through the church with the church being the teaching aid”: “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (ESV)
“A little more clear now?”
Is it clearer for you now? I suggest you actually deal with the verse and not essentially claim it says “God’s grace being demonstrated through the church with the church being the teaching aid”.
“We can play twenty question all night if you want, though I am planning on signing off now. Your own Catechism states that a person can be saved even if he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. Do you agree with this?”
So you don’t think it was hypocritical of you to say this: “Now I think you are just being obtuse for the heck of it!” and now ask a question that has nothing to do with anything I’ve discussed with anyone in the entire thread?
“Tell us why Maccabees was part of a group of books called the “Deuterocanonicals”?”
No. There is no point to that question in regard to what I asked. An assertion was made by a Protestant. It was false. I asked a question. I doubt I’ll ever get an answer.
Actually i like analogies, but yours lacked perspicuity, yet Rome is more analogous to Communism than Prots.
You keep trying to define me. Now I’m Episcopalian? That’s where debates tend to descend, with attempts to read the opponent’s mind and emotions: “you are ____________” or “you think ___________”.
I did not say that you were Episcopalian , but wondered which universe your lived in I Perhaps one in which your like institutionalized Prot cousins (Episcopalians, etc.) represent Protestant faith.
I’ve been defending n these pages the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church against these often ignorant, angry and hateful attacks. I’d rather see the Religious Forum eliminated altogether.
Defending the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, two elitist churches opposed to each other, from what you see as ignorant, angry and hateful attacks? But you see no ignorant, angry and hateful attacks against evangelical faith from them, esp. the RCs. I can provide you a collection. But why not simply oppose uneducated rants and encourage civil and informed debate? I find RCs too often opposing this, erroneously attacking substantiated documentation from their own sources if it seems to impugn Rome, and attacking my motives as deceptive etc., but who are exposed as fallacious. I can show you.
Moreover, eliminating the Religious forum, which sees great if not the greatest amounts of posts (and perhaps pot shots), would reduce FRs ranking.
In the meantime, my suggestion to JohnRob would be to disallow cut and paste in posts on this forum, and force these bombarding Bible quoters to type it all by hand. Infallibility. Wiki: “Infallibility, from Latin origin (’in’, not + ‘fallere’, to deceive), is a term with a variety of meanings related to knowing truth with certainty.”
Did you type that by hand or cut and paste it? Besides, i do not think you can t stop cut and paste with the keyboard, and that would stop RC posting of links in lieu of an argument.
You like to question papal infallibility, but what I see on this forum is persons who, citing volumes of text from the Bible, claim infallibility for their personal interpretations of those texts (without calling it ‘infallibility’ of course.) The hunter gets captured by the game.
You fail to see the difference btwn an statement based upon substantiation which it is argued warrants the asserted conclusion, thus the claim to veracity being dependent on the strength of the evidence, versus claiming assured infallibility whenever one has or will speak universally on faith and morals, even if any arguments behind them are not guaranteed to be infallible. That according to their decree, only their decree can be correct in any conflict. That is the game.
Finally, I remember hearing Paul Crouch saying on his TV channel “We don’t need no theology!”
And if you think the Prots you attack here overall affirm the likes of Paul Crouch and his wife and hair, rather than being critical of them, then it testifies to a superficial knowledge of the frequent debates btwn RCs and Prots.
I mention this apropos analogies, and side stories, which I read in Catholic literature...
And you presume this is not biased, and that RCs do not engage in misrepresentation?
while the Protestants bombard me with nothing but their Bible quotes,
Then you are most unfamiliar with my posts for one. And i do not know whether others have, but while i have frequented the RF for years, I do not recall seeing any exchange by you until this one. A cursory search shows you mostly engaged in political debates, including defending Putin from what you see are ignorant attacks.
and even tell me that the Bible is the only book anyone needs. No, but thanks.
And RCs often present Luther as a maverick in rejecting apocryphal books, and worse, and SS as historically meaning only the Bible can be used in understanding God's will and ways, and sola fide as meaning a Christian is saved no matter how he lives, without works. Etc.
And while i am sure some statements are unclear or the ramifications not thought thru, the Bible being the only book anyone needs is in a restricted sense, not fixing cars, and includes the material sense (which provides for a canon, and preachers, etc.) and not just the formal, in which one could read Acts 10 and be saved for instance (though he still needs eyes, etc.
I don’t expect you to defend Paul Crouch or his wife, or Jim Bakker or his dead ex-wife, like I don’t expect you to defend Jim Jones or David Koresh. (But I’d expect you to defend the millionaire Graham Prot Papal Dynasty.) But they are yours, just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses in front of my train station are yours, and your arguments are with all of them and the 35,000 Prot sects, and not with the Catholic or Mormon Church. I know, they cease to be yours like Harold Camping AFTER his predictions. Graham Sr ceased to be yours for a spell after extolling freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. But that’s long passed, too.
And you can deny it all you want but “We don’t need no theology!” is from my subjective observation representative and typical. But what do I know?
Side note: I have no reason to “defend” Putin. Last night I attempted to defend the forum against primitive fanaticism expressed through ignorant declarative statements and demands that you agree with them or else ship back to Russia. (eg “Putin is a thug!!!” Yawn.) But as someone on those threads observed, Free Republic has deteriorated. Quite disheartening.
That excerpt from Wikipedia again:
“When a person is called ‘infallible’, this can mean any of the following:
Some (or all) statements or teachings made by this person can be relied on to be certainly true.
This person always makes good and moral choices, and his actions may never be considered immoral or evil.
This person is always right, and never wrong or incorrect.”
You insist on relating infallibility strictly to papal infallibility. I insist on broadening the application, just as the above definition suggests. (I anticipate that you or someone will predictably dismiss Wiki as unreliable.) No one here claims to be infallible, just as no one out in the world claims to be stupid. But it is sometimes for others to judge or describe what our behaviour indicates. Is Putin a thug? Is Miley Cyrus stupid? I don’t know!
You tell me that “Rome is more analogous to Communism than Prots”. So is every American corporation if we compare the power structures. But I was talking about the behaviour patterns of true believers and not about the organizational structures. Eric Hoffer anyone?
And those long Biblical cut&paste excerpts that come so quickly in replies (something, I know, you don’t practice), making me think that the posters have the Bible memorized like the Muslims students memorize the Koran (by the way, did Obama have to memorize it while in school in Indonesia? Or was it a Catholic school?), and when they’re not Arabic speakers, memorize it without understanding a word.
Well, no, those (Biblical) excerpts are always only remotely relevant or irrelevant at all, could well be replaced by some other excerpts, and it is their length that to my mind is intended to serve as an overwhelming argument, like a 1000 ton bomb.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jesus never said anything about His followers having to read the New Testament. Oh, wait...
Last Sunday at a street fair, an unusually tall Chinese woman standing in front of a stand of some Biblical society, manned by several Chinese, or anyway East Asian people, or to speak politically correctly Asian-Americans, because she spoke like a native, this woman handed me a copy of the New Testament and proceeded to explain things about it using her own copy in which I noticed many handwritten notes. She asked me if I read the Bible, I nodded, because what was I to say, lie, or shamelessly admit, and told me this was a new translation from Greek and had, as she showed me, numerous explanatory footnotes. She spoke to me for at least five minutes, emphasizing these footnotes. Long story short, at one point she showed me a fragment which included the word “into”. Something into Jesus. She said that most or all other translation have the word as “in”, but in Greek it really means “into” and that makes a world of difference. Indeed, as she explained it, it did.
What’s my point? (Yeah, what’s my point? I have to remember.) My point is that these arguments over meaning not just phrases but single words, will last until doomsday, and that is something to accept and go on, instead of condemning fellow Christians to eternal damnation which has become a blood sport around here. As the man observed, the level of discourse on Free Republic has deteriorated. We’re slumming.
Does this apply to you; too?
You WILL remember this when you toss out another of your tangential red herrings; right?
I'll defend them!!!
(Just as much as CATHOLICS 'defend' their bad popes!)
Yup; and a LOT of it is revealed and documented official 'church' teaching.
He's wrong: it has RISEN!
Risen to the level of the Church Fathers declaring those outside of the 'church' as damned.
I’m bettin against it. The blinders of the RCC are rather restrictive to say the least.
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