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!”
Aw...
Even a Viking Kitty likes to play with the red dot of a laser!
Matthew 17:3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
Well then, just WHERE is HEAVEN found in your example?
NO one?
I find LOTS of them.
Me being chief.
But; the problem comes because I happen to actually AGREE with 'Rome' about 95% of the time!
It's all the extra (can I say BS?) that the RCC claims is NEEDED that gets shown to be spiritual vaporware.
35,000 comes from a recent post here, linked and documented.
Then you need to RE-link and RE-'document' them; otherwise I'll take it that you are RE-spouting nonsense you've been taught.
Teacher says: Show your work if you want credit.
“But Bad Popes happened long ago.”
When you have to go back 5 or more centuries, yeah, that “happened long ago.”
With Protestants many things are “just happened yesterday” because Protestants didn’t exist 500 years ago.
“Well then, just WHERE is HEAVEN found in your example?”
It isn’t - but Moses had died more than a millennium earlier. Wherever he was - the Prison of the Patriarchs/Bosom of Abraham - he was still very much alive even though his body had died more than 1,000 years earlier.
Well, Rome does.
. Last night, once a poster posted Putin's detailed factual resume (education and career), she was accused of being a "mole" (presumably of a Communist kind.)
And i have been erroneously accused by RCs, and the point was and is that you censure those who oppose Rome or at least the manner in which they do it, and want to shut down the FR RF, while saying nothing of the often personal attacks by RCs (search Religion Moderator ), and the fact that most of the threads that sees such on both sides were begun with promotional threads by RCs using FR as a daily Catholic and apologetic news service (search pope ), which are far far more than Prot threads. If the Jim takes our advice and zots the RF then it would retrain the religion you defend.
35,000 comes from a recent post here, linked and documented. What's the real number 17,500? It doesn't matter, especially since you deny any connection between the fundamentalists (or evangelists) and the 35,000 "churches". So it's even worse than 35,000 interpretations of the Scripture, isn't it. It's now millions. Each one correct.
That is ignorant, as none except for cults assert they are the one true church, and assertions of truth most be contingent upon the strength of substantiation, not a claim to assured infallibility. It was under the former means that the church began, not the latter.
Meanwhile, as said, Catholicism has its informal and formal divisions, the difference being that of degrees,and a valid comparison is not between one church and many, but between two different kind of churches. And Rome is effectively only one denomination among others, and cannot necessarily claim greater unity than any one other church.
And despite divisions, those who do hold Scripture to be the supreme authority as the literal wholly inspired word of God (fundamental evans), versus those who hold the church is the supreme authority (Rome and cults), manifest a common consent to core salvific truths, and a fellowship that transcends organic divisions. Thus both liberals and Rome see them as their greatest religious threat in the West.
And as a former RC who remained in Rome for 6 years as a weekly RC after becoming manifestly born again, i know the profound difference btwn institutionalized faith and that which is life giving. And the claimed degree of unity of Rome is largely on paper, but the essential unity of the Spirit based on a shared conversion and Scripture based relationship with Christ is what i found very rare in Rome. And i looked much for it.
And no, Jesus could not have ordered his disciples to read the New Testament, for obvious reasons, and your interpretation that he meant it is one of those millions of interpretations, Rather, that commanding Scripture to be read and and commending it being done, and opening up the minds of disciples to do so, extends to all Scripture is what is obvious. And that you deny it is typical of RCs, yet who do not blush at their egregious extrapolations they engage in to support such things as purgatory and PTDS .
But they are yours, all those 7th Day Adventists, more than Catholic Church's like you absurdly allege. Brothers in protest and disdain if not outright hatred of Rome.
And Hitler and and Einstein were vegetarians. Being brothers in protest, which can include very diverse groups, while protesting each other does not make them brothers, despite your careless analogies, but the more substantial unity is that of the basis for their claims. The SDA really began with an elitist claim, that, like Rome, rejected all other groups as being right, under the premise of a women type pope who was likewise unanswerable to any one.
Finally,i have taken too much time refuting your posts which have much turned into unreasonable rants, sorry to say. Bye.
'Every man his own priest'
Not 35,000, sorry. Millions of interpretations. Bye...
That 35,000 number hits a raw nerve every time, doesn’t it? A thread few days ago linked to an independent study that purported do document the claim. Do your own search! What is the real number? 35? Would the point of Protestant critics be different if the number was 17 1/2?
I 'happen' to disagree with 'Rome' more than 5% of the time, much more, but at the same time I disagree with the sophistries of the fanatical fundies and former smokers (of Rome's fires) 95% of the time. (Beware of former drinkers and smokers!) "The Whore of Babylon"? "The Pope is Anti-Christ"? That's their lingo, that's their party call. "We don't need no theology". "Every man is his own priest". Pleeeease!
So; time cures all ills in your world; eh?
So; you’ve backed away from stating that the saints are alive in Heaven, or not?
Not in my world.
Do you REALLY think we'll spend much time defending your inaccuracies?
After all, that was 5 centuries ago.
Give or take.
And I read a thread - oh, a while ago - that had Mary being seen on top of the WTC as it went down.
Do your own search!
Oh?
In THIS thread you've seen that?
Why only three replies to my one post, why not 35,000?! (The number that gets on their nerves.)
Perhaps (I don't want to mass mind read) they are out in the highways and byways, compelling folks to come in and have no time to chase invisible rabbits down into Wonderland.
“So; time cures all ills in your world; eh?”
Nope. Care to post some other misrepresentation?
“So; you’ve backed away from stating that the saints are alive in Heaven, or not?”
No. Saints are alive in Christ in Heaven. There is no death in Heaven.
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