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Pope Francis rejects false religiosity
cna ^ | September 7, 2013 | Kerri Lenartowick

Posted on 09/07/2013 3:49:35 PM PDT by NYer

Pope Francis greets the faithful at the May 8 General Audience (Credit: CNA / Stephen Driscoll)

Vatican City, Sep 7, 2013 / 10:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- 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!”


TOPICS: Catholic; Prayer; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: catholic; eis; popefrancis
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To: Elsie; metmom; CynicalBear; boatbums
It is amazing how 35,000 separate churches with little unity are treated as a great threat by both liberals and Rome, while the more historically Protestant members show more unity in core moral values and truths than Catholics overall, as what Rome really effectually teaches is that what really matters is not what you believe, which varies much among those Rome treats as members, but that you die in her arms.

73% (highest) of Pentecostal/Foursquare believers strongly affirm that Christ was sinless on earth, with Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists being tied at 33%, and the lowest being among Episcopalians with just 28% http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/53>

47.8% of the Evangelicals and 11.8% of Catholics affirm the Bible is Literally true. 6.5% of the former and 19.8% of the latter see it as an ancient book of history and legends. http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/33304.pdf^

56% of Assemblies of God (versus 17% Catholics) Christians strongly DISAGREE that Satan is just a symbol of evil [rather than a real being]. ^


801 posted on 09/14/2013 5:23:22 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: vladimir998
There is no death in Heaven.

Then just WHO is going to rise from the grave to meet Christ in the air at the last trump?


‘Then the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.’

802 posted on 09/14/2013 7:28:44 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

You wrote:

“Then just WHO is going to rise from the grave to meet Christ in the air at the last trump?”

Those who previously experienced physical death so that their living and perfected souls (which never die) can be united with their then glorified bodies.

1 Corinthians 15:50-54: Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, Death is Swallowed up in victory.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says “‘We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess’ (Council of Lyons II). We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a ‘spiritual body’ (cf. 1 Cor 15:42–44)” (CCC 1017).

http://www.openbible.info/topics/resurrection


803 posted on 09/14/2013 8:23:39 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: Revolting cat!; Elsie

Just for fun...say hello to Papias_of_Hierapolis (wiki link)

New Advent entry for Papias begins;

http://www.cogwriter.com/papias.htm
Fragments of Papias

IV.
[As the elders who saw John the disciple of the Lord remembered that they had heard from him how the Lord taught in regard to those times, and said]: "The days will come in which vines shall grow, having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five-and-twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, `I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.' In like manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals, feeding then only on the productions of the earth, would become peaceable and harmonious, and be in perfect subjection to man." [Testimony is borne to these things in writing by Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, in the fourth of his books; for five books were composed by him. And he added, saying, "Now these things are credible to believers. And Judas the traitor," says he, "not believing, and asking, `How shall such growths be accomplished by the Lord? 'the Lord said, `They shall see who shall come to them.' These, then, are the times mentioned by the prophet Isaiah: `And the wolf shall lie, down with the lamb, 'etc. (Isa. xi. 6 ff.)."]

804 posted on 09/14/2013 8:41:54 PM PDT by BlueDragon (Haha. neener neener neener. We are part of the proto-cluster. Who are you?)
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To: vladimir998
So... the 'saints' are LEAVING heaven, to come to Earth, to get a body that no longer exists except as dust, trade it in for a NEW one and then they are going BACK to heaven.

Yeah!

That makes sense: PERFECT sense

805 posted on 09/15/2013 11:53:55 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

“So... the ‘saints’ are LEAVING heaven, to come to Earth, to get a body that no longer exists except as dust, trade it in for a NEW one and then they are going BACK to heaven.”

No, and no one said that either.


806 posted on 09/15/2013 5:06:49 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998
No, and no one said that either.

Oh?

Those who previously experienced physical death so that their living and perfected souls (which never die) can be united with their then glorified bodies.

Some strawmen are more equal than others.

807 posted on 09/15/2013 7:49:52 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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