Posted on 11/05/2013 6:13:36 PM PST by markomalley
At the heart of Christianity is an invitation to the Lord’s feast. That was Pope Francis’ message at Mass this morning at the Casa Santa Marta. The Pope said that the Church is “not only for good people;” the invitation to be a part of it concerns everyone. And he added that, at the Lord’s feast we must “participate fully” and with everyone; we can’t pick and choose. Christians, he said, can’t be content with simply being on the guest list – not participating fully is like not joining in.
The readings of the day, the Pope said, the identity of the Christian. He emphasized that “first of all, the Christian essence is an invitation: we only become Christians if we are invited.” It is a “free invitation” from God to participate. You can’t pay to get into the feast, he warned: “either you are invited or you can’t come in.” If “in our conscience,” he said, “we don’t have this certainty of being invited” then “we haven’t understood what a Christian is”:
“A Christian is one who is invited. Invited to what? To a shop? To take a walk? The Lord wants to tell us something more: You are invited to join in the feast, to the joy of being saved, to the joy of being redeemed, to the joy of sharing life with Christ. This is a joy! You are called to a party! A feast is a gathering of people who talk, laugh, celebrate, are happy together. I have never seen anyone party on their own. That would be boring, no? Opening the bottle of wine . . . That’s not a feast, it’s something else. You have to party with others, with the family, with friends, with those who’ve been invited, as I was invited. Being Christian means belonging, belonging to this body, to the people that have been invited to the feast: this is Christian belonging.”
Turning to the Letter to the Romans, the Pope then affirmed that this feast is a “feast of unity.” He underlined the fact that all are invited, “the good and the bad.” And the first to be invited are the marginalized:
“The Church is not the Church only for good people. Do we want to describe who belongs to the Church, to this feast? The sinners. All of us sinners are invited. At this point there is a community that has diverse gifts: one has the gift of prophecy, another of ministry, who teaching. . . We all have qualities and strengths. But each of us brings to the feast a common gift. Each of us is called to participate fully in the feast. Christian existence cannot be understood without this participation. ‘I go to the feast, but I don’t go beyond the antechamber, because I want to be only with the three or four people that I familiar with. . .’ You can’t do this in the Church! You either participate fully or you remain outside. You can’t pick and choose: the Church is for everyone, beginning with those I’ve already mentioned, the most marginalized. It is everyone’s Church!”
Speaking about the parable in which Jesus said some who were invited began to make excuses, Pope Francis said: “They don’t accept the invitation! They say ‘yes,’ but their actions say ‘no.’” These people, he said, “are Christians who are content to be on the guest list: chosen Christians.” But, he warned, this is not sufficient, because if you don’t participate you are not a Christian. “You were on the list,” he said, but this isn’t enough for salvation! This is the Church: to enter into the Church is a grace; to enter into the Church is an invitation.” And this right, he added, cannot be purchased. “To enter into the Church,” he added, “is to become part of a community, the community of the Church. To enter into the Church is to participate in all the virtues, the qualities that the Lord has given us in our service of one for the other.” Pope Francis continued, “To enter into the Church means to be responsible for those things that the Lord asks of us.” Ultimately, he said, “to enter into the Church is to enter into this People of God, in its journey towards eternity.” No one, he warned, is the protagonist of the Church: but we have ONE,” who has done everything. God “is the protagonist!” We are his followers . . . and “he who does not follow Him is the one who excuses himself” and does not go to the feast:
The Lord is very generous. The Lord opens all doors. The Lord also understands those who say to Him, ‘No, Lord, I don’t want to go to you.’ He understands and is waiting for them, because He is merciful. But the Lord does not like those who say ‘yes’ and do the opposite; who pretend to thank Him for all the good things; who have good manners, but go their own way and do not follow the way of the Lord: those who always excuse themselves, those who do not know joy, who don’t experience the joy of belonging. Let us ask the Lord for this grace of understanding: how beautiful it is to be invited to the feast, how beautiful it is to take part in it and to share one’s qualities, how beautiful it is to be with Him and how wrong it is to dither between ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ to say ‘yes,’ but to be satisfied merely with being a nominal Christian.
All are invited. Therefore, the Lord’s feast is meant for everyone.
Not all accept the invitation.
No problems with this theology. Its perfectly orthodox.
Great...so they are going to stop refusing communion to acknowledged Protestants?...
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So are you going to explain that question?
Why would protestants, who do not believe in the real presence, be able to receive the sacrament worthily?
The prohibition is done out of charity, not exclusivity.
Why in the world would a Protestant wish to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church? Protestants deny key aspects of Apostolic Christian dogma...so it's not like they are "in communion"
Having said that, but they're more than welcome to re-examine your beliefs and become Catholic.
Maybe so. They’re already looking at the same for divorced and remarried Catholics.
I don’t like that he turned down a meeting with the Israeli President but put out a feeler to Iran for talks.
Pope John Paul II gave Holy Communion to Tony Blair before he converted to Catholicism.
Cardinal Ratzinger gave Holy Communion to the Protestant, Brother Roger of Taize, at JP II”s funeral.
Donald Cardinal Wuerl banished a priest for refusing to give Holy Communion to a lesbian Buddhist.
Why not give Holy Communion to everybody?
Easy answer.
Most Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence, either.
(snip)Recently, a Gallup poll was taken on Catholic attitudes toward Holy Communion. The poll showed serious confusion among Catholics about one of the most basic beliefs of the Church.
Only 30 percent of those surveyed believe they are actually receiving the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine.
29 percent think they are receiving bread and wine which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus and, in so doing, are expressing their attachment to His person and words.
10 percent understand their action to be receiving bread and wine in which Jesus is present.
and 23 percent hold that they are receiving what has become the Body and Blood of Christ because of their personal belief.
Any well-informed Catholic will recognize that only the first option, chosen by the 30 percent, is true Catholic teaching. The other options represent various forms of Protestant belief.(/snip)
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=1340
“Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”
He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.” [John 6: 49-71]
4. Pastoral Care in Certain Difficult Marital Situations
a) Is cohabitation ad experimentum a pastoral reality in your particular Church? Can you approximate a percentage?
b) Do unions which are not recognized either religiously or civilly exist? Are reliable statistics available?
c) Are separated couples and those divorced and remarried a pastoral reality in your particular Church? Can you approximate a percentage? How do you deal with this situation in appropriate pastoral programmes?
d) In all the above cases, how do the baptized live in this irregular situation? Are they aware of it? Are they simply indifferent? Do they feel marginalized or suffer from the impossibility of receiving the sacraments?
e) What questions do divorced and remarried people pose to the Church concerning the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation? Among those persons who find themselves in these situations, how many ask for these sacraments?
f ) Could a simplification of canonical practice in recognizing a declaration of nullity of the marriage bond provide a positive contribution to solving the problems of the persons involved? If yes, what form would it take?
The above is from the survey posted on the Vatican website. Please take special note of Paragraph F.
I guess that's why they now call the Mass a "Eucharist Celebration" rather than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Explains why the Pope placed a cheap beach ball from Rio on a high altar.
However, it flies in the face of Catholic churches’ refusal to serve communion to dedicated, sold-out-to-Christ Protestants. How does the Pope reconcile this exclusion from the Lord’s Table with his orthodox (I agree with you) position?
Wondering that. Never quite got how Teddy Kennedy got the Eucharist and I cannot.
Those people obviously believed in the Real Presence.
Protestants are more than welcome to join together in the Church in prayer, but if they do not acknowledge the True Presence, then it is in their own immortal safety not to partake of the Holy Eucharist
Francis I is hard to figure out. I am surprised he does not wear the red shoes. BXVI wore the shoes.
“Many are called; few are chosen.”
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