Posted on 12/06/2016 3:52:36 PM PST by ebb tide
“Those who refuse to be caressed by the Lord are lost! Those who do not know the Lord’s caress do not know Christian doctrine!” The Pope said this at this morning’s mass in St. Martha’s House. “This is the good news, this is the sincere joy that we want today. This is joy, this is the consolation that we seek: the coming of the Lord by his power, which is his caress, to visit us, to save us, as with the lost sheep and to bring us into the fold of his Church.”
The Pope’s homily today focused on the parable of the lost sheep and the joy at God’s consolation, which never stops seeking out men and women. The Lord “is like a judge,” Francis explained, “but a judge that caresses, a judge who is full of tenderness: He does everything to save us”. “He does not “condemn but saves”, He looks for all of us, loves us personally, “He does not love the indistinct mass, “but” loves us by name, He loves us as we are.”
The lost sheep “did not get lost because he wasn’t carrying a compass,” the Pope recalled. “He knew the way”. He got lost because he “had a bad heart,” blinded by an “inner dissociation” and so he ran off in order “to get away from the Lord, to satiate the inner darkness that led to his double life”: being part of the flock and running away into the darkness. God “knows these things” and “goes out to look for him”.
Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus is “the icon of the lost sheep,” which the shepherd goes in search of. Judas was a man who always, always had something bitter in his soul, something to criticize of others, who always distanced himself. He did not know the sweetness of gratuity that comes from living with everyone else. And always, since he was not satisfied with this sheep - Judas was not a happy man! - he fled. He ran away because he was a thief. Others are lustful, others ... But they always flee, run away because the darkness in their heart separates them from the herd. That is the double life, the double life of many Christians, even with pain, we can say, of priests, bishops ... And Judas was a bishop, he was one of the first bishops, no? The lost sheep. Poor things! Our poor brother Judas as Don Mazzolari called him, in that beautiful sermon: ’Brother Judas, what happens in your heart?’ We need to understand the lost sheep. What’s more we all have a little something, little or not so little, of the lost sheep”.
“What makes a lost sheep,” the Pope stressed, “is not so much a mistake as a disease that’s in the heart and that the devil uses. So, Judas, with his divided, “dissociated heart” is “the icon of the lost sheep,” whom the shepherd goes out in search of. But Judas did not understand and “at the end when he saw what his double life did to the community, the evil that it has sown, with its dark interior, which led him to run away forever, looking for the lights that were not the light of the Lord, but lights like Christmas decorations”, “artificial light”, that are “desperate.”
Francis underlined: “There is a word in the Bible - the Lord is good, even for these sheep, He never stops looking for them - there is one word that says that Judas hanged himself, hanged and ’was repentant’. I believe that the Lord will take that word and will it bring with Him, I do not know, perhaps, but that word makes us doubt. But what does that word mean? That until the end of the love of God he was working in that soul, until the moment of despair. And this is the attitude of the Good Shepherd with the lost sheep. This is the message, the good news that Christmas brings us and asks us for this sincere gladness that changes hearts, which leads us to let us take comfort in the Lord, and not the consolations that seek to let off steam, to escape from reality, escape from the inner torture, internal division.”
When Jesus finds the lost sheep, he does not reproach him, although he had behaved very badly. In the Garden he calls Judas “friend.” These are God’s caresses. “Those who do not know the Lord’s caress do not know Christian doctrine! Those who refuse to be caressed by the Lord are lost! This is the good news, this is the sincere joy that we want today. This is joy, this is the consolation that we seek: the coming of the Lord by his power, which is his caress, to visit us, to save us, as with the lost sheep and to bring us into the fold of his Church.”
The Pope finished with an invocation: “May the Lord give us this grace, to await Christmas with our wounds, with our sins, sincerely recognised, to wait for the power of this God who comes to console, who comes with power, but his power is tenderness, caresses that were born from His heart, which was so good that he have his life for us”.
Do you not believe that Hell is evidence of both God's judgement and His revenge?
Or do you believe that Hell is empty, despite what Christ has stated?
He was referring to His people’s desire to revenge...God judges...revenge is not part of Him. He doesn’t need it. Our God is not only a loving God but is love. Revenge is hate.
See post #21.
You are correct except in the avenging...God Judges and until then by and through His covenant brought to us by His son Jesus He forgives us when we repent. If we do not repent, He does not take revenge upon us..He allows us His complete absence...in hell, but that is our choice...not His avenging.
You are presuming to speak for God? He would not have used the word “vengeance” idly.
Since the Roman church has been involved in many of the international conflicts in historical times, from the wars between English and Scottish, to the War of the Roses, and forward, and all in the name of ‘assimilation/conquest of those not aligned with the church in Rome’, I view the entire Roman organization, as a bunch of silly men with the facade of celibacy who think their feces don’t stink.
And I don’t give a hoot about what you think.
You certainly are an ignorant poor sap...
dear wpin,
i dont worship Mary.... she was just the birth canal.
She was much more than that...strange you profess love for Jesus but have disdain for his mother who was selected by God to carry the new covenant in her womb, and then raise and protect our Lord. Letting Him know when the time was right for his first miracle. Then was with her son through the Passion. In Revelation she is referred to as coming to earth at the end time. She has visited many people who have witnessed her apparitions and heard her words as a messenger of God.
BTW, Catholics do not worship Mary...I am a convert, former Baptist and I know the myths Protestants believe about Catholicism. I decided, felt led to read why they believed what they believe and found a deeper, fuller, more holy way to adore our Lord.
Dear wpin,
thank you for your input.
I was a Catholic kid, until i got thrown out of “after school” teachings, since the airbase elementary school, had to accomaodate those who had a parent professing to be catholic.
I was thrown out, for asking the dude in a robe:
“Why do I have to learn from ‘this book - not a bible’, when you guys read from ‘this book - bible’, on Sunday morning?”
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