Posted on 08/14/2005 9:17:15 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
I'll apologize in advance for this vanity post but I need to get this off my chest:
At our 10:30 a.m. mass this morning, our pastor was the celebrant. Today's Gospel was the story of Christ's meeting with the Canaanite woman and the eventual healing of her daughter. Our pastor then followed with his homily where he first related the plight of the Canaanite woman with a woman he knew who called him requesting prayers for an illness in her family which we could relate to since my wife and I are both contending with (minor, we hope) health issues.
The nest thing we know, the pastor is relating this to the "lady camped out in Texas asking for healing AND ACCOUNTABILITY" (the emphasis is my own). We sat there and listened through the sermon as he returned to the Sheehan story a few more times asking us to imagine an Iraqi woman who lost children in the same position.
Thankfully, it was pretty short and we stood for the Creed but then, immediately before the intercessions, the pastor returned to the topic.
This was too much for us so we turned and left, commenting to those around that we don't come to church to hear politics. I handed the usher my offering as we exited.
This is the first time something like this has happened in this church we have attended for the past twenty years or so and I feel pretty horrible about the whole thing.
What, and teach the Bible or even the Ten Commandments? How un-enlightened of you! /s
I hear what you're saying - I haven't found a church I can trust my faith with. I turned my back on God once. Never again. My Church is being in fellowship with those who don't fall for this New Age crap.
You should have kept the offering in your pocket, and taken it to a new church home.
I'm sure he got the message.
No need to apologize. A couple of years ago I was working on a local church. One of the pastors(THE ONLY ONE) snidely hissed, "is this person(me) local?" I could see right through his transparent facade. He was definetly no friend of God. More like an infilTRAITOR who knew who I was, a defender of Christ. All true believers and anti-Christians need to do is glance into each others eyes without ever speaking a word to realize who is on what side.
Lord help you. Stay strong, stay faithful.
What's your Parish?
Those are nice aren't they. Years ago we had a very popular priest who said 1/2 hour Masses.His sermons where very good and to the point.
Our message today was the Canaanite woman who asked for God mercy.
Our parish priest did NOT use the message to reflex upon Cindy Sheenan.
If you ask me your priest used a lazy way, and an biblically inaccurate way to try to explain the gospel message.
Our priest told us that because the woman was a pagan, Jesus was testing her to see how strong her faith was.
She needed to know that Jesus was not just some magician performing tricks.
After she said that even a dog gets to eat the crumbs under the table, he knew her faith was strong and she was a believer.
I don't agree.
The church I used to attend has a new pastor. One Sunday, he commented that His Slickness was "sad because some Christians hated him." The pastor said he was angry with those Christians. In fact, I think he said that he was ashamed of them.
I had a few choice words for the Pastor on the way out the door, "Look up the name of Billy Dale" being among them.
My wife and I have not been back. I was always taught that Christians were to resist evil. This pastor certainly wasn't.
We started attending a local Baptist church in our area. The first Sunday we attended, we heard the pastor come right out and say how important it was to get the right kind of jurist on the Supreme Court. His sermon was almost like spending an hour and a half on FR.
My point is that there is no problem if politics are in the pulpit. In fact, the other side does it regularly (just look at Jesse Jackass and His Slickness paying homage at black churches).
By insisting that politics be kept out of the pulpit, you disarm yourself and give the other side an added weapon. You also stop resisting evil (and yes, I do believe full-throated liberalism, leftism, etc. to be evil). 'Pod.
Yeah, it's good size, established in the mid-20s and in this building since the 50s with "in the round" remodeling done just last last year. I'm pretty sure he did as he's kind of a nit-picker and will pause in the service when somebody coughs too loud or when someone comes in late.
I think it would be appropriate for a twenty year member to write a letter to the priest (cc: the bishop) explaining why it is not in good taste to preach politics in church. Unless they are trying to drive away conservative parishioners.
And make sure you mention that you are a 20 year member, and be sure to cc the pastor.
Yu did the right thing. More people should walk out on these leftist sermons.
Good!:)
Hmmm - Your point is well-taken although I'm not quite sure I'd go for that either. We had another priest who past away recently who was very strongly anti-abortion and, in fact, warned of the Muslims overwhelming Christians with their birth rate and also said that the power of prayer and the vote would help produce change without getting into party politics.
YMMV. ;-)
That is absolutely in bounds per Catholic Church teaching.
You did the right thing, you obviously don't belong in that church, or any other for that matter.
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