Pope Francis speaks to pilgrims during his Wednesday General Audience on April 23, 2014 Credit: Kyle Burkhart/CNA
Posted on 05/15/2014 2:15:20 PM PDT by NYer
.- Pope Francis reflected in his daily Mass on how the apostles evangelized by first telling the history of God’s people, explaining that it’s impossible to understand a Christian without this association.
“You cannot understand a Christian outside of the people of God. The Christian is not a monad,” but “belongs to a people: the Church,” the Pope observed in his May 15 homily.
“A Christian without a church is something purely idealistic, it is not real.”
Beginning by looking to the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, the Roman Pontiff addressed those gathered in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse by recalling how when Paul preached in Antioch, he did so by first recounting the whole of Israel’s salvation history.
“Jesus does not make sense without this history” because he “is the end of this story, (the end) toward which this story goes, toward which it walks,” he noted, so “you cannot understand a Christian outside of the people of God.”
“You cannot understand a Christian alone, just like you cannot understand Jesus Christ alone” the Pope went on to say, explaining that “Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us.”
“No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history.”
Pope Francis then described how a Christian without a history, a nation or the Church “is incomprehensible,” saying that it’s “a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life.”
Drawing attention to the importance of remembering this “dimension of history,” the Bishop of Rome observed that a Christian is “a living memory of his people’s journey, he is the living memory of his Church.”
“Then, where is this people going? Toward the ultimate promise. It is a people walking toward fullness; a chosen people which has a promise for the future and walks toward this promise, toward the fulfillment of this promise.”
In order to do this Christians within the Church must be men and women “with hope: hope in the promise,” the Pope went on, noting that “It is not expectation: no, no! That’s something else: It is hope.”
“Right, on we go! (Toward) that which does not disappoint.”
Explaining how a Christian is also someone who remembers, the pontiff encouraged all present to “seek the grace of memory, always” so that by doing so and also looking forward with hope they might be a Christian who “follows the path of God and renews the covenant with God.”
This type of Christian constantly tells the Lord “Yes, I want the commandments, I want your will, I will follow you” he continued, adding that “He is a man of the covenant, and we celebrate the covenant, every day” in the Mass, therefore a Christian is “a woman, a man of the Eucharist.”
Concluding his reflections, Pope Francis encouraged all present to “think about our Christian identity,” stating that “Our Christian identity is belonging to a people: the Church.”
“Without this, we are not Christians” he observed, noting how “we entered the Church through baptism: there we are Christians.”
“For this reason, we should be in the habit of asking for the grace of memory, the memory of the journey that the people of God has made,” the pontiff said, and “also of personal memory: What God did for me, in my life, how has he made me walk…”
Praying, the Roman Pontiff asked “for the grace of hope, which is not optimism: no, no! It's something else,” and asked “for the grace to renew the covenant with the Lord who has called us every day.”
“May the Lord give us these three graces, which are necessary for the Christian identity.”
“So now a man says his church must stand between a soul and God in order for that soul to reach salvation?”
Is that what he said? Can you show me where he said that?
The better the definition of the question, the better someone could answer it.
BEEP!
That, or maybe not.
Interesting.
That is, until they encountered Christ --- and that, centuries after their deaths.
“A person who does not go to church does not know Jesus.”
Thanks God. See ya.
Of course you can tell who is a believer or not. It is stupid to say you can’t. We are told to judge, to make distinctions. It’s a recipe for disaster when we claim we can’t. That is license for all manner of evil to be tolerated in a body.
Yeah, that and the church needs your money.
I suppose little, old ladies who are homebound don’t know Jesus right...
I’ll take a pass thanks.
When is a Christian a Christian?
The Popester seems to be ignorant of the fact.....
Christians ARE the church.. no christians no church..
Clergy are religious lawyers..
Lost me on you can not understand Jesus Christ alone. Excuse me, but ALL things are possible through Christ in my world!
The word I think the translators are looking for is “theoretical”, but the point he’s making is correct. We all need a relationship with God and with the community of believers. I need it. So do you. None of us are beautiful, unique snowflakes that way.
IB4TPWMA
Protestant
Jesus Christ paid the price of admission for me, I need no one to stand for me but him.
A church is wherever two or more gather in his name.
bump
bingo. Like I stated earlier, a church is when 2 or more Christians gather in Jesus’ name.
Philippians 4:13!
I’ll take my chances with God’s word and not follow a false church, thanks.
My mom died in 2007 just a few months short of being 103. She had not been to a church in decades but she had a powerful Christian testimony. I never ever heard her say a bad thing about anyone. It seems her dad taught her that if you can not say something nice about anyone, just be quiet. Everyone she met loved her.
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