Posted on 09/22/2015 7:44:18 AM PDT by Salvation
CREDIT: Jaclyn Lippelmann, The Catholic Standard
On Thursday morning, Pope Francis will speak at a joint session of Congress. Shortly thereafter he will journey to a nearby center of Catholic Charities. In so doing, he will be meeting very different groups of people: politicians, and the poor, legislators and the less fortunate.
There is in these visits a powerful contrast. But not all things are as they appear for not as man sees does God see. Let’s consider both.
The day will begin in the well of the U.S. Congress. This will be the first time that a pope has addressed a joint session of Congress. He does so as a religious and moral leader, but also as a head of state. In fact, many of the honors the pope has been accorded, including arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, an official welcome, and Secret Service protection are due to his status as the head of state of the Vatican City State, the smallest internationally recognized state in the world.
But do not miss the stunning image here: a pope addressing Congress. Such a thing would have been unthinkable before the 1960s. Catholics were generally considered with suspicion by the Protestant majority in the United State. They wondered if our loyalties were here or with the Vatican. Wave after wave of Catholic immigrants in the early 20th century also created fear in the minds of many Americans. These Catholics immigrants were poor and brought with them many of the social ills associated with poverty. Thus, anti-Catholic sentiment ran deep before the 1960s. And despite Catholics gaining local power in many northeastern cities, it was generally difficult for Catholics to be elected to national office. In those times, people who talked about the important of the “separation of Church and State” usually had Catholics in mind.
Much of the severity of sectarian hostility has waned, even as secular hostility against the Church has risen. But most people who lived before 1960 could never have imagined a pope addressing a joint session of Congress or receiving the sorts of state-sponsored honors you have seen; it would have been politically impossible.
Yet note a further paradox! In many minds, this address of the pope to Congress is one to arguably the most powerful body on this planet. The men and women gathered there sit atop billion dollar budgets and make decisions that affect the entire world, let alone the United States. The fate and well-being of many depends on them.
But not all things are as they appear. For that body of individuals is likely the second most important group the pope will address on Thursday. The most important and influential group awaits him at his next stop: the poor at Catholic Charities.
Please be assured that I do not make this observation with the common class hatred/envy that simplistically concludes that all rich and powerful people are evil and greedy while all the poor are good and holy. Things are never that black and white. There are sinners and saints in each group.
But understand this: the poor, the suffering, and the vulnerable are far more powerful than most of us imagine. Consider that while the poor need us in this life, we are going to them in the next. The Lord Jesus counseled us, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings (Lk 16:9). In other words, if we are generous to the poor here, they are going to be powerful advocates for us on our judgment day.
Mother Mary, too, spoke of a great reversal that is coming: he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty (Lk 1:52-53). And Jesus added, But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first (Matt 19:30). And Psalm 72 says, The Lord hears the cry of the poor (Ps 72).
It seems that many of us here are going to have to make an appointment to be able to see them in Heaven! Many who are poor, suffering, and vulnerable now are going to have the highest places in Heaven, and they’re going have a lot to say about our final judgment. It’s not bad advice to befriend them now because we’re going to need them later!
So which is the most powerful group the pope will address on Thursday? Well, you decide. But remember, things are not always as they appear; God does not see as man sees.
“Could be, but not necessarily.”
I did say “if,” but I don’t really have any reason to think the women who are Catholic Charities have any charity in their hearts for white men.
“The concept of the poor as suffering innocents who simply can’t find work is an utter fabrication in this country”
That was true before the Kenyan Commie was placed into office through fraud.
Alas, there are many who would work but cannot find jobs today. Tens of millions, certainly.
“Rightly or wrongly he comes across to me as a hardcore Leftist.”
Do you mean morally, or “correctly or incorrectly?”
Because it is as certain that he is wrong to be that way, as it is that he is that way.
Peron, who is his political mentor, was a child-molesting Nazi. I mean a real Nazi, as in a follower of Adolph Hitler before and after his death. And I mean a real child molester, as in a practitioner of sexual relations with pre-pubescent girls.
He married the prostitute Eva Duarte because people were getting tired of covering for him.
Yes, yes, the biographies always talk about her being an actress, etc. etc. Believe that crap if you want. She was a prostitute.
The Church is only allowed to exist in socialist/communist countries if the Church leaders support the government’s positions on everything-and no Church leader from one of those communist countries-even pope Francis-should be promoting some socialist message-or any other political message-manmade warming/cooling climate crap, open borders to hordes of God knows who, wealth redistribution, or whatever.
He has no business in those issues, and I am not interested in hearing what he has to say-the reason I’ve loved and prayed to all my life to God certainly has nothing to do with politics or any of that-and it never will.
Church/religious issues are what the pope is supposed to be concerned with-like charities to assist the needy, the sacrament of marriage being between a man and a woman, abortion being infanticide, etc. This pope seems far, far less concerned with those real moral issues than he is with having the approval of the Castros, Obama and the UN-and spreading their socialist message...
I graduated from a Catholic university in the 70’s-my two favorite professors were Jesuit priests-and they were questioners who encouraged logical thinking-they most certainly were not socialists...
What’s needed there is not prayer but exorcism!
I agree.
St. John Paul II the Great didn't praise Fidel Castro as a contributor to world peace.
Yes, I'm sure everyone had forgotten that.
Jesuits are well known for just that.
It may be that the outwardly rich and powerful are those of who have the most impoverished spirits.
Reminds me of the Troparion Of St. John Chrysostom:
Grace shining forth from your lips like a beacon
has enlightened the universe;
It has shown to the world the riches of poverty,
it has declared the heights of humility;
Teaching us by your words, O father John Chrysostom,
intercede before the Word, Christ our God,
to save our souls.
His ministry recalls another holy Pope, +Leo the Great:
Troparion — Tone 3
You were the Church’s instrument / in strengthening the teaching of true doctrine; / you shone forth from the West like a sun dispelling the errors of the heretics. / Righteous Leo, entreat Christ God to grant us His great mercy.
Troparion — Tone 8
O Champion of Orthodoxy, and teacher of holiness, / The enlightenment of the universe and the inspired glory of true believers. / O most wise Father Leo, your teachings are as music of the Holy Spirit for us! / Pray that Christ our God may save our souls!
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