Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has become a media sensation and his Brazil trip and return home have given us the clearest signs of where he is leading us, signs that have been present, though, since day one of his papacy.
1. He has the common touch in lifestyle and language. He doesn't want to intellectualize the Church's teaching but make it comprehensible and practical for everyday Catholics and those we want to evangelize.
2. He loves the Lord and shares Him in the most personal way possible, especially through the sacraments.
3. Jesus never tires of forgiving us although we tire of asking for forgiveness. Pope Francis will be the pope of Divine Mercy and this will appeal to a sick sick weary world.
4. Tied into Divine Mercy and crucial to it is his call to go to confession regularly and for priests to see hearing confessions as one of the most important ministries they have. This means of course making time for it that is practical and convenient for the faithful.
5. Tied into the need for Confession is the reality of Satan which the Pope preaches about often and that he prowls the world seeking the ruin of souls. Pope Francis is not afraid to pray prayers of exorcism and deliverance over those oppressed or possessed by the evil one and his minions.
6. Devotion to the Blessed Mother is not an option. Pope Francis will be even more Marian that Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II combined.
7. Although he is open to a variety of liturgical styles of music, some good, some not so good, his own manner of celebrating the Mass and other sacraments is very, very reverent, austere, sober and devotional.
8. He has emphasized loving the sinner but offering forgiveness to the sinner as highlighted above.
9. He has called for a spirit of shame in the Church, which means we need to know what is shameful, sinful.
10. He wants the laity to go to the streets with the Catholic Faith, God's mercy and to evangelize, make a ruckus and stir the pot with Catholicism!
You've got to love this pope.
6 comments:
All of this is good, and I've no doubt that the Pope is personally very devout. But, there has got to be a top-down fix for the liturgical chaos that still exists. Catholic identity and theology have always been embodied in the Liturgy and the Mystery of the Real Presence. God's sovereignty and glory, His sacrificial love, and His coming return, judgement, and putting things right have always been heralded and acknowledged through the power and majesty of the Mass. Until the current liturgical nightmare is fixed, the real message of the Church is lost in narcissistic self-expression, facile homiletics, humanistic liturgy, and half-assed (that is a theological term) pastoral theology. It is like sending soldiers against a fortified enemy with no battle plan and no commanding officer, just an "ok, go get 'em!"
Pope Francis needs to stop talking and start doing. I believe he was elected to clean up the Curia. Now he's saying the mess isn't as bad as it seems. It should be an easier job then. When the Curia is reformed hopefully he can fix his own order which by no reasonable estimation can be seen as healthy.
You want to "stir the pot" and "make a mess"? Then vote in this survey:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sdiZLd9ln2ocOO-oOmwnCXo01r_jdsmV5psLdJRorms/viewform
In the selection, please pick “Write In"
Then put your first name, last initial.
In the ‘Write In Title’ space, please type in either “Belmont Mass" or "Psallite Mass At the Table of the Lord".
What better way to "make a mess" and "stir the pot" than by voting for chanted Mass Settings instead of awful, contemporary, Broadway-pop style settings!!
Voting ends Aug 5, 2013, so please vote now.
Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it.
Sarah E, I wrote-in voted for "Belmont Mass w/Confiteor, Alleluia chant mode VI, and chanted Our Father".
Done, heh, heh.
Maybe if we follow the Pope and do as he asks, growing numbers of laity will rediscover the importance of piety. If this happens, then, over time, a greater percentage of the laity will not be satisfied with watered-down liturgies and will demand more reverent liturgies.
Maybe the best solution to the liturgy is bottom-up instead of top-down?
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