I just watched live, Pope Francis' Wednesday audience with about 80,000 of his friends there. And I watched live on the internet and in person from my balcony the fickle weather of Roma as it is cloudy and raining one moment, and sunny and mild the next only to return to the latter!
But I digress, let me summarize what the Holy Father said. It isn't enough to read what the pope says, you must, I repeat, must hear him speak and how he uses Italian parlance to get his message across with his wonderful Italian sense of humor, which the Italians are eating up, even my most secular Italian relatives here in Italy and in Chicago!
He talked about the keys the Holy Spirit gives to the Church to bind and loose and this in the context of forgiveness and the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us in this regard.
Then he speaks of the necessity of the Sacrament of Penance and the need to go to confession regularly and to never grow tired of doing so, because the Holy Spirit, through the keys He has given the Church, never tires of forgiving us through the bishops and priests of the Church in this sacrament.
But as an aside, the Holy Father says in Italian, that many of you are ashamed to go to a priest and confess your sins over and over. Then he reminded us of what our grandparents and parents have said in the past. "IT IS BETTER TO BE RED THAN TO BE YELLOW!" (Embarrassed than to be a coward!)
Then in a humorous way, he says that even priests must go to confession and even the pope must go too, which all the Italians there applauded and laughed!
No recent pope, not even Blessed Pope John Paul II has spoken of God's mercy as mediated through the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit which gives the Church the power to bind and loose, has spoken most frequently and on a basic human level about the need to seek God's mercy and forgiveness in the Sacraments of the Church, especially Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of Penance and in Penance, we should never grow tired of celebrating for The Lord God never grows tired of offering us forgiveness!
MY FINAL COMMENT: Once Catholics rediscover the need to go to Confession, they will rediscover their Catholic identity as it concerns Scripture, Tradition and natural law and the need for fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church!
MARK MY WORD! POPE FRANCIS IS THE POPE OF THE MUCH AWAITED, BUT DELAYED UNTIL NOW, "NEW SPRINGTIME" FOR THE CHURCH IN THE POST VATICAN II CHURCH!
And he will accomplish this by getting Catholics back to Confession, where they will examine their conscience and become once again forgiven Catholics who can worthily receive Holy Communion in a state of Grace and thus not commit sacrilege by doing otherwise.
8 comments:
Pope of "the new springtime" ???
As Father Z keeps pointing out, there will be no new springtime, no new evangelization going anywhere, until top priority is put on the world-wide revitalization of the liturgy. Is there any indication of such a priority in the current papacy?
But Fr. Z isn't infallible and when I see Pope Francis celebrating Mass here in Rome it is sober and by the book.
"it is sober and by the book."
Have you seen him genuflect?
No, I thought not. He will kneel, so there goes the "bad knees" excuse, but he won't genuflect. Not even at the Consecration, where he can use the altar's edge for support.
Have you ever seen him offer Holy Mass as the sole celebrant?
No, I thought not.
Have you seen him offer Mass with an archbishop sans chasuble?
Yep.
Have you ever seen him wash the foot of a Mohammedess at the Holy Thursday Mandatum?
Definitely "by the book" on that one.
And Father Z is right. The Liturgy is where the faithful encounter their Faith, period. All else is periphery.
The last time I checked the pope is the supreme legislator of the Church. Also he does indeed have knee issues thus he bows. I have serious knee problems and while I can kneel, I cannot genuflect, so I do a half genuflection/bow combo!
Fr Z is overrated, pompous, and condescending, especially to those clergy who have not been gifted with as good a memory as his.
He is also a "wandering" priest, incardinated in a diocese he has no business being incardinated in.
Ask Fr. McDonald, a former vocations director, about candidates who wander about, seeking a diocese to belong to . . .
"Supreme Legislator?"
Ultramontanist mischief in its popular interpretation. The pope is the servant of Tradition, not its master.
When petitioned to place the name of St. Joseph in the Canon, Pius IX famously replied, "How can I? I'm only the pope!"
"But Fr. Z isn't infallible and when I see Pope Francis celebrating Mass here in Rome it is sober and by the book."
But you surely can take Fr. Z to the bank on "Save the Liturgy, Save the World."
And it's how the liturgy is celebrated throughout the world that will save the Church, not how either Pope Benedict or Pope Francis celebrates it in Rome. It's not the function of papal liturgy to "model" the celebration of the Mass elsewhere.
In any event, why banter about it--about who says or does what? Isn't it obvious that the new evangelization will go nowhere until the pope AND our bishops put the liturgy first?
Incidentally, "chief legislator" refers to the popes role in the final promulgation of Church legislation. But once established, the pope has no more license to violate Church legislation than any other priest or layman.
The Liturgy, particularly the EF but also the OF celebrated ad orientum and with proper dignity and rubrics, is the Catholic Faith. Those who deconstructed it knew exactly what they were doing and did it deliberately for egalitarian, leveling reasons. They did it seeking common ground with protestant humanistic/liberal theology (read unbelief) in order to transform the Church into a huge social work/collectivist utopian enterprise. They had to de-construct/de-myhtologize the Mass and the Church because we can't have people believing all that Real Presence, Bodily resurrection, Christ returning to establish real Justice at the end of history nonsense if we are to establish a benign world government which will issue in a New Age on earth. Anybody who does not see this is not paying attention or living in denial.
So, indeed, fix the Liturgy, fix the Church. All the high-sounding God talk doesn't mean much…it sounds a lot like the band playing beautifully on the Titanic…glub, glub, gurgle.
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