If this isn't the truth about the necessity of repentance coming from the very mouth of Pope Francis, I'll eat my biretta!:
At a morning Mass, Pope Francis talked about repentance. He said that only those who repent accept Salvation. He went even further explaining what it really means to reject one’s sins.
POPE FRANCIS:
“If you don’t listen to the Lord, if you don’t accept correction and if you do not trust Him, your heart has not yet repented.”
The Pope concluded that Jesus condemned the hypocrites who called themselves ‘pure’ but lived a double life.
EXCEPRT OF THE POPE’S HOMILY
(Source: Vatican Radio)
“These people cannot receive Salvation. They are closed to
Salvation. ‘I will leave within you the meek and humble; they will trust
in the name of the Lord’ throughout their lives. And that is still
Valid today, isn’t it? When we look at the holy people of God that is
humble, that has its riches in its faith in the Lord, in its trust in
the Lord – the humble, poor people that trust in the Lord: these are the
ones who are saved and this is the way of the Church, isn’t it? This is
the path I must follow, not the path in which I do not listen to His
voice, do not accept correction and do not trust in the Lord.”
“If your heart is not a repentant heart, if you do not listen to
the Lord, if you don’t accept correction and you do not trust in Him,
your heart is unrepentant. These hypocrites who were scandalized by what
Jesus said about the tax collectors and the prostitutes, but then
secretly approached them to vent their passion or to do business – but
all in secrecy – were pure! The Lord does not want them.”
“He listened to the Lord, he always followed His will, he gave to
the Lord, and the Lord said to him: ‘there is still one thing you have
not given me’. And the poor man who was good said: ‘But, Lord, what is
it that I have not given you? I have given you my life, I work for the
poor, I work for catechesis, I work here, I work there … ‘ ‘But there is
something you have not given me yet’ .- ‘What is it Lord? ‘Your sins’.
When we will be able to say to the Lord: ‘Lord, these are my sins –
they are not his or hers, they are mine… They are mine. Take them and I
will be saved’- when we will be able to do this we will be that people,
‘that meek and humble people’, that trusts in the Lord’s name. May the
Lord grant us this grace.”
7 comments:
Ok Father. Have a glass of wine. You are beginning to act like the ressurection of Fanny Cradock.
The truth is that Pope Francis is responsible for all the angst faithful Catholics are feeling. He publicly praises men like Kasper and Daneels who aren't even qualified to be episcopalian yet alone Catholic cardinals. Francis never stops talking about the poor and I mean neverrrrrrrr. I am so sick of hearing him droan on and on about poverty that it makes me want to kick the next homeless person I see. Things are so bad that people are actually asking Francis to his face if he is a Catholic. Instead of being horrified at that perception he gives a haughty backhanded response.
He is a problem and it is not sinful to think that or to speak about it. He is hardly a pillar of orthodoxy. To be honest I wouldn't allow him to teach cathecism to first graders.....and neither would you Father, if you were telling the truth. Francis isn't going to change the doctrine of the Church because he CAN'T. He will change how it is practiced thereby undermining it. He will allow sacrilege in the name of mercy. And then what do we do. If he says that adulterers do not have to confess their sin or change their lives then why should I? But it is all a red herring, the real reason for calling this synod is to accept sodomy as something normal and good. Just watch and see.
Fr, this is all very generalized, vague stuff. The Pope is also calling for everyone to "be open to change" in the Church. He says things like, "the Church is not a museum and must change with the times." So, maybe he sees the hypocrites as those who don't want change. Those who don't want change need to repent and join the spirit of the age. Yeah, this Pope says all the right things...sometimes. But, only time will tell if it means the same thing most of us normally think it means.
Father
I do think you are doing your best but there are very real problems here. What are you going to do if local solutions (see Fr Rosica today on polygamy!) are allowed. This is completely wild and it is Pope Francis who should have spoken as clearly as Cardinal Erdo. The catechism and the magisterial writings of Popes John Paul II and Beendict XVI have made clear that the remarried may not receive communion except in limited cases where chastity is maintained. I am weary, so weary, of this. The lack of clarity is very very systematic.
Anonymous,
Who is Fanny Cradock? Is she the one the Bee Gee's sang about?
These are harsh words, and are a little surprising coming from Pope Francis. This is one reason he reminds me of Pope Paul VI, whose writing and speeches give the impression that he was really two different men. But a pontifex is a bridge, holding together two different shores.
Your first "Anonymous" (brave guys, you get here) probably doesn't know that Cardinal Kasper is a major theologian. His published works are many including "The God of Jesus Christ", an important book recommended to seminary students as a treatise on trinitarian theology. Your correspondent may be slightly disadvantaged by advancing years. Fanny Cradock was a mad British TV cook whose terrible shows appeared in the UK in the early 1960s. As for "the angst that faithful Catholics are feeling", gimme a break. Why can't these "faithful Catholics" in such mental anguish simply trust the Holy Father and the bishops of the Church to do the will of God by the grace of the Holy Spirit?
If we are not "open to change", we cannot be converted from evil to good, or from what is good to what is better. To go to Confession is to be open to change. The Holy Father is a Catholic bishop, therefore, his words should be interpreted as though intended in a Catholic sense - there is no good or solid reason to understand them as being meant in any other sense.
As for Cardinal Kasper, it makes no sense at all, and is very unfair, to judge him on the strength of an out-of-context quotation about God from something he wrote in 1967. It really does seem pretty clear that those Catholics who complain so much of how ghastly the Holy Father is, and how dreadful Cardinal Kasper is, have a very weak case against both Pope and Cardinal.
Why shouldn't the Holy Father use harsh words ? Maybe they are appropriate. They are far less harsh than the words of Our Lord in (say) St Matthew 23. Those who think the HF speaks harshly, should try reading what some of his canonised and beatified predecessors have said - or St Peter, for that matter. His critics can't decide, it seems - he's either being too harsh, or too merciful. Either way, he comes in for criticism :(
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