Once again Francis is taking a swipe at Faithful Catholics who adhere to sound doctrine and who understand that the teaching of the Living God is immutable.
Religion News Service reports:
"Pope Francis is calling for ordinary Catholics to live holy lives in whatever they do, stressing that the 'saints next door' are more pleasing to God than religious elites who insist on perfect adherence to rules and doctrine."
Really?
As Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand has reminded us:
"The attempt to make man the absolute center of the universe has in reality led to a progressive blindness toward the true nature of his dignity. The attempt to make a god out of man ended in making of him a more highly developed ape. The idolatry of great achievements shares the same fate...
When confronting the worship of great achievements, it is imperative to recall man's primary vocation. Great as is the range of values which man is capable of realizing, moral values hold a unique position in man's life. They alone are indispensable for every human being, whatever his special gifts and talents may be. They alone belong to the unum necessarium. Man is called above all to glorify God by his justice, his purity, his veracity, his goodness. 'Be you perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.' (Mt. 5:48). Moral disvalues are an incomparable evil; they alone offend God; moral goodness reflects and glorifies God more than any achievement whatsoever....Compared with this vocation, the noblest talents and the creation of the greatest impersonal goods are secondary. Progress in the domination of nature, inventions, great achievements in science, cultural activities, and even the creation of masterpieces in art - great as they are in themselves, much as they manifest man's greatness - do not constitute man's primary vocation. No excellence in these fields can be compared at all with the value embodied in a saint." (Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The New Tower of Babel, pp. 181-182, Sophia Institute Press).
Archbishop Sheen once noted that, "Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it. It is not broad-minded about sin."
The great Archbishop also made an important distinction: "Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error." And again: "Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant."
What Francis rails against, referring to as "rigidity" as "sickness," is authentic Christian love, as defined by 1822 of the Catechism.
Before labeling others as sick, Francis should reflect prayerfully on the fact that his one-time Superior General in the Jesuits referred to him as a "sociopath." See here.
Showing posts with label Sainthood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sainthood. Show all posts
Monday, April 09, 2018
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
The Saints are not confined to museums
"The church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners."
We've been hearing this maxim ad nauseam ever since Pope Francis was quoted as having said in the Jesuit magazine La Civita Cattolica, that, "the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle."
The notion that the Saints are somehow "relics of the past," stored in a museum, and that sainthood is to be dismissed as stuffy and remote and of no practical use with regard to warming the hearts of the faithful here and now and that the Saints and the vocation to sainthood are not proximate to Catholics, but rather are things which are remote, is disturbing.
On November 1, 2006, during the Solemnity of All Saints, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the Vatican Basilica.
In his homily he highlighted the fact that "saints are not an exclusive caste of the chosen few, but a countless multitude towards whom today's liturgy encourages us to direct our gaze. That multitude contains not only officially-recognized saints, but the baptized from every age and nation who have sought to enact divine will with love and faithfulness."
"Contemplating the shining example of the saints," said the Holy Father, "awakens within us the great desire to be like them: happy to live near God, in His light, in the great family of the friends of God. ... This is the vocation of us all, clearly reiterated by Vatican Council II, and today solemnly brought to our attention once again."
"In order to be saints," he continued, "it is not necessary to accomplish extraordinary actions and works, nor to possess exceptional charisms. ... What is above all necessary is to listen to Jesus and then to follow Him without losing heart in the face of difficulties."
"The experience of the Church shows that all forms of sanctity, though following different paths, always pass along the way of the cross, the way of self-renouncement. The biographies of the saints describe men and women who, compliant to the divine plan, at times faced indescribable trials and suffering, persecutions and martyrdom."
"For us, the example of the saints is an encouragement to follow the same footsteps and experience the joy of those who entrust themselves to God; because the only true cause of sadness and unhappiness for mankind is to remain distant from Him."
Sanctity, said the Holy Father, "requires a constant effort, but it is a possibility for everyone because, more than being the work of man it is, primarily, a gift of God, thrice Holy."
"In Christ," he concluded, "God gave us all of Himself, and He calls us to a personal and profound relationship with Him. Thus, the greater our intimacy with Jesus, and the more united to Him we are, the more we enter into the mystery of divine sanctity. We discover that we are loved by Him with an infinite love, and this encourages us in turn to love our brothers and sisters. Loving always involves an act of self-renouncement, the 'loss of self', and it is precisely for this reason that it makes us happy."
Sanctity is a possibility for everyone. Sainthood is man's primary vocation. Not the relic of a bygone age.
We've been hearing this maxim ad nauseam ever since Pope Francis was quoted as having said in the Jesuit magazine La Civita Cattolica, that, "the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle."
The notion that the Saints are somehow "relics of the past," stored in a museum, and that sainthood is to be dismissed as stuffy and remote and of no practical use with regard to warming the hearts of the faithful here and now and that the Saints and the vocation to sainthood are not proximate to Catholics, but rather are things which are remote, is disturbing.
On November 1, 2006, during the Solemnity of All Saints, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the Vatican Basilica.
In his homily he highlighted the fact that "saints are not an exclusive caste of the chosen few, but a countless multitude towards whom today's liturgy encourages us to direct our gaze. That multitude contains not only officially-recognized saints, but the baptized from every age and nation who have sought to enact divine will with love and faithfulness."
"Contemplating the shining example of the saints," said the Holy Father, "awakens within us the great desire to be like them: happy to live near God, in His light, in the great family of the friends of God. ... This is the vocation of us all, clearly reiterated by Vatican Council II, and today solemnly brought to our attention once again."
"In order to be saints," he continued, "it is not necessary to accomplish extraordinary actions and works, nor to possess exceptional charisms. ... What is above all necessary is to listen to Jesus and then to follow Him without losing heart in the face of difficulties."
"The experience of the Church shows that all forms of sanctity, though following different paths, always pass along the way of the cross, the way of self-renouncement. The biographies of the saints describe men and women who, compliant to the divine plan, at times faced indescribable trials and suffering, persecutions and martyrdom."
"For us, the example of the saints is an encouragement to follow the same footsteps and experience the joy of those who entrust themselves to God; because the only true cause of sadness and unhappiness for mankind is to remain distant from Him."
Sanctity, said the Holy Father, "requires a constant effort, but it is a possibility for everyone because, more than being the work of man it is, primarily, a gift of God, thrice Holy."
"In Christ," he concluded, "God gave us all of Himself, and He calls us to a personal and profound relationship with Him. Thus, the greater our intimacy with Jesus, and the more united to Him we are, the more we enter into the mystery of divine sanctity. We discover that we are loved by Him with an infinite love, and this encourages us in turn to love our brothers and sisters. Loving always involves an act of self-renouncement, the 'loss of self', and it is precisely for this reason that it makes us happy."
Sanctity is a possibility for everyone. Sainthood is man's primary vocation. Not the relic of a bygone age.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
A daily consecration from the Little Flower
A morning prayer written by St. Therese of Lisieux
O my God! I offer Thee all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to Its infinite merits; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of Its Merciful Love.
O my God! I ask of Thee for myself and for those whom I hold dear, the grace to fulfill perfectly Thy Holy Will, to accept for love of Thee the joys and sorrows of this passing life, so that we may one day be united together in heaven for all Eternity.
Amen.
O my God! I offer Thee all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to Its infinite merits; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of Its Merciful Love.
O my God! I ask of Thee for myself and for those whom I hold dear, the grace to fulfill perfectly Thy Holy Will, to accept for love of Thee the joys and sorrows of this passing life, so that we may one day be united together in heaven for all Eternity.
Amen.
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