Category Archives: Church

Pope Francis Lighting the Way Forward

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And this is the judgment: Because the light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.  For every one that doth evil hateth the light and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. But he that doth truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest: because they are done in God.

—John 3:19-21

Pope Francis has been shining a light on issues of conscience and preaching the faith in his daily homilies and applying the Word of God to the lives of his hearers.  In a particular he continues to return to the them of docility to the Holy Spirit and discerning the way through the modern world, avoiding the extremes and staying on the path of reform and renewal. Continue reading →

The hour of the law’s fulfillment…

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“The hour of the law’s fulfillment, is when the law reaches its maturity when it becomes the law of the Spirit. Moving forward on this road is somewhat risky, but it is the only road to maturity, to leave behind the times in which we are not mature. Part of the law’s journey to maturity, which comes with preaching Jesus, always involves fear; fear of the freedom that the Spirit gives us. The law of the Spirit makes us free! This freedom frightens us a little, because we are afraid we will confuse the freedom of the Spirit with human freedom. “

Pope Francis continued, the law of the Spirit, “takes us on a path of continuous discernment to do the will of God” and this can frighten us. The Pope warned that this fear “brings two temptations with it.” The first, is to “go backwards” to say that “it’s possible up to this point, but impossible beyond this point” which ends up becoming “let’s stay here”. This, he warned, “is the temptation of fear of freedom, fear of the Holy Spirit.” A fear that “it is better to play it safe.” Pope Francis then told a story about a superior general who, in the 1930’s, went around compiling a list of regulations for his religious, “a work that took years.” Then he travelled to Rome to meet a Benedictine abbot, who, upon hearing all he had done, replied that in doing so he “had killed his Congregation’s charism”, “he had killed its freedom” since “this charism bears fruit in freedom and he had stopped the charism”.

“This is the temptation to go backwards, because we are ‘safer’ going back: but total security is in the Holy Spirit that brings you forward, which gives us this trust – as Paul says – which is more demanding because Jesus tells us: “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law”. It is more demanding! But it does not give us that human security. We cannot control the Holy Spirit: that is the problem! This is a temptation. “

Pope Francis noted that there is another temptation: that of “adolescent progressivism”, that de-rails us. This temptation lies in seeing a culture and “not detaching ourselves from it”.

“We take the values of this culture a little bit from here, a little bit from there , … They want to make this law? Alright let’s go ahead and make this law. Let’s broaden the boundaries here a little. In the end, let me tell you, this is not true progress. It is adolescent progressivism: just like teenagers who in their enthusiasm want to have everything and in the end? You slip up … It’s like when the road is covered in ice and the car slips and go off track… This is the other temptation at the moment! We, at this moment in the history of the Church, we cannot go backwards or go off the track! “

—Pope Francis, June 12, 2013

Our Attitude Toward Sin and Sinners

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Third Sunday After Pentecost

The Art of Celebration

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The liturgical difference between Francis and Benedict XVI has been one of the most noted contrasts between the new pope and his predecessor.  Since the day he was elected, when he dispensed with the mozzetta at his first greeting of the faithful from the loggia of St. Peters, he has opted for plainer liturgical style for papal functions.  His washing of the feet of girls, one of whom was a Muslim, on Holy Thursday, has been noted by some as the end of Pope Benedict’s reform of the reform.  Likewise, his choice to celebrate in parishes within his own diocese according the liturgical customs of the place, rather than impose the standards of his Vatican celebrations, has been noted as an undoing of Pope Benedict’s efforts to restore lost traditions.  But Benedictine Abbot Michael Zielinski, from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, sees the differences as complementary rather than contradictory.

I think it is worth noting here again that, both in the order of being and in the order of logic, two things or assertions that are different, or contrary, are not for that reason contradictory.  That there might be a greater or lesser degree of solemnity, magnificence, or ritual purity, does not mean that the greater end of the spectrum is reverent and the lesser end irreverent.  This is a distinction that seems to be lost on many who are inclined to be reactive against the differences, rather than responsive to the Vicar of Christ. Continue reading →

Always with Us

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Homily For Corpus Christi

According to what was mentioned…

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According to what was mentioned by Bishop Padovano, Francis exhorted him to be careful with the extremisms of certain Traditionalist groups, but also to treasure tradition and allow it to live in the Church along with innovation.

In order to better explain this last point, the Pope would have brought up his own example:

“See? They say that my Master of papal ceremonies [Guido Marini] is of a Traditionalist mold; and many, after my election, have asked me to remove him from his position and replace him. I have answered no, precisely because I myself may treasure his traditional formation, and at the same time he might take advantage of my more emancipated formation.”

—Sandro Magister, quoting Pope Francis

Liturgical Trumpeteering

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When Pope Benedict XVI reigned, every little “restoration” of traditional elements to the papal liturgy was often trumpeted as yet another momentous step in the restoration of the liturgy for the whole Church. It strikes us as absurd and inconsistent that now that another Pope reigns, “papal example” in the liturgy is suddenly treated in some “conservative” quarters as “irrelevant” and as being of little or no concern, something best ignored and needing no comment. Unfortunately, the restoration of the sacred liturgy can never be built on wishful thinking, or on denial, or on coming up with strange and improbable excuses (sometimes in the name of charity!) to explain away the obvious.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the restorationist ideas presented consistently by traditionalists are fundamentally opposed to the new liturgy and to Vatican II.  Along these lines, “every little ‘restoration’” introduced by Benedict XVI has been interpreted as an act of creeping traditionalism.  As rightly pointed out above, such actions have been “trumpeted,” not by the pope, but by the counter-revolutionaries in the interests of their cause.  Accordingly, for those who think in this fashion, every liturgical choice of a pope must be assumed to be backed by an agenda, and, therefore, must be exploited for its sign value.  What the pope actually intended or did not intend is not important.  It is what we can make out of it that counts.

So instead of making an attempt to discern actually what Pope Francis intended or did not intend by his choice, the traditionalists isolate the “offending” action in freeze-frame and use it to sustain the paranoia that is necessary to drive the crusade.

No, no, not more than one child…

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“No, no, not more than one child, because otherwise we will not be able to go on holiday, we will not be able to go out, we will not be able to buy a house. It’s all very well to follow the Lord, but only up to a certain point. This is what economic wellbeing does to us: we all know what wellbeing is, but it deprives us of courage, of the courage we need to get close to Jesus. This is the first richness of the culture of today, the culture of economic wellbeing”.

There is also, he added, “another richness in our culture”, another richness that prevents us from getting close to Jesus: it’s our fascination for the temporary”. We, he observed, are “in love with the provisional”. We don’t like Jesus’s “definitive proposals”. Instead we like what is temporary because “we are afraid of God’s time” which is definitive.

—Pope Francis, Homily, May 27, 2013