The Things that Make for Peace: Reflection on the Gospel for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

In his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus, Pope Pius XII reflected on the catastrophe about to envelope the European continent as Adolph Hitler began the invasion of Catholic Poland:

"What calamities could be averted, what happiness and tranquility assured, if the social and international forces working to establish peace would let themselves be permeated by the deep lessons of the Gospel of Love in their struggle against individual or collective egoism!"

The Pope then cited Jesus’ reaction as he wept over Jerusalem, a verse drawn from the gospel for today in the traditional liturgical calendar:

"Our pastoral heart looks on with sorrow and foreboding, the Image of the Good Shepherd comes up before Our gaze, and it seems as though We ought to repeat to the world in His name: 'And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! [i.e., the lessons of the Gospel of Love] But now they are hid from your eyes.'" (RSV)

As Christians are persecuted around the globe, and Israel is being bombarded with Hamas rockets while they use innocent Palestinians as shield for Israel’s retaliation, as the demonic Islamic caliphate attempts genocide vs. the Yazidis, let us listen to the words of the present pope as the world flirts with a wider war:

“Today our brothers are persecuted….they are banished from their homes and forced to flee without even being able to take their belongings!” ….My dear brothers and sisters who are persecuted, I know how much you suffer; I know that you are deprived of all. I am with you in faith in He who conquered evil”. May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace!”

Taking his cue from the parable of thee weeds and the wheat, Pope Francis explained that here Our Lord speaks to us of the problem of evil in the world and God’s patience. The devil, he said, plants evil where there is good, trying to divide people, families and nations. But God knows how to wait. He looks into the ‘field’ of each person with patience and mercy: he sees the dirt and the evil much better than we do, but he also sees the seeds of good and patiently awaits their sprouting.

Francis teaches that God is a patient father who waits with an open heart to welcome us and to forgive us, but His patience does not mean He is indifferent to evil. One day knownst only to Him, He will separate those who have sown good seed from those who have sown weeds. And, Francis said, we will be judged with the same measure with which we judged others; we will be shown the same mercy we showed towards others. Let us join together as the Holy Father has implored to pray for an end to the strife and sufferings caused by those from whom the things that make for peace are hidden.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

On the Spirit of the Liturgy

Defending the papacy of Benedict XVI vs . the New York Times (!), Randall B. Smith has written : Like his predecessor before him, Benedict effectively carried on the authentic reforms of the Second Vatican Council, as opposed to the false “reforms” that so often led the Church astray in the post-conciliar period. A cardinal archbishop told an audience recently that the liturgy was so abused in the early seventies when he was in seminary that the faithful seminarians would say about the ersatz masses being done by their elders: “Everything in them changes but the bread and wine.” Benedict, by contrast, did a great deal to help realize the original intentions of the liturgical reformers. Given that the lex orandi (the law of praying) is intimately intertwined with the lex credendi (the law of believing)—which is another way of saying that what we pray is what we believe—reforming the liturgy has always been an absolutely essential way of helping...

Are We in a War?

Power Line POSTED ON NOVEMBER 22, 2020 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DEMOCRATS , LIBERALS , SOCIALISM FIGHTING WORDS, BY DAVID HOROWITZ Our friend David Horowitz wrote this essay, which he titled “Fighting Words.” It is a call for freedom-loving Americans to fight back against the totalitarian Left. By now it should be obvious – even to conservatives – that we are in a war. It is a conflict that began nearly fifty years ago when the street revolutionaries of the Sixties joined the Democrat Party. Their immediate goal was to help the Communist enemy win the war in Vietnam, but they stayed to expand their influence in the Democrat Party and create the radical force that confronts us today. The war that today’s Democrats are engaged in reflects the values and methods of those radicals. It is a war against us – against individual freedom, against America’s constitutional order, and against the capitalist engine of our prosperity. Democrat radi...

Tolkein, Paul VI, and the Devil

In 1941, Tolkien wrote a masterful letter to his son Michael, dealing with marriage and the realities of human sexuality. The letter reflects Tolkien's Christian worldview and his deep love for his sons, and at the same time, also acknowledges the powerful dangers inherent in unbridled sexuality. From the letter: This is a fallen world…. the dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell….The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones. Tolkien advised his young son that the sexual fantasies of the 20th century were demonic lies, intended to ensnare u...

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here to see what abandonment looks like!

Libido Redux Explained

When I read for the first time Pope Paul VI's 1972 “Smoke of Satan” homily, I was intrigued by his reference to the human sex drive as one way Satan can seek the ruin of souls. The sexual decadence of popular culture—in music, television, and videos—is only the most obvious manifestation. But let us consider from the standpoint of Catholic moral teaching the evils of fornication, adultery, cohabitation, divorce, bearing children outside wedlock and homosexual sex. Controlling these sins, living chastely, is a basic Catholic moral value. But I blog on these because, even as the social and economic results from these practices becomes ever more obvious and serious, priests and laity seem determined to ignore talking of them. No parish today seems willing to admonish or rebuke someone because of sexual misconduct, this in spite of the reality that it is precisely these sins that are wreaking havoc throughout society. Just what are social consequences of uncontrolled libido? For...

VATICAN III?

New York Times best-selling author and Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett has issued a call for Vatican III . She says the Church needs true renewal. I agree that She does need true renewal, the best explanation of which is set down in Vatican II's call to personal holiness, yet to be acknowledged by a majority of Catholics in the U.S. at present (hence the Year of Faith!). Brett writes: " Instead of renewing our faith by returning to the fundamentals of church teachings, why not open our minds to a new church? It's been 50 years since Vatican II renewed the church and helped it face the modern world. The world has only gotten more modern. The Catholic Church hasn't." Just how will this produce true renewal? The New Evangelization is about true renewal, and the first step toward personal holiness. She also recites the familiar " God speaks, not only through popes, bishops and priests, but through ordinary p...

A Bishop Bishops!

Recently the San Fran Chronicle noted: "No one can quarrel with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s determination to ensure that his rigid interpretation of church doctrine is taught at four Catholic high schools. Families can decide whether they want their children to learn certain “truths” that are not necessarily accepted by many practicing Catholics, such as the belief that civil law should ban same-sex marriage, contraception is “intrinsically evil,” abortion is always wrong and reproductive technology is a 'grave evil.'" The bishop takes his job seriously, as Vatican II teaches that he do. The council charged bishops with the following: All bishops are bound to foster and safeguard the unity of the Catholic faith and safeguard and teach with a love of the Body of Christ, especially the poor, the suffering and those persecuted. Primacy is given to their preaching of the gospel, warding off whatever errors might threaten their flocks. Bishops’ teaching as ...

The 21st Century Must Come Into the Church

Continued from September 14.... T hrough the Church’s teachings, God has also revealed his truth on how humanity can live happily. What is so little understood by Catholics and Christians is that doctrinal revelations that come through the Church come out of God’s very Self. They are not tied to culturally constructed norms! Read Vatican II’s Dei Verbum : “by divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of humankind.” Our Lord’s Church derives its basic vision not from mere human speculation, which would be tentative and uncertain, but from God’s own testimony—from a historically given divine revelation. Thus Catholics believe that just as God himself is immutable, so, too, are His teachings as revealed through the Church because they come from him. As I discuss in my book, although the Church does not change its central teachings, we do see the theological principle of “devel...

One World Religion (Part II)

J esus' exclusive status was proven by the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Our salvation is God's gift, not the result of human effort. The Church's role is to proclaim this Good News and to challenge the world to respond. Neomodernist theologians see this claim to a definitive role in salvation as "scandalous." Saying that to give such a prominent position to Jesus an obstacle to dialogue with other faiths. It prejudges the outcome of ecumenical talks by demoting other spiritualties to a lesser position. Similarly, Leonard Swidler, whom I discuss in Smoke , opines: "there is a deeper reality which goes beyond the empirical surface experiences of our lives, and for us Jesus is the bond-bursting means of becoming aware of that deeper reality (as for Buddhists it is Gautama)." This suggests that, while for Christians the way to the transcendent is through Jesus, for others it is through their own revered figures. Undoubtedly, from an empirical ...

Search This Blog