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'

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

Novus Motus Liturgicus

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: In 1959, Pope John XXIII saw a true need for liturgical renewal within the Roman Rite in accordance with the metaphorical principle of organic development, the aim of the Liturgical Movement endorsed by Pope St. Pius X. In authentic organic development, the Church listens to what liturgical scholars deem necessary for the gradual improvement of liturgical tradition, and evaluate the need for such development, always with a careful eye on the preservation of the received liturgical tradition handed down from century to century. In this way, continuity of belief and liturgical practice is ensured. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time, the principle of organic development ensures that in the Mass, “only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture , but receive as a gift. Organic de...

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST: Time for Weeping

EPISTLE (I Cor. 10. 6-13.) Brethren, Let us not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human: and God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able but will make also with temptation issue that you may be able to bear it. Can we sin by thought and desire? Yes, if we de...

About the Author II

In the years prior to the Second Vatican Council, I also remember attending daily Mass before elementary school, which, because we had fasted for three hours, allowed us to eat breakfast in Mr. Sullivan’s math class. I remember bellowing out Tantum Ergo at Wednesday Evening Benediction, which I was in the habit of attending with my Mom, siblings and “Gramp,” (her Dad, John). I also remember looking forward to participating in the praying of that most sublime form of prayer, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, with my St. Joseph’s Daily Missal. With Pope Benedict’s having granted permission for priests to offer the Extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, we hear much ado in the form of reaction against this from Catholic “progressives,” and about how the Council placed a new emphasis on the laity’s participation at Mass, the implication being that Catholics did not actively participate at Mass prior to Vatican II, opting for such devotions as the praying of the Rosary or Holy Car...

From the WAPO Compost

Benedict XVI once wrote on the Parable of the Sower and the Seed: “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path.” Our Lord reminds us here that His teaching on the Kingdom of God in its fullness remains fruitless for those who see the Kingdom as merely an earthly kingdom, having rejected its supernatural dimension. This seed bears no fruit, and its fate is the spiritual fate of the hearer. What the Sisters of Notre Dame DeNamur taught me in my formative years was that there was more to my existence than things temporal, challenging me to work toward holiness and the salvation of my soul Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam that I might enjoy happiness with Him forever. Here is the lastest example of furuitlessness: Outlook Perspective Evangelicals and Catholics made their peace. Catholics are paying the price. Some have begun to realize they tra...

Blogging Disciples!

To promote a book I spent years in writing , I began this blog. I am a baby boomer who knows all too little about blogging and the latest techie stuff. As I was perusing various Catholic blog sites, I noticed a post by Fr. Longenecker entitled, "The Smoke of Satan." If one troubles oneself to read Fr.'s quite accurate assessment, and becomes interested in just exactly how, according to the Pope who coined the phrase "Smoke of Satan" the Devil made his entrance into the post-Vatican II Church in the U.S., then my book is just what the Savior may have ordered, so why don't you!?

Bishops Bishoping!

As the nation’s courts increasingly strike down popularly-supported state bans on marriage between men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, bishops increasingly are “bishoping”, to coin a term I use often in my book; i.e., they are at long last defending the faith against the onslaught always sure to come from the secular culture. Diocesan Catholic schools in Cincinnati and Oakland, Calif., are weathering criticism for contracts that require teachers not only to witness to the faith in the classroom, but also in how they live their lives in the public square. Condemnation of Catholic-school contracts that ask teachers to not controvert the Church in public have received dramatized coverage from the secular media in California and Ohio, where a slight number of teachers are opposing the contractual language. A a teacher in a Catholic school it is heartening to see the dioceses in question standing their ground, emphasizing the dynamic role teachers ...

Update on Bishop Cordileone Bishoping!

I have a copy of the Bishop's response to San Fran Nan Pelosi's warning to The Archbishop: THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE OF THE ARCHBISHOP ONE PETER YORKE WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109-6602 (415) 614-5500 June 16, 2014 California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom Gabriel Blau, Executive Director, Family California State Senator Mark Leno Equality Council California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Founder School of California Assemblymember Rich Gordon the Americas Watch San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros Gary Buseck, Interim Executive Director San Francisco Supervisor David Campos Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener Lesbian Task Force Dr. Michael J. Adee, Director, Global Faith and Faith Cheltenham, President, BINET USA Justice Project, Horizons Foundations, Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director, New San Fr...

Libido Redux: On Transgerderism

W hat Christianity shares with Judaism (and Islam, for that matter) is a belief that God created all things (though all three religions understand God differently). We are creatures. We owe our being, our existence, to Him. We are stewards of His creation, stewards, even, of our own bodies. Acknowledgement of God’s creative power leads to religious awe, a sense of the sacred. This means that each creature/creation has a nature, a manufacturer’s (God’s) instruction manual. Masculinity and femininity are aspects of that nature for human beings. When belief in God becomes irrelevant, we can throw away this instruction manual and refuse to see ourselves as a creature who has responsibilities to God and to society. To understand ourselves, we need to start at the beginning. What kind of being are we? The traditional answer–originating with the Greeks, continuing in the Middle Ages, and persisting into our own time -- and the answer given by common sense intuition -- is ...

Search This Blog