Author Topic: Francis on "rigidity" (Read 722 times)

BJ5 · « **on:** December 16, 2015, 03:09:39 PM »

Clerical stiffness is harmful

Domenico Agasso JR
Vatican Insider

Link to Original

One attitude opens up our horizons and makes us free, the other closes our hearts and is harmful. The first is hoping in God’s mercy, the second is clerical stiffness, Pope Francis said in this morning’s homily at the daily mass in St. Martha’s House.

In the Gospel, the chief priests question Jesus and ask with what authority he acts: “they have no horizons,” Francis said. “They are men who are locked in their calculations, they are slaves to their rigidity”. “Human calculations,” the Pope said, “close hearts and shut out freedom”, whilst “hope gives us levity”.
With the recently inaugurated Jubilee in mind Francis pointed out that “in this Year of Mercy there are these two paths: one of those who hope in God’s mercy and know that God is the Father; and then there are those who take refuge in the slavery of rigidity and know nothing of God’s mercy. These people were doctors, they had studied, but their science did not save them.”

Francis ended his homily by describing something that happened to him at a mass [sic] for the sick in Buenos Aires, in 1992: he had spent hours listening to people’s confessions, when an 80-year-old woman came up to him, “it was as if here eyes could see beyond, she had eyes full of hope. So I said: ’Grandma, are you here for confession?’ Because I was about to leave. ‘Yes’ she answered and I said: ‘you have not sinned’. She said: ’Father, we have all sinned – But God forgives all’. ‘How do you know?’ I asked. ’Because if God did not forgive all, the world would not exist’,” was her reply. So – Pope Francis said: “before these two persons - the free one, the one with hope who brings God’s mercy, and the closed, legalistic slave of his own rigidity, let us remember the words of the old lady and the lesson she gave me: God forgives all, He is just waiting for you to get close to Him.”

Ladislaus · « **Reply #1 on:** December 16, 2015, 03:51:32 PM »

Might help if you learned how to spell Bergoglio.

Stubborn · « **Reply #2 on:** December 16, 2015, 04:20:22 PM »

Quote from: Fr. Wathen

......Again, it is Liberalism which has contributed greatly to the loss of the fear of God in modern society. It teaches that it is a theological advance not to see God as Someone to be feared, as Someone Who is all-just, terrible, and possessive, but instead, One Who is Tender- Loving-Care Itself. In the modern view, God is not Someone Who rewards the obedient and punishes the unruly; rather, He is our dear old Grandfather.

If we give Him a kindly word (or thought), a lovepat on His grey locks, and a half-hearted hug or two, we have brightened His whole day! Indeed, God is so desperate for their affection, that He looks with feeble beneficence on all his grandchildren (pronounced: GRAND children), and understands that they are too hustled by their daily, worldly business to have much time for Him.

He understands perfectly well that life on earth is hard enough, without the additional burden of their having to concern themselves with abstract morality. Modern morality is supremely pragmatic, which is to say, one manages the best that one can, no matter what the law says.

This attitude has given rise to the nice and easy maxim, "If you don't know something is a sin, then you're not guilty." The Baltimore Catechism puts the matter differently, but the practical result is the same:......

clare · « **Reply #3 on:** December 17, 2015, 03:47:51 AM »

Quote from: Stubborn

Quote from: Fr. Wathen
...... In the modern view, God is not Someone Who rewards the obedient and punishes the unruly; rather, He is our dear old Grandfather.

If we give Him a kindly word (or thought), a lovepat on His grey locks, and a half-hearted hug or two, we have brightened His whole day! Indeed, God is so desperate for their affection, that He looks with feeble beneficence on all his grandchildren (pronounced: GRAND children), and understands that they are too hustled by their daily, worldly business to have much time for Him.
......

Reminds me of this, from The Problem of Pain by C S Lewis:

Quote

... What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all". Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that, God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction.