You are busy. I will help you then on updating you on important things
concerning our Catholic Church.
On the following Monthly News Updates, I speak about:
1) The Six months Papacy of Pope Francis
2) Summery of his first Encyclical: “Lumen Fidei”, the Light of the Faith
Pope Francis was elected on April 13th, he was enthroned in April
19th, the Feast of St. Joseph.
Six monhts after his election, September 13th, the Media (religious
and non-religious) were speaking about his accomplishments. All were speaking
about the new era of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis lead the Church on new ways, he took a new style that
did not affect the doctrine of the Church.
No specials: room, car, dress, titles,
honors for him or for the clergy...We are servants. Christ humbled
himself.
People: openness to all, children,
women, poor, special needs, Christians and non Christians, he washee
the feet of non Christian women in prison, he answers calls, emails... Christ
was all for all.
Homo, abortion, divorce: Who am I to
judge? Christ came to save and not to judge.
Consecrated life: The Church is a battle
field hospital at the service of the poor. Clergy are people to people at the
service of all. Christ came as a poor person to serve and not to be
served.
Embarrassment: for security, curia, clergy,
civil authorities, media. Christ shocked all. He was a sign of change for
his time. He gave the good example through his own life.
Afraid of newness: NO! Christ is the Way,
the Truth and the Life. Fear of being misunderstood, Christ has been criticized.
I will be criticized, but I chose Jesus, as his vicar, and not what others want me to be.
Expect changes then, the Pope is decided to
give a new face to our Catholic Church. I am proud to be
Catholic.
Thomas Groome, a theology professor at Boston
University, called him “a breath of fresh air.” Columnist Michael Gerson
described him approvingly as a “disruptive force.” Jon Stewart of “The Daily
Show” said, “I love this guy!” Chris Rock tweeted that “the new pope might be
the greatest man alive.”
2)
Summery of his first Encyclical: “Lumen Fidei”, the Light of the
Faith
Pope
Benedict XVI wrote two Encyclicals on Charity and Hope. He wrote the first part
of the new Encyclical “Lumen Fidei” before his resignation. Pope Francis
continued it and published it on June 29, 2013.
1)
The
Encyclical returns to Vatican II, as the “Year of Faith” (October 2012-November
2013) is the celebration of 50 years after Vatican II.
2)
It
says that “Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and
integrity” (no. 48). So we as
Catholic we cannot pick and say I believe in this and do not believe in that.
Catholic Faith is not a mall.
3)
God
revealed himself because he is Love. Faith then is based on Love. Then
“The
creed does not only involve giving one’s assent to a body of abstract truths;
rather, when it is recited the whole of life is drawn into a journey towards
full communion with the living God” (no. 45). It is then a journey of
Love.
4) Faith
is a necessity for salvation because based on Love: “The light
of love proper to faith can illumine the questions of our own time about
truth…. As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force; it
is not a truth that stifles the individual. Since it is born of love, it can
penetrate to the heart, to the personal core of each man and woman. Clearly,
then, faith is not intransigent, but grows in respectful coexistence with
others” no 34.
5) “Believing means entrusting oneself to a
merciful love which always accepts and pardons, which sustains and
directs our lives, and which shows its power by its ability to make straight the
crooked lines of our history” (no. 13).
6)
“Faith
transforms the whole person precisely to the extent that he or she
becomes open to love. Through this blending of faith and love we come to see the
kind of knowledge which faith entails, its power to convince and its ability to
illumine our steps” no 26.
7)
“The light of faith is unique, since
it is capable of illuminating every
aspect of
human existence” (no. 4). “For those early Christians, faith, as an
encounter with the living God revealed in Christ, was indeed a ‘mother’, for it
had brought them to the light and given birth within them to divine life, a new
experience and a luminous vision of existence for which they were prepared to
bear public witness to the end” (no. 5).
8)
According to Pope Francis, faith has proven itself
essential to the promotion of “justice, law and peace”, by contrast with failed
modern ideologies that also claimed those goals.“Modernity sought to build a
universal brotherhood based on equality,” he writes, “yet we gradually came to
realize that this brotherhood, lacking a common reference to a common father as
its ultimate foundation, cannot endure” no. 54.
9)
“Slowly
but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of
autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future; ultimately the
future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result,
humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be
content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove
incapable of showing the way” no 3.
10)
“Only
to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over
time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a
shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to
fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand,
unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way
to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing
a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting
moment in order to create life and bear fruit.” (27)
11)
Faith
is truly a good for everyone; it is a common good. Its light does not
simply brighten the interior of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build an
eternal city in the hereafter; it helps us build our societies in such a way
that they can journey towards a future of hope. ” (51)
The
Pope is preparing a new Encyclical on Poverty.