Pope Francis on priests and bishops who have ceased focusing on Jesus Christ (see our Twitter feed for the link):
...“What is the place of Jesus Christ in my priestly life? Is it a living relationship, from the disciple to the Master, from brother to brother, from the poor man to God, or is it a somewhat artificial relationship... that does not come from the heart?”
“We are anointed by the Spirit, and when a priest is far from Jesus Christ he can lose this unction. In his life, no: essentially he has it... but he loses it. And instead of being anointed he ends up being smarmy. And how damaging to the Church are smarmy priests! Those who put their strength in artificial things, in vanity, in an attitude... in a cutesy language... But how often do we hear it said with sorrow: ‘This is a butterfly-priest,’ because they are always vain [is the Pope perhaps making a subtle reference to homosexualist bishops and priests?]... [This kind of priest] does not have a relationship with Jesus Christ! He has lost the unction: he is smarmy.”
.... But if we are far from Jesus Christ, we necessarily compensate for this with other, worldly attitudes. And so [we see] all these figures... priest-wheeler dealers, priest-tycoons [we can think of any number of bishops and priests who have established their own little empire; being hero worshiped ...] But the priest who adores Jesus Christ, the priest who talks with Jesus Christ, the priest who seeks Jesus Christ and who is allowed to seek Jesus Christ: this is the centre of our life. If that is not there, we lose everything. And what will we give to the people?”
..., when people see priest idolaters, so to speak, priests who instead of having Jesus have little idols... worshippers of the god Narcissus...[Narcissus was a self-worshiper... how many priests can we think of who, giving Jesus lip service, are really only about self promotion?] When people see [priests like this] they say ‘poor guy!’ The relationship with Jesus Christ saves us from worldliness and idolatry that makes us smarmy, preserves us in the anointing [we have received]. And today, this is my hope for you who have been kind enough to come here to concelebrate with me: Even if you lose everything in life, don’t lose this relationship with Jesus Christ! This is your victory. Go forward with this!”
7 comments:
Cutsey Language: The homily is based on the Protestant Guide Post. The priest tells one cutsey story after another, doesn't have anything to do with the Gospel, just some weird idea he picks up like "SHARE."
Priest tycoons: I accidentally walked into a meeting between my pastor and a business consultant. He was explaining that to get the revenues up in the Church he had to give the people "what they want." Apparently, we didn't want Marian devotion because we were told only the Mexicans could have that. That was their culture. We were white, we had to do without. The revenues at this parish did increase from six figures to seven figures, Huge budget. Lots of liberal lay ministers.
Same kind of guy advised our bishop (now remember I have lived in multiple parishes in multiple dioceses in more than one country and at no point am I talking about my current one. It seems to be wonderful.) The business advisor here said, "Find out how much money everyone has, and assign lay volunteers to deliver a letter to each family in the parishes in the whole diocese telling them how much the bishop THINKS they can contribute." So this was done. The lay volunteer knew how much you were expected to give. They were suing peer pressure. And they had weekly meetings at the church for the lay volunteers who announced out loud how much each family was going to contribute. My name was in the bulletin every week as I was in charge of almost every spiritual organization in the parish. There were three such organizations. My family could in no way afford the amount the bishop requested. Everyone knew me. I could see a huge scandal brewing at that weekly meeting where they discussed the amounts. So I turned to Jesus and asked Him what to do. He said to me, "The letter you have is from the bishop right?" "Yes Lord," I responded. "Then respond directly to the bishop and ask him to keep your donation secret." We did. No scandal.
Narcissus, the culture of this parish was people from Asia. They were in the habit of kneeling and kissing the priest's ring. Obviously, the priest was confused by this attention. The people were thinking, "I will kiss the ring of Jesus Christ." The priest was another Christ. But the priest had his nails done. You wouldn't believe how beautiful his nails were and he acted almost bored while he waited for everyone to kiss his hand.
There was a Church in Texas designed by Liturgy in Santa Fe. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris draws the eye up to heaven. This Church is Texas was designed so your eye was passionately drawn to the HOly Eucharist, really on the side of the Church, but everyone sat in an odd wave and faced the spot where the Eucharist was. You had to go through Mary (the narthex) to get to Jesus, and there were saint niches on a white wall, and they did use video for song words etc, but the projectors were hidden in the balcony where the choir was. It was a lovely Church. I went back many, many years later to look at it, and they had moved the tabernacle out of the central niche to the side, and the priest chair was where the tabernacle used to be so that the whole church was designed to draw your eye to …. the priest. Idolatry. Actually as I reflected on it I remembered Mass in other cities and states, and the priest had become some sort of performer in many Holy Mass liturgies, the center of attention. I think we should have the priest turn his back on the congregation during the second half of the Mass, the way that Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, recommends. Allow him to address God on behalf of the people. Hopefully, the church is oriented to the East at this time.
Sorry your com box is too small, had to break this up.
Really, I'm glad the pope is addressing this. It's like someone lifted a stone off my back. He is defending the faithful. Really, after I read the Gospel of Joy, I saw there was a lot there about the homily, but NOBODY reported that. As far as I could tell NOBODY told the story about how the homily was supposed to be according to the Gospel of Joy. Well I guess I have to accuse myself as I am a blogger as well. God bless you. Susan Fox www.christsfaithfulwitness.com
St. Athanasius: "they have the buildings, we have the Faith".
You really should let the pope speak for himself. We already have a legion of self appointed interpreters... no need to add to the confusion.
I am a self-appointed commentator
I am a self-appointed commentator
I am a self-appointed commentator
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