Ash Wednesday with Pope Francis

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From the OP’s first link
Please find below the official English translation of the Pope’s homily:
“Return to me with all your heart… return to the Lord” (Jl 2:12, 13). The prophet Joel makes this plea to the people in the Lord’s name. No one should feel excluded: “Assemble the aged, gather the children, even infants at the breast, the bridegroom… and the bride” (v. 16). All the faithful people are summoned to come and worship their God, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (v. 13).
We too want to take up this appeal; we want to return to the merciful heart of the Father. In this season of grace that begins today, we once again turn our eyes to his mercy. Lent is a path: it leads to the triumph of mercy over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as God’s children. Lent is the road leading from slavery to freedom, from suffering to joy, from death to life. The mark of the ashes with which we set out reminds us of our origin: we were taken from the earth, we are made of dust. True, yet we are dust in the loving hands of God, who has breathed his spirit of life upon each one of us, and still wants to do so. He wants to keep giving us that breath of life that saves us from every other type of breath: the stifling asphyxia brought on by our selfishness, the stifling asphyxia generated by petty ambition and silent indifference – an asphyxia that smothers the spirit, narrows our horizons and slows the beating of our hearts. The breath of God’s life saves us from this asphyxia that dampens our faith, cools our charity and strangles every hope. To experience Lent is to yearn for this breath of life that our Father unceasingly offers us amid the mire of our history.
The breath of God’s life sets us free from the asphyxia that so often we fail to notice, or become so used to that it seems normal, even when its effects are felt. We think it is normal because we have grown so accustomed to breathing air in which hope has dissipated, the air of glumness and resignation, the stifling air of panic and hostility.
Lent is the time for saying no. No to the spiritual asphyxia born of the pollution caused by indifference, by thinking that other people’s lives are not my concern, and by every attempt to trivialize life, especially the lives of those whose flesh is burdened by so much superficiality. Lent means saying no to the toxic pollution of empty and meaningless words, of harsh and hasty criticism, of simplistic analyses that fail to grasp the complexity of problems, especially the problems of those who suffer the most. Lent is the time to say no to the asphyxia of a prayer that soothes our conscience, of an almsgiving that leaves us self-satisfied, of a fasting that makes us feel good. Lent is the time to say no to the asphyxia born of relationships that exclude, that try to find God while avoiding the wounds of Christ present in the wounds of his brothers and sisters: in a word, all those forms of spirituality that reduce the faith to a ghetto culture, a culture of exclusion.
Lent is a time for remembering. It is the time to reflect and ask ourselves what we would be if God had closed his doors to us. What would we be without his mercy that never tires of forgiving us and always gives us the chance to begin anew? Lent is the time to ask ourselves where we would be without the help of so many people who in a thousand quiet ways have stretched out their hands and in very concrete ways given us hope and enabled us to make a new beginning.
Lent is the time to start breathing again. It is the time to open our hearts to the breath of the One capable of turning our dust into humanity. It is not the time to rend our garments before the evil all around us, but instead to make room in our life for all the good we are able to do. It is a time to set aside everything that isolates us, encloses us and paralyzes us. Lent is a time of compassion, when, with the Psalmist, we can say: “Restore to us the joy of your salvation, sustain in us a willing spirit”, so that by our lives we may declare your praise (cf. Ps 51:12.15), and our dust – by the power of your breath of life - may become a “dust of love”.
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CatholicSooner said:
what else?
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For some reason you thought it would be a good idea to read an article titled “This Disastrous Papacy.” Mistake number one. Then for some baffling reason, you decided to post a link to the nonsense you read, encouraging others to read it. Mistake number two. Mistake number three was posting the link along with the comment “The Pope’s homily from Ash Wednesday is a little confusing and worrisome,” which suggests that if we click the link, we will be able to read or listen to one of Pope Francis’ homilies, as opposed to a diatribe from a delusional hack. One blunder after another.

From the article you posted:

“Maybe Pope Francis will prove me wrong, and emerge as a great Catholic teacher. I hope and pray he does. Maybe my entire argument is wrongheaded. I have been wrong before, and will no doubt be wrong again; one more mistaken view is of no great consequence. But if I am right, and the current Pope’s leadership has become a danger to the faith, then other Catholics, and especially ordained Church leaders, must decide how to respond. And if I am right—as I surely am—that confusion about fundamental Church teachings has become widespread, then the bishops, as primary teachers of the faith, cannot neglect their duty to intervene.”

The man that wrote this could not be any more dishonest or disingenuous. One more mistaken view IS of great consequence. He IS wrong, and the horse manure that he is spreading (through you specifically, on this forum) is a poison to the Church. Jesus calls to be wise as serpents. We are to avoid being gullible enough to fall for the trash that this writer is peddling, and also CERTAINLY avoid spreading it around like the cancer that it is. Please do not continue proliferating this garbage.
 
1neophyte said:
For some reason you thought it would be a good idea to read an article titled “This Disastrous Papacy.” Mistake number one. Then for some baffling reason, you decided to post a link to the nonsense you read, encouraging others to read it. Mistake number two. Mistake number three was posting the link along with the comment “The Pope’s homily from Ash Wednesday is a little confusing and worrisome,” which suggests that if we click the link, we will be able to read or listen to one of Pope Francis’ homilies, as opposed to a diatribe from a delusional hack. One blunder after another.

From the article you posted:

“Maybe Pope Francis will prove me wrong, and emerge as a great Catholic teacher. I hope and pray he does. Maybe my entire argument is wrongheaded. I have been wrong before, and will no doubt be wrong again; one more mistaken view is of no great consequence. But if I am right, and the current Pope’s leadership has become a danger to the faith, then other Catholics, and especially ordained Church leaders, must decide how to respond. And if I am right—as I surely am—that confusion about fundamental Church teachings has become widespread, then the bishops, as primary teachers of the faith, cannot neglect their duty to intervene.”

The man that wrote this could not be any more dishonest or disingenuous. One more mistaken view IS of great consequence. He IS wrong, and the horse manure that he is spreading (through you specifically, on this forum) is a poison to the Church. Jesus calls to be wise as serpents. We are to avoid being gullible enough to fall for the trash that this writer is peddling, and also CERTAINLY avoid spreading it around like the cancer that it is. Please do not continue proliferating this garbage.
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Well this article was from CAtholicVote and an author that has been covering Popes for 30+ years. It’s not like he is some uninformed anitcatholic author.

You can keep your head in the sand all you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are many faithful catholics that are very concerned with some of the things Pope Francis is doing and saying.

In the 100th year of Fatima, we should heed Fatima’s advice and take more seriously the Eucharist…not devalue it.
 
CatholicSooner said:
Well this article was from CAtholicVote and an author that has been covering Popes for 30+ years. It’s not like he is some uninformed anitcatholic author.

You can keep your head in the sand all you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are many faithful catholics that are very concerned with some of the things Pope Francis is doing and saying.

In the 100th year of Fatima, we should heed Fatima’s advice and take more seriously the Eucharist…not devalue it.
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Your position devalues and desecrates the Eucharist. Period.
 
Look, I can see both sides of the issue of Remarried CAtholics receiving communion…however, at the end of the day, I feel that allowing Remarried Catholics communion goes against scripture. St. Paul tells us that it is a grave matter to receive the eucharist unworthily. The church teaches that adultary is grave matter. Jesus teaches us that getting divorced and remarried is not ok. The Pope seems to be going against all of this
 
CatholicSooner said:
How so?
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I don’t have time to correct your vast confusion. If you can’t even be accurate about something as simple as which day the homily you have such a problem with was given, how in the world will you ever grasp complex theology? Calling yourself a “faithful Catholic” doesn’t make you a faithful Catholic. Your rebellious rejection of the Holy Father in favor of some random blogger negates your alleged faithfulness, and belongs in a Protestant church.

Nurturing the delusion that your understanding of the Eucharist surpasses that of the pope’s is itself a desecration of the Eucharist, especially when you can’t even keep the days of the week straight. It is certainly not my head that is buried in the sand.
 
CatholicSooner said:
Look, I can see both sides of the issue of Remarried CAtholics receiving communion…however, at the end of the day, I feel that allowing Remarried Catholics communion goes against scripture. St. Paul tells us that it is a grave matter to receive the eucharist unworthily. The church teaches that adultary is grave matter. Jesus teaches us that getting divorced and remarried is not ok. The Pope seems to be going against all of this
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Sola scriptura has no place in the Catholic Church. If you want to be a Protestant, more power to you. There are many fine Protestants in the world. But don’t you dare call yourself a Catholic.
 
1neophyte said:
I don’t have time to correct your vast confusion. If you can’t even be accurate about something as simple as which day the homily you have such a problem with was given, how in the world will you ever grasp complex theology? Calling yourself a “faithful Catholic” doesn’t make you a faithful Catholic. Your rebellious rejection of the Holy Father in favor of some random blogger negates your alleged faithfulness, and belongs in a Protestant church.

Nurturing the delusion that your understanding of the Eucharist surpasses that of the pope’s is itself a desecration of the Eucharist, especially when you can’t even keep the days of the week straight. It is certainly not my head that is buried in the sand.
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Wow, take a chill pill. You are making quite a few assumptions about me, making incorrect statements about what I’ve said, inferring things I did not say, and being quite rude.

Do you mean to tell me that it is impossible for a Pope to be wrong? We should never question any pope?
 
1neophyte said:
Sola scriptura has no place in the Catholic Church. If you want to be a Protestant, more power to you. There are many fine Protestants in the world. But don’t you dare call yourself a Catholic.
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Where is this even coming from?

Wow is all I can say. Have a good day…it might be time to step away from the keyboard for a bit eh?
 
It finally clicked that b/c I quoted scripture, you equate that to me believing in Sola Scriptura…that is quite the leap.

I didn’t know that Catholics weren’t allowed to use scripture as evidence of their beliefs
 
CatholicSooner said:
Wow, take a chill pill. You are making quite a few assumptions about me, making incorrect statements about what I’ve said, inferring things I did not say, and being quite rude.

Do you mean to tell me that it is impossible for a Pope to be wrong? We should never question any pope?
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You posted an article that made quite a few assumptions about the pope, made incorrect statements about what he said, inferred things he did not say, and called his papacy a disaster. I thought you enjoyed that sort of thing.

Sure, a pope can be wrong. But so can you. And so can a blogger, no matter how many years he’s been writing about popes. Question the pope? Sure. But don’t check your brain at the door when doing so.
 
1neophyte said:
You posted an article that made quite a few assumptions about the pope, made incorrect statements about what he said, inferred things he did not say, and called his papacy a disaster. I thought you enjoyed that sort of thing.

Sure, a pope can be wrong. But so can you. And so can a blogger, no matter how many years he’s been writing about popes. Question the pope? Sure. But don’t check your brain at the door when doing so.
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So we are only allowed to discuss positive things on a message board?

You do realize there is a growing concern about the direction the church is going no?
Discount the article all you want, he is a Catholic author that has written for catholic.com
He makes valid points imo. If you disagree, that is fine. But no reason to get nasty about it.
 
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