Posted on 05/19/2013 2:33:42 PM PDT by NYer
.- Pope Francis spoke today about how gossip by Christians is a “slap” to Jesus “in the person of his children.”
“All three - disinformation, defamation and slander - are sins! This is sin! It is to slap Jesus in the person of his children, his brothers,” the Pope said May 18 in the chapel of St. Martha’s House.
The topic game up in Pope Francis’ homily because of the day’s Gospel reading from John 21 in which Peter asks if John will be alive when Jesus returns to earth.
?“What is it to you?” the pontiff began his homily, referring to Jesus’ response to Peter, who was being tempted “to interfere in the lives of others.”
Peter became “nosy,” Pope Francis remarked, noting that there are two ways people are tempted to get involved in others’ lives. The first is “to compare oneself with others” and the second is to gossip.
“It seems nice to chat,” he reflected, “I do not know why, but it looks nice. Like sweet of honey, right? You take one and then another, and another, and another, and in the end you have a stomach ache. And why? The chatter is like that eh? It is sweet at first and it ruins you, it ruins your soul!”
The Pope then referred back to Genesis, saying that gossip is “‘a little’ like the spirit of Cain who killed his brother, his tongue; it kills his brother!”??The consequence of gossiping is that “we become Christians of good manners and bad habits,” he warned, later repeating the description.
According to Pope Francis, people fail in this area in three ways: by giving “misinformation,” by making known the faults of others, and by telling lies about others.
“That is why Jesus does with us what he did with Peter when he says: ‘What is it to you? Follow me.’ The Lord in this instance points the way,” he said.??
“This kind of talk will not do you any good,” the Pope stated, “because it will just bring to the Church a spirit of destruction. ‘Follow me!’ These are the beautiful words of Jesus, it is so clear, that he has so much love for us. As if to say: ‘Don’t have fantasies, believing that salvation is in the comparisons with others or in gossip. Salvation is to go behind me.’”
Pope Francis finished his homily by saying, “Today we ask the Lord Jesus to give us this grace not to ever get involved in the lives of others, not to become Christians of good manners and bad habits, it is to follow Jesus, to walk behind Jesus on his way. And this is enough.”
I am absolutely dumbfounded by this statement. I have never actually heard anyone, saving possibly a sociopath, publicly admit to such a thing.
May I suggest that a bit of humility is in order. Believe it or not, unless you are the greatest of all saints, there are actually people on this planet who are closer to the Lord than you are, know Him better than you do, and have wisdom to impart. If you truly wish to draw near to Him, you would do well to acknowledge that, and learn about Him through wiser (and more humble) souls rather only through your private revelation. We are all capable of great self-deception—it is the prevailing weakness of all humans—and the input of others is priceless.
First point: Shimei said that David had come to ruin because he was a murderer, and so he had. Shimei told the truth, and all truth is God's truth, whether it is spoken by a madman or not. He was not "innocent" for cursing the Lord's anointed, but David oscillated between repentance and vengeance, and I have no evidence that the latter is more pleasing to the Lord than the former.
Second point: Bearing false witness against a neighbor is still against the Commandments, even when your neighbor is the Pope.
Third point: don't write back to me. I can tolerate malice only in the smallest doses. My instructions are to pray, and I will, Honeysuckle Rose.
I don’t understand why you are so offended and quick to possibly label me a sociopath just for me saying that God is my moral teacher and not man. If that is what man has to teach me, then I want nothing of it.
Man’s “morals” can become askew from the influence of this world so that it causes men to leave the narrow path that God teaches by his Word, to the point where even Christians start justifying sin by passing laws to protect evil; therefore, only God can be an accurate teacher for morality.
There is nothing wrong with my statement, and for you to find something wrong with it says more about what is wrong in your own mind and heart ma’am, with all due respect.
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12
Therefore, I will put my trust in the Lord and in him alone.
With a clear conscience I can tell you there was no malice in my words. There still is no malice. It is sin in your own heart to think such against me and to even tell me not to write you back after having accused me.
You like the Pope, I understand. I am not talking about individual people, because God can save anyone, but, rather the office of the Pope is a man in the seat of Jesus Christ. That is a religious and historical fact; therefore, that office does not obey God. No man has a right to sit in that seat except the Son of God. The Catholic Church disobeys God on many things, but I guess you don’t want to see it? So we will agree to disagree.
As for Shimei and David. Didn’t you read 1 Kings 2? Shimei did wickedly by cursing God’s anointed. What Shimei said was not from God, because whatever one did to the king one did to God. God would not curse himself or the throne of which He had established before Himself forever. David was being humble about his encounter with Shemei, he wasn’t declaring the curse was from the Lord. It clearly wasn’t, because the Lord kept his promise to David and made him king.
In 1 Kings 2 we find out that what Shimei said was actually wicked.
I had planned to pray for you in my Rosary, but now --- yes, yes, I'll do more. I'll remember you at Mass. Watch out. Raise your head. Whatever you do, don't duck. You are being blessed.
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