Posted on 06/08/2014 12:58:44 PM PDT by NYer
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis Pope Francis delivered remarks to the Presidents of Palestine and Israel, Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres, along with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, and delegations representing Jews, ChristiansMuslims, all of whom were gathered in the Vatican Sunday evening to pray for peace in the Middle East and throughout the world. Below, please find the full text of the Holy Father's prepared remarks.
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Distinguished Presidents,
I greet you with immense joy and I wish to offer you, and the eminent delegations accompanying you, the same warm welcome which you gave to me during my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
I am profoundly grateful to you for accepting my invitation to come here and to join in imploring from God the gift of peace. It is my hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a new journey where we seek the things that unite, so as to overcome the things that divide.
I also thank Your Holiness, my venerable Brother Bartholomaios, for joining me in welcoming these illustrious guests. Your presence here is a great gift, a much-appreciated sign of support, and a testimony to the pilgrimage which we Christians are making towards full unity.
Your presence, dear Presidents, is a great sign of brotherhood which you offer as children of Abraham. It is also a concrete expression of trust in God, the Lord of history, who today looks upon all of us as brothers and who desires to guide us in his ways.
This meeting of prayer for peace in the Holy Land, in the Middle East and in the entire world is accompanied by the prayers of countless people of different cultures, nations, languages and religions: they have prayed for this meeting and even now they are united with us in the same supplication. It is a meeting which responds to the fervent desire of all who long for peace and dream of a world in which men and women can live as brothers and sisters and no longer as adversaries and enemies.
Dear Presidents, our world is a legacy bequeathed to us from past generations, but it is also on loan to us from our children: our children who are weary, worn out by conflicts and yearning for the dawn of peace, our children who plead with us to tear down the walls of enmity and to set out on the path of dialogue and peace, so that love and friendship will prevail.
Many, all too many, of those children have been innocent victims of war and violence, saplings cut down at the height of their promise. It is our duty to ensure that their sacrifice is not in vain. The memory of these children instils in us the courage of peace, the strength to persevere undaunted in dialogue, the patience to weave, day by day, an ever more robust fabric of respectful and peaceful coexistence, for the glory of God and the good of all.
Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict: yes to dialogue and no to violence; yes to negotiations and no to hostilities; yes to respect for agreements and no to acts of provocation; yes to sincerity and no to duplicity. All of this takes courage, it takes strength and tenacity.
History teaches that our strength alone does not suffice. More than once we have been on the verge of peace, but the evil one, employing a variety of means, has succeeded in blocking it. That is why we are here, because we know and we believe that we need the help of God. We do not renounce our responsibilities, but we do call upon God in an act of supreme responsibility before our consciences and before our peoples. We have heard a summons, and we must respond. It is the summons to break the spiral of hatred and violence, and to break it by one word alone: the word “brother”. But to be able to utter this word we have to lift our eyes to heaven and acknowledge one another as children of one Father.
To him, the Father, in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, I now turn, begging the intercession of the Virgin Mary, a daughter of the Holy Land and our Mother.
Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!
We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain.
Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instil in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace.
Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness.
Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be “brother”, and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam! Amen.
There really aren't many, are there? There are few in Scripture who have been "caught up into Heaven", and we don't see any of those of whom the Roman Catholic cult names as saints are not listed among them. They are "dead in Christ" if they were/are believers!
1 Thessalonians 4: 13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
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So what do the scriptures say about going to heaven? Who has gone to heaven? I found these examples:
Elijah
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. ( 2 Kings 2:11)
Jesus
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. (Mk. 16:19)
John
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. (Rev. 4:1)
That's three people. Who else went to heaven? No one!
These are the only examples of anyone going to heaven in the entireBible. Since I'm reluctant to take the accounts of Elijah and John literally, that leaves only Jesus who went to heaven. And did you notice that none of these three were dead?
So if I change the question to how many people died and went to heaven in the Bible, the answer would be zero!
ealgeone:
No, your appeal is to your interpretation of the Bible. My appeal is to those orthodox theologians and Church Fathers who defended the Faith from heretical innovations. The text I linked earlier clearly showed the practice of asking the saints to pray for us. Two of those cites were from early Liturgies. In addition, the link I have below as the citations from Revelation from the Church Fathers. They read the Bible and none of them ever contradicted the practice of asking the saints to pray for believers on earth and none of them ever took the passage you are citing to refute the Liturgical practice of asking Saints to pray for us.
http://litteralchristianlibrary.wikifoundry.com/page/Revelation
Ok, so from the time of Christ Ascension into heaven, all of those who died in this earth in communion with God are just dead. Is that correct. So where are all these dead people’s souls? Do you believe their souls are dead as well. If they are not in heaven [those who died in communion with the Lord], they are certainly not in Hell [if they died with Christ], then are they in an intermediate state????????? Ohhhhh, of course not, that would suggest Purgatory.
You read those texts and make conclusions that don’t follow from those texts. Your theology is the doctrine of American rural fundamentalism and its related every man or woman for themselves as the determiner of what the scriptures mean.
I can take your position and make the same statement that the Bible does not say who explicitly is in Hell. Based on your argument about nobody is in heaven, are you saying nobody is in Hell because the Bible does not seem to say explicitly who is in Hell, other than Lucifer and his legion of angels [and of course they are not human, pure spirits who rebelled against God].
Do you ever read Scripture, or do you follow what your cult says is the truth?
You read those texts and make conclusions that don’t follow from those texts.
You take a statement and try to bend it to support what the Roman cult defines as truth. I will provide clear Scripture that refutes the idea. I doubt you will agree, but the Word of God is clear WITHOUT INTERPRETATION!
No CONCLUSION is necessary when you follow the Word of God. It is succinct and requires no cult doctrinal determination. No matter what your group says is the truth, there is ONLY ONE TRUTH.
Your cult claims to originate the one universal (catholic, small "c") church, but claims to exclude any that do not follow their catechismal doctrines with hook, line, and heavy lead sinkers. It defies credulity that so many can be fooled, but when you take a baby, sprinkle it and declare it as saved (as long as they will remain faithful to the teachings of the cult), and raise it with constant manmade doctrines, nothing less can be expected.
Mohammedism follows a similar path, but adds even more ridiculous requirements, but they are the same in that they will persecute, torture, and even put to death those that disagree. For examples, see Roman Catholic history of their purges and persecutions.
1 Corinthians 15: 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1 Thessalonians 4: 13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
ealgeone: Here are the 2 major Liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Liturgy of Saint John Chrystotem and Saint Basil the Great. You will see asking Mary the Most Holy Theotokos to pray and intercede for us and for the saints to be with us and pray for us, etc, in these Liturgies.
http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/liturgy/liturgy.html
http://www.goarch.org/chapel/liturgical_texts/basil
Cult! If you are going to use that term then My Sicilian temper is going to shoot back. You reflect the typical redneck American fundamentalist protestant snake handler theology. Nobody among the Church Fathers interprets scripture the way “You do”. There are not 2 Churches are 2 parallel universes. There is One God and he is the God of the Living not the dead, to quote Christ when he was debating the Sadducees [Luke 20:37-38; Matt 22:32].
When a person dies, the Soul [which does not die] faces God in judgment. The Soul is the essence of who we are, although we are not Souls trapped in a body. Yes, the body is dead, but the soul is not. Those individuals who died with Christ, their souls are in Heaven. Those who reject Christ are in Hell. In the end, those are the 2 realities for every individual. To say that there are no souls in heaven or that they are dead is heresy. The Soul does not die, only the flesh. Now, at the final judgment, there will be a resurrection of the body, yes, and are bodies [those who die with Christ] will have a glorified bodies and look like him to reference both Saint Paul and Saint John
If I give you the Book of Mormon should we accept that? No! Because it's not Scripture and neither are these Liturgies.
Check the Bible and you will not find any appeal to pray to Mary.
Again...read the Bible. Forget the liturgies as they are man-made. They are not Scripture.
Oh, wow, I am impressed (NOT). Your screed at me does not provide any truth. The "church fathers" are not the interpreters that matter, it is the Holy Spirit of God that reveals what His Word provides.
I will pray for your eyes to be opened to Scripture, at the peril of defying your upbringing.Tradition does not trump truth.
You tell me what the cult teaches, but provide NO SCRIPTURE to define it. That is a sure picture of the blind leading the blind.
By the way, I don't handle snakes, and I was last a member of a Southern Baptist Church in North Carolina. I was taught Greek in Bible College, and also learned Hebrew from a Rabbi, and can follow well enough to see error in what the Roman cult teaches its drones. Rat poison is 90% food and 10% of the stuff that kills you.
Sleeping is not death. Show me SCRIPTURE that makes your point, not some traditions of men.
Mark 7: 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
Definition of venerate: regard highly, reverence, adore, honor, respect
Definition of intercession: prayer, petition or entreaty in favor of another...
...oh goody...you’ve proved you know he difference between intercession and veneratation...such progress...
Definition of beg: to ask earnestly for
The pope just “asks” the father, yet he begs Mary....interesting. More emphasis is placed on his appeal to Mary than to the Father. One he asks....one he begs.
...oops...not so much progress...you employ the word ‘ask’ as defining of the word ‘beg’, then castigate papal usage of ‘beg’ over ‘ask’, which you’ve just stipulated as being essentially synonymous...need to study more...
Again...read the Bible. Forget the liturgies as they are man-made. They are not Scripture.
...well gee, then I suppose, based on that comment, one might attain superior theological formation by locking oneself in a cabin, with a copy of the KJV, and never venturing anywhere near a church, where the debilitating effect of human interpreted worship could infect the perfect understanding attained in the cabin...
...well, why not, I guess...after all, it’s such a common form of worship...
ealgeone:
The Liturgies are not man made, they were the way the early Christians and early Church worshiped, the same Church that decided, under the Holy Spirit, which scriptures were canonical vs. those that were not, and thus that same Holy Spirit guided the Church throughout the Roman-Greek world to come up with a worship that to coin the Roman axiom, the Rule of Prayer directs the Rule of Faith and vice versa [Lex Orandi Lex Credendi
WVU:
Ole the ole cite that 1 passage and thinks it makes the word “tradition” seem anathema. The context of Saint Mark’s Gospel was using traditions of men to nullify other things. Tradition only means to pass on what was received. So it depends on which traditions are being received and how they are being used.
Saint Paul in 3 different places states:
“Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:2)
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
“Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
So by your Baptist logic, since you have declared yourself to be Baptist [which is kind of you to fully disclose that, many FR Prots balk at disclosing], is Saint Paul a heretic for using the word “Tradition” 3 times in sacred Scripture? or is it more likely that you are twisting the passage to make it say what you were taught by your Baptist preacher years ago [which was wrong].
You tell me what the cult teaches, but provide NO SCRIPTURE to define it. That is a sure picture of the blind leading the blind.
...ah, I do so eagerly await you defining the truth for me through your human interpreted vision of divinity, so I may have my eyes opened to the horrors of my human interpreted
vision of divinity...or are you not humanly interpreting when you spout Scripture at us...
I was taught Greek in Bible College, and also learned Hebrew from a Rabbi, and can follow well enough to see error in what the Roman cult teaches its drones.
...I see...you are capable of learning a foreign language, with all the rigors implicit in such an undertaking, but you are not disciplined enough to avoid usage of pejorative terms such as ‘cult’ and ‘drones’ in your native tongue...color me skeptical...
Asking and begging are two different things.
The point is to prove that the RCC prays to Mary....in some cases with greater urgency than to Christ and that is idolatry.
Can you identify these in the Bible? If not they're no better than the prayers at the end of my old hymn book.
No, I think probably we can just color you Roman Catholic!
Your attempt at describing Scripture QUOTATION as interpretation fails to deliver any cognizant point. It just doesn't rise to any refutation, just a poor attempt a ridicule.
The Holy Spirit is my guide, not some guy in fanciful clothed poseur...
John 16: 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”...
... 2 Timothy 3: 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
ealgeone:
Can you identify anywhere in the NT where it lays out what a Church Liturgy [Worship] is to look like. I am not going to use your paradigm of “sola scriptura” which itself is unbiblical and contrary to reason and history as it has been shown that sola scriptura is nothing but every man[woman] for him/herself with respect to the Bible.
Christ founded a Church, that is clearly taught in scripture and he appointed Apostles who were sent and they further built the Church and passed on what they received from Christ to the next generation of Men appointed to Shepherd the Church, i.e. Bishops. The Church as Saint Paul states is the pillar and foundation of Truth [1 Timothy 3:15] and The Father sent the Holy Spirit as Christ promised to strengthen and guide the Church. The NT 27 books were written within and to the Church and it was those 2nd century Church Fathers who started the process to determine the canon of the NT [not finally settled until the 4th century]. While the Canon was being formed, the Church worshiped using Liturgy as evidence by the late 1st century work the Didache, Saint Justin Martyr in 150AD writes to the Romans what the CHristians did on Sunday and he outlines a Liturgy. In the East, we see the same thing in Saint Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Letters and in Saint John Crystostem writings as well. Thus Apostolic Tradition was passed from Christ to the Apostles to the Bishops who took over as the Apostles died and that Tradition came down in written form [NT canon] and via Creeds, Councils and Liturgy which expressed what the early Church believed because of how it worshiped God in the Divine Liturgy.
The Incarnation, as Pope Benedict stated, means we are tied to a place in time where Christ was incarnate. It gives us a concrete history and thus the way Liturgy developed from the place of Christ Incarnation, which was the union of 3 cultures, Roman-Greek and Jewish is the History willed by God. I Believe the Holy Spirit led those early Church Fathers, who new the Apostles to worship in an orthodox fashion.
For American protestants to think that worship in the early Church looked like the stuff that passes for worship in all of these groups is downright stupid, naïve, and arrogant all at the same time. In God’s providential plan, Christ was incarnate in a Roman-Greek Culture and the Jewish Liturgy was received into the early Church and it [the Church] formulated her Liturgy to worship the Holy Trinity and at the heart of that Liturgical worship was the Holy Eucharist.
WVKayaker:
A lot of people claim the Holy Spirit is their guide. Heck, every Protestant here on FR makes that claim. Sola Scriptura meets sola ego and every FR Protestant is their own Pope. Kind of like that ole song that the 1920’s Every man a King, every man A King, you can be a millionaire.... Except in this case, Every man his own theologian, every man is own theologian, you can interpret the Bible 100% correctly...lalalalalla....
No and neither can you.
Why I discount the "tradition" the RCC clings to centers a large part around the worship of Mary. parying to Mary, the immaculate conception, the assumption, the mother of God.
Not one of these ideas can be found in the NT writings of the Apostles. Not one.
Are you aware there is a movement in the RCC by some to have Mary declared as a co-redemtrix equal to Christ? The pope did an opinion poll and right now the support isn't there for this.
However, it took from the earliest form of the church to 1950 for the pope to declare the assumption of Mary. Was the church wrong on this issue for the first 1950 years of her life? Or did the "traditon" become so accepted over time that there was enough support for the pope to declare this as dogma?
If we're doing this we're making stuff up now.
If you allow this then how can you say to the Mormons they are wrong? Maybe it's just another revelation. I personally don't believe that, but my point is that over time things have changed in the RCC with what they believe.
So why should I take the RCC's word that they have the authority when they get this wrong?
There are also the changes in RCC thought between VI and VII.
The Gospel of Christ hasn't changed. It will not change unless man changes it and even then it hasn't changed. It's only become corrupted. The RCC has taken a number of verses and twisted them like a pretzel to get out of them what they want.
Here is a question: Can you read John chapter 3 and learn what you need to know about how to have salvation?
The didache has a number of non-biblical items in it as well. Have you read it and comapred it to the New Testament?
I could go on, but you should get the idea.
Yes, I belive we should only use the Bible as it is the only document we have that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is the Word that was left by the Apostles so we could learn about salvation, God, the church. It contains all we need to know about having the relationship with God.
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