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Priests are a gift from the Heart of Christ, Pope Benedict says
CNA ^ | 6/13/2010

Posted on 06/13/2010 12:16:24 PM PDT by markomalley

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2010 / 10:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Thousands of pilgrims and faithful gathered at noon Sunday in St. Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus with the Holy Father. Before the prayer, he said that the fruits of the recently ended Year for Priests could never be measured, but are already visible and will continue to be ever more so.

“The priest is a gift from the heart of Christ, a gift for the Church and for the world. From the heart of the Son of God, overflowing with love, all the goods of the Church spring forth,” proclaimed Pope Benedict XVI. “One of those goods is the vocations of those men who, conquered by the Lord Jesus, leave everything behind to dedicate themselves completely to the Christian community, following the example of the Good Shepherd.”

The Holy Father described the priest as having been formed by “the same charity of Christ, that love which compelled him to give his life for his friends and to forgive his enemies.”

“Therefore,” he continued, “priests are the primary builders of the civilization of love.”

Benedict XVI exhorted priests to always seek the intercession of St. John Marie Vianney, whose prayer, the “Act of Love,” was prayed frequently during the Year for Priests, and “continues to fuel our dialogue with God.”

The pontiff also spoke about the close of the Year for Priests, which took place this past week and culminated with the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He emphasized “the unforgettable days in the presence of more than 15,000 priests from around the world.”

The feast of the Sacred Heart is traditionally a “day of priestly holiness,” but this time it was especially so, Benedict XVI remarked.

Pope Benedict concluded his comments by noting that, in contemplating history, “one observes so many pages of authentic social and spiritual renewal which have been written by the decisive contribution of Catholic priests.” These were inspired “only by their passion for the Gospel and for mankind, for his true civil and religious freedom.”

“So many initiatives that promote the entire human being have begun with the intuition of a priestly heart,” he exclaimed.

The Pope then prayed the Angelus, greeted those present in various languages, and imparted his apostolic blessing.


TOPICS: Catholic
KEYWORDS: catholic; priests
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To: Judith Anne; Gamecock
Gamecock, check this out...

St. Paul WAS a bit loony (a word that you used first, on this thread). Too bad Calvin picked up the worst of St. Paul and made of it a vicious sect. And I doubt St. Paul had any idea of trinitarianism

Unrepentant, anti-Christian warblings.

1,221 posted on 06/22/2010 7:08:22 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: boatbums
Dr. E, I wouldn't bother trying to prove to Mark that the Apostle Paul fully understood AND preached the deity of Christ and WAS a believer in the trinity. I have tried, with considerable Scriptural proof, oh, about four or five times now in the past year or so, and they are completely dismissed. What will it take to convince a person who's mind is set?

You would think these verses alone would do it: ...

Thank you, boatbums, for your consistently faithful rendering of Paul's thoroughly Trinitarian understanding...again.

Let us pray God gives them eyes to see and ears to hear.

If not, they will continue to miss out on Christ's assurance and Paul's witness to the truth.

As God wills.

1,222 posted on 06/22/2010 7:14:18 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg

Well, you have to expect to be horrified when you worship St. Paul instead of Christ Jesus, the Risen Son of God Almighty.

Because Catholics, unlike the OPC, do not worship St. Paul, do not attribute perfection to him, nor do they think of him as Christ’s holiest emissary. Nor do we worship scripture, only God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.

In fact, you have to throw out Christ’s words in the gospel in order to exalt St. Paul over St. Peter. Now that’s loony.


1,223 posted on 06/22/2010 7:16:39 PM PDT by Judith Anne (Holy Mary, Mother of God, please pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
"lol. Using the KJV is not "deceptive," NL."

Oh what a tangled web we weave when fist we practice to deceive. I would expect you to have gotten a lot better at it by now. Your deception was in not telling the whole truth, passing off a partial listing of Scripture as proof that Paul did not refer to the Eucharist as the body of Christ. You may fool yourself and your OPC buddies, but not those of us who actually know Scripture.

1,224 posted on 06/22/2010 7:16:45 PM PDT by Natural Law (Catholiphobia is a mental illness.)
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To: RnMomof7

Details, details,....


1,225 posted on 06/22/2010 7:17:57 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Judith Anne
Actually, you would have to rightly divide God's Word (which He explicity tells you to do in order to not stand ashamed before Him and be approved unto Him). You will find that in 2 Timothy 2:15.

It's in your Bible

1,226 posted on 06/22/2010 7:19:45 PM PDT by small voice in the wilderness ( DEFENDING the INDEFENSIBLE: The PRIDE of a PAWN.)
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To: small voice in the wilderness

Is that according to YOU, or according to me, the Holy Spirit in prayer, and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church? Because I don’t trust it, if it’s just YOU.


1,227 posted on 06/22/2010 7:22:11 PM PDT by Judith Anne (Holy Mary, Mother of God, please pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.)
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To: Titanites; RnMomof7
The Church does not provide an OFFICIAL commentary or interpretation on each verse of Scripture.

You're kidding. Right?

The RCC claims to have WRITTEN the Bible, and it has had about 2,000 years to interpret it.

You mean in all that time, it hasn't gotten around to interpreting that verse of scripture?

the NT contains almost 8,000 verses. That would be a workload of 4 verses a year to interpret. They couldn't manage that?

Nice job of not answering the questions, BTW, as is typical when trying to pin down any Catholic on what the Catholic Church actually teaches.

1,228 posted on 06/22/2010 7:25:05 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Natural Law
Your posts grow more unintelligible. We both referenced the same verse, and I posted more of the verse than you did.

Yet somehow I am supposed to be deceptive by posting a partial list of Scripture? lol

1,229 posted on 06/22/2010 7:25:09 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Judith Anne
I don’t trust it, if it’s just YOU.

Well, Judith Anne, I think you meant that in an argumentative way. I would say if you keep on I'll leave this forum, but...lol!

Is WHAT according to me? Which post? Could ya be a little clearer?

1,230 posted on 06/22/2010 7:25:49 PM PDT by small voice in the wilderness ( DEFENDING the INDEFENSIBLE: The PRIDE of a PAWN.)
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To: Judith Anne
nor do they think of him as Christ’s holiest emissary.

Who would you consider that to be?

His mother, perhaps?

1,231 posted on 06/22/2010 7:26:44 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: metmom
lol. Great post. "Four verses a year to interpret."

Three verses too many, obviously.

1,232 posted on 06/22/2010 7:28:42 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: small voice in the wilderness

Are you having difficulty remembering your posts?

You: Actually, you would have to rightly divide God’s Word

Me: Is that according to YOU, or according to me, the Holy Spirit in prayer, and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church? Because I don’t trust it, if it’s just YOU.

Get it? Can you follow that?


1,233 posted on 06/22/2010 7:33:04 PM PDT by Judith Anne (Holy Mary, Mother of God, please pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.)
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To: RnMomof7
"136 Q. What is a Sacrament?"

Oh, give us a friggen break! You are still flogging the Baltimore Catechism you failed so miserably on nearly a century ago. It was a dumbed down version developed for American school children and was never intended to be a definitive treatise.

When grown-ups discuss Sacramental Grace we use the CCC. "Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies.

The sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: "by the very fact of the action's being performed"), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that "the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God." From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them. The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. "Sacramental grace" is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.

1,234 posted on 06/22/2010 7:35:20 PM PDT by Natural Law (Catholiphobia is a mental illness.)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
Who would you consider that to be?

Not Calvin. Not the OPC. Probably the angel Gabriel.

1,235 posted on 06/22/2010 7:38:30 PM PDT by Judith Anne (Holy Mary, Mother of God, please pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.)
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To: small voice in the wilderness; RnMomof7
The Catholic priesthood is unscriptural, all Scripture from the Bible the Catholic Church claims it wrote.

Hebrews 7:23-27 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

Hebrews 9:23-28 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Hebrews 10: 8-14 First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

1,236 posted on 06/22/2010 7:39:26 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: MarkBsnr; boatbums; Voice in the Wilderness; RnMomof7; metmom
Aren't you forgetting something? The Holy Spirit? The Trinity consists of three members of the Triune God. Where is the Holy Spirit.

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" -- 1 Corinthians 3:16


"I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." -- Galatians 2:20

Now if the Holy Spirit and Christ are two separate entities, it must be pretty crowded in those who have been saved.

More likely, as Paul teaches, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and the Father are three in one.

Read the Bible, Mark, and ask God for ears to hear.

1,237 posted on 06/22/2010 7:40:10 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Judith Anne
There have been MANY posts, Judith Anne. Mostly flying over your head, but we will try with this one.

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth". (2 Timothy 2:15).

well let's see. It says to STUDY God's Word. It says a WORKMAN. That would a person who STUDIES GOD'S WORD, in order to do the work that is pleasing to God. It says the Word of Truth is to be rightly divided.

What it DOESN'T say;

the Catholic Church would teach you or ask your priest for clarification.

evidently, God believes that IF we have the Holy Spirit residing in us (and we DO, IF we're saved), that He gives us ability to understand God's Word.

Get it? Can you follow that?

1,238 posted on 06/22/2010 7:42:01 PM PDT by small voice in the wilderness ( DEFENDING the INDEFENSIBLE: The PRIDE of a PAWN.)
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To: MarkBsnr
When you can find the Nicene formula in Paul, please present it.

Sigh...Mark, Mark, Mark...I really do like you very much. We HAVE been here before, I know you must remember. I will post this again, just for you:

2 Corinthians 13:14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

And,

Romans 8:9-11
9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

I Cor. 3:16
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

I Cor. 6:19
19Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

II Tim. 1:14
14By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

I am beginning to think that you don't bother to look up or even read the Scripture I post to you on this. I am disappointed. If you are looking for the exact words that are found in the Nicene Creed, then I can't help you. But you cannot truthfully deny that Paul was not a believer in the trinity. From where DO you think those who wrote the creed got the idea? You wont find the Apostles Creed verbatim in Scripture either, but you know where those truths came from, too.

1,239 posted on 06/22/2010 7:44:21 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him.)
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To: Judith Anne
Fine. But the question wasn't who isn't "Christ's holiest emissary" (your phrase) but who is.

If not Paul, who?

1,240 posted on 06/22/2010 7:44:38 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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