Pope Francis: Church must help the poorest, not dissect theology

Reuters journalist, Philip Pullella reports today from Vatican City that Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people yesterday, telling them he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day and that it "breaks my heart" that the death of a homeless person is not news.

Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering of Catholic associations in St. Peter's Square.

But he outdid himself in passionately discussing everything from the memory of his grandmother to his decision to become a priest, from political corruption to his worries about a Church that too often closes in on itself instead of looking outward.

"If we step outside of ourselves, we will find poverty," he said, repeating his call for Catholics to do more to seek out those on the fringes of society who need help the most," he said from the steps of St. Peter's Basilica.

 "Today, and it breaks my heart to say it, finding a homeless person who has died of cold, is not news. Today, the news is scandals, that is news, but the many children who don't have food - that's not news. This is grave. We can't rest easy while things are this way."

The crowd, most of whom are already involved in charity work, interrupted him often with applause.

"We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most)," he said.

To laughter from the crowd, he described how he prays each day before an altar before going to bed.

"Sometimes I doze off, the fatigue of the day makes you fall asleep, but he (God) understands," he said.

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The First Pentecost: No One Went Hungry or Homeless

By Maria

“Give Us Today Our Daily Blog”

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:1-4

The early Christians didn't have much as far as material things go, plus their best friend and God was taken away from them by a horrible death.  They were left alone, frightened, and confused---at first.  They had to bond together and sold what they had to look after each other so that no one ever went hungry or homeless.  Pentecost came and God's spirit shook the building, the room they were hiding in, and their souls right to the core of their being.  They now had his amazing power to take on the world, preach to anyone in hearing range, heal the sick and cast out demons, and suffer for their beliefs.

Sometimes we get so used to hearing about the Saints and Martyrs that we take it for granted and what we celebrate at church becomes just a ritual, instead of realizing that it is the way, the truth, and the life.  [Visiting Italy] looking up the catacombs gave me a much greater and deeper appreciation for my faith and background.  Italians were not Catholic because they were born into it, in their family/culture, or were baptized and go to church twice a year.  If that were the case, it would have meant nothing to them in their daily lives or at the point of their deaths.  It wasn't just about celebrating feast days or something they admired from a distance and then put back on the shelf for next time.

It was worth giving up everything for.

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The School Not Often Spoken About

“God wants us to grow in prayer.  Suffering and tribulation are a school for that.”  John Janaro, author, Never Give Up: My Life and God’s Mercy

"Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

"They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. 'We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,' they said." Acts 14: 19 – 22

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Porsche Finds Home

Are we all somehow genetically programmed to endure our earthly pilgrim journey and find home?  Take it from Porsche (photo), he’s got the pilgrimage and the journey to his home all figured out.  Now if he can only teach humans how to do the same . . .

Everyone knows cats like to take their sweet time doing anything, which might explain why a kitty named Porsche took six months to return home after disappearing during Hurricane Sandy. During the November superstorm, owner Uranie Roberts had to be evacuated from her home in the Toms River section of Chadwick Beach Island, N.J.  Roberts, her family and Porsche stayed with a relative in Point Pleasant Borough, about eight miles north, but while there, Porsche went missing. The family believed it was the last they'd seen of Porsche — until he sauntered up to his original Toms River home last Wednesday, eight miles from where he disappeared. "It's a miracle!" Roberts said.

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The Homecoming

By Father Bede Jarrett

When a person sins, that friendship is at once broken, for sin means that the soul has deliberately turned its back upon God and is facing the other way, and thus it has been able, by some fatal power, to prevent God's everlasting love from having any effect upon it. God cannot hate; but we can stop his love from touching us . . .

Grace operates to restore all these lost wonders. Sin itself is forgiven; all the ingratitude and disloyalty are put on one side; not simply in the sense that God forgets them, or chooses not to consider them, but in the sense that they are completely wiped away. It is the parable of the Good Shepherd where the sheep is brought back again into the fold, and mixes freely with the others who have never left the presence of their Master. It is the parable of the prodigal son taken back into his father's embrace.

That is what the forgiveness of sin implies. God is once more back again in the soul. He had always been there as the Creator without whose supporting hand the soul would be back in its nothingness; but he is now there again as Father and Master and Friend. Not only the saints who have been endowed with a genius for divine things, but every simple soul that has had its sins forgiven comes at once into that embrace. We are far too apt to look upon forgiveness as a merely negative thing, a removal, a cleansing, and not enough as [a homecoming], a return to something great and good and beautiful, the triumphant entrance into our souls of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”

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Suffering, Death and Resurrection all Seem Odd – as Weird as a Mango in Winter

By Fr. Frank Desiderio, C.S.P.

An old man from Haiti,

told me his greatest fear;
the humiliation
of being killed by a
hurricane-driven mango.
At the farmer’s market in Kauai
a really good one
will cost you as much
as a bottle of wine.
The best one, standing over a sink,
knife in hand,
gnawing the flesh of the
palm-sized seed
in March in Michigan.

Tropical fruit in the heartland

as improbable as the Resurrection.
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Drawing the Line: The Self - Righteous v. the Merciful

"At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

"But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote in the sand.

"At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  “No one, sir,” she said.  “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared."  John 8:1-11

About one year ago, bloggers, visitors and readers of Homeless In America were asked to, in their opinion, fill in the blanks of the above story.  Here is the question they responded to:

"Jesus defended his divine mercy for sinners when he wrote in the sand protecting the woman caught in adultery from certain angry and violent self-righteous church leaders of his day. In your opinion, what do you think he wrote?"

81% responded that quite possibly Jesus wrote in the sand a combination of two things.  First, the secret sins of the priests and the Pharisees.  Second, a dividing line between the self-righteous church leaders on one side and those that stood for mercy on the other side.

19% responded that quite possibly Jesus wrote neither.  More than likely, he wrote something else that we are not aware of since it is omitted from the story.

Thank you for participating in this and all the Homeless In America survey questions.  Please scroll down to near the bottom of this main page and participate in other polls that are still open.

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