Have mercy on me, Lord. For I am a sinful man! Lk 5:8
-by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. 4 Mar 2015
“The Pope had strong words Tuesday for the self-righteous, calling them “fake saints.” Their heart does not belong to the Lord, he said. “It belongs to Satan, the father of all lies, and this is fake holiness.” (Ed. you can always detect Satan reliably. He may resemble the Lord in every way, except suffering.)
“All of us are clever enough to find a way to seem more righteous than we are.” The Pope said. “This is the path of hypocrisy.” These sort of people “say the right things, but do the opposite.” Hypocrisy, he said, is the great “snare” of Christians.
The Pope offered these reflections during his homily at morning Mass at the Saint Martha residence in the Vatican on Tuesday morning.
He said that Jesus preferred sinners “a thousand times” to hypocrites, because “sinners were telling the truth about themselves,” while hypocrites are liars. He recalled the meeting between Jesus and Peter, where Peter exclaimed: “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The Pope also said that Christians often have a mistaken idea of conversion, thinking that what they need is just to wash the stains off their conscience.
“The dirt of the heart is not removed as you remove a stain,” Francis said. “It is removed by ‘doing,’ by taking another path, a different road from that of evil. ‘Learn to do right!’ That is the way of doing good,” he said.
He recalled the words of the prophet Isaiah, which he called an “imperative” that comes directly from God: “Cease doing evil, learn to do good.” This, he said, is a change of life, a change of actions. And doing good, he said, means “defending orphans and widows,” and taking care of “those who no one remembers,” such as the abandoned, the elderly, children and those outside the faith. These are the “wounds of humanity,” said the Pope, where there is so much pain.
“By doing good,” Francis said, “you wash your heart.”
“The promise of a clean heart, one that is forgiven, comes from God Himself,” Francis said. “He does not keep an account of the sins of those who love their neighbor.”
“The words—‘though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’—seem like an exaggeration,” Francis said, “but it is the truth!”
“The Lord gives us the gift of His forgiveness,” he said. “But if you want to be forgiven, you have to start on the path of doing good. This is the gift!”
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
