Wonderful reflection on the relationship between the mysteries of the Rosary and the priesthood attributed to Pope Francis. It's so good I wonder was it a fake Pope Francis who wrote? (tongue firmly in cheek lol). Pope Francis told seminarians on Saturday that praying the rosary can “unveil the mysteries of the priesthood” in its moments of joy, sorrow, and the glory to come. In a meeting with seminarians from Barcelona, the pope urged the young men to remember that “when you are a priest your first obligation will be a life of prayer.” “Dear seminarians, take up your rosary and ask Mary, Queen and Mother of Mercy, to help unveil the mysteries of the priesthood to which God calls you, contemplating the mysteries of his Son, realizing that the joy of discipleship and perfect identification with the cross are the only way to glory,” Pope Francis said on Dec. 10. The pope explained that the joyful mysteries of the priesthood are “born of gratitude for that preferential love that God showed you by calling you to his service.” He recommended that seminarians contemplate the Blessed Virgin Mary’s attitude at the Annunciation and ask: “How was she when God called her? And how was I? With what zeal do I consider my future priestly life? Will I rise up … with love, to bring God to the world? Will I take him up the most arduous and painful of mountains?” Pope Francis added that the fifth joyful mystery of the rosary, the finding of Jesus in the temple, contains a particular lesson that should never be forgotten. Throughout life, we must always return to look for Jesus in the tabernacle, he said, encouraging the future priests to “lose yourselves there with Him.” In the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, a priest is reminded that he “must aspire to a crown of thorns,” to be identified with the Lord in his suffering, the pope said. “There is the sacrifice of assuming one's own cross and beginning a path, often of abandonment. It is the sacrifice of life. Looking at the cross we raise our eyes to heaven and see our destiny,” Pope Francis said.
You have to wonder at this Pope! I just don't trust him..... But no matter! the Holy Catholic Church will endure even through the worst times and leaders. The way Christ set it up, we always have the Truth and Sacraments throughout each generation. It's just so sad to me that when the world could use the Truth and this Pope has the opportunity to spread the good news of Truth, he chooses to confuse and divide.
Sometimes I wonder if Pope Francis carries more than one entity. I know this sounds very woo woo but sometimes he says glorious simple and profound things. And he weeps in front of the statue of Our Lady. As if a glimpse of the real soul comes out for a moment. And then all these contradictory and scary words and actions. Very very hard to fathom.
Do people remember the incident when a group presented him with a list of Rosaries they had said for him at the beginning of his pontificacy and he was very hard on them, in public? Perhaps he had a point-maybe it's better to say one decade contemplatively than many repetitiously and distractedly (for my own part, I find it very hard to concentrate). However, he could have been kinder about it and shown some gratitude for the time and trouble taken and for what were undoubtedly the best of intentions. It's certainly a great insight about the fifth joyful. A reminder that it symbolises Christ's forthcoming constant presence in our own temples and that there is no rupture between the Old Israel and the New. Yet, he is busily enforcing an apparent rupture between the New Israel that existed before 1965 and the one, supposedly different, that came after; but this sermon to the seminarians would have no meaning without the reality that Israel is One and Always.
I seem to recall hearing a story that I believe was concerning Mother Angelica and a relatively new nun. The nun approached Mother Angelica and was concerned because she was having a difficult time saying the Rosary. Mother, the nun complained, it’s taking me forever to say the rosary and I never am able to complete it! Mother asked her what seemed to be the problem? Was she being distracted by duties/ responsibilities? The nun responded , oh no Mother or not usually, Instead I will start and say Our Father and I become so engrossed in that thought that I never am able to move on! Mother Angelica smiled and told the young nun, seems to me you are saying a perfectly good rosary and I’m sure Our Mother loves it. That thought/ story has made me less concerned about saying the Rosary and more “picturing/ thinking of the story of the Rosary”
If you have ever read accounts of exorcisms, the demons rarely lie right out. They much, much prefer a higher form of lies the half truth. You see this in Scripture too when the Devil appears He does not lie right out, some of what He says is true, some false. Not black and whites , more shades of grey. Fulton Sheen mentions this that when he is tempting us the Devil is our Public Defender in Court. However when we Fall into Sin , he is our accuser. I think the Native Americans have a wonderful saying for this, 'He speaks with forked tongue'. This is quite a brilliant strategy as it keeps the unfortunate people it is used on guessing, confused and wondering. For sometimes the liar says things that seem brilliant, wise, true and good , the next moment things are totally over to the Dark Side. One minute and Angel of Light, the next blink of an eye a Hideous Monster. But this in one in the same person, or thing. Only the very highest forms of evil are capable of such shape shifting. Of such consumate Gas Lighting. Most ordinary people if they tried to operate at such a High Levels of Deceit would render themselves insane. It is rather like driving a car backwards and forwards at the same time. Satan of course is Master of Gas Lighting. Of the forked tongue. But he never gets confused about it all. I am sorry I don't want to seem overly harsh on Our Holy Father the Pope. But that is my honest assessment of the guy. I have pretty well given up on commenting on him as I find it just too upsetting.. But now and again I just have to throw in my two cents worth. A Great Evil is at work here. A Great, Great Evil.
Completely agree. The purpose here is to confuse, hoodwink, dupe and any other synonym you can think of. And the target audience sorry to say is good, honest, decent folks like those who come here. It’s the quintessential modus operandi of the modernists. But the ultimate goal is always clear. They never lose sight of it.
Yes, as Jesus said, 'A good tree gives forth good fruit and a bad tree gives forth bad fruit'. A tree may appear sometime to give good fruit and sometimes give forth bad fruit. But it is all a con. A bad tree is a bad tree and a good tree is a good tree. Don't get conned or confused by all this.
Every now and then PF says or does something that seems Catholic, even orthodox. That’s just to keep “Joe six pack Catholic”s butt in the pew, praying, paying and obeying, and NOT questioning his heterodox agenda. And it usually happens right before he says or does something particularly heinous. Expect the other shoe to drop before New Years. There’s rumored to be another attack on the Traditional Latin Mass due soon.
From what I heard there is an increasing amount of Bishops “outlawing” even saying the NO mass ad orientum
A perfect example of this in the interview he did with "America" magazine. Not a periodical I care to look at much, but I was told it was a good interview. uh huh There was a question on abortion and here is part of his answer: "On abortion, I can tell you these things, which I’ve said before. In any book of embryology it is said that shortly before one month after conception the organs and the DNA are already delineated in the tiny fetus, before the mother even becomes aware. Therefore, there is a living human being. I do not say a person, because this is debated, but a living human being." He goes on with the usual hiring a hitman etc, political vs pastoral gibberish. My question is how is a human being not a person?? According to the Oxford Dictionary ~ person noun The plural form persons is used in some formal language.Idioms a human as an individual 2. (formal or disapproving) a human, especially one who is not identified So what exactly does he mean by "this is debated"? Our Lady was a person/human being conceived without sin. She was subsequently born, a person, the most perfect of all naturally created human beings. It's mind numbing, but if nothing else I guess it's good to see the "gas" before it gets "lit" and your brain explodes. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/11/28/pope-francis-interview-america-244225
Is a person not a being with a soul? Is it not the teaching of the Church that the soul is created with the body, indeed according to Aquinas is the form of the body? Just because the person that is the new human being at conception cannot yet express his or her personhood through an as yet insufficiently developed body is no argument for the non-existence of that person no more than death is an argument for the non-existence of a person who can no longer find expression through a body that no longer is a living one. On Pope Francis' logic, one could make a case that a sleeping human being is not a person. So many statements of this pope are contradictory, either of doctrine or of reason itself. Non-contradiction has always been an attribute of God. One of Pope Francis' fan-boys, a few years ago, claimed that God could make 2+2 equal 5 (probably as a pretext to the 'Holy Spirit' telling us that sodomy has become something to now be celebrated). This was the most appalling blasphemy. God is the Word. Logos. Truth. Knowledge. This is absolute essence of His being. 2+2=4 just is. To claim God would arbitrarily change this would be to claim that this immutable Being could change the Truth and therefore, Himself. Beware of contradiction.
It is apropos that you mention Aquinas. See the following link for a fuller explanation of his speculation on the timing of the creation of the human soul (40 or 80 days after conception). https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-st-...0-or-80-days-after-conception-making-abortion This was perhaps his greatest error. Subsequent Catholic teaching (the soul is created at conception), is quite clear. There is no real "debate" on this point anymore in the Catholic Church... CCC 1703 Endowed with "a spiritual and immortal" soul, 5 the human person is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake." 6 From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude. Perhaps the Pope is using a different rational to claim their is debate on the personhood? I won't hold my breath waiting for some excessively nuanced, confusing "clarification".
Discursive meditation becomes impossible when God infuses contemplation. Likely this was the beginning of contemplative prayer for this nun.
Why does everyone give Pope Francis such a hard time. There were far worse Pope's in History. All one has to do is read the History of the Popes. One example the Pope who was murdered in a vendetta in the Papal Apartments for committing adultery with another man's wife. As far as Anti-Popes come, the Church was ripe with them. There have been numerous. Let us not forget the Pope who was considered an Anti-Pope who became elected had his predecessor's corpse dug up, put on display and convicted at trial of himself being an Anti-Pope. There were even two canonized saints who backed separate Pope's, one of which was determined to be an Anti-Pope. You don't have to be right about everything to be a Pope, if you don't even have to be right about everything to be a Saint.
Henri, I remember this being discussed on the forum in the past and almost the same examples that you state here were given. I also remember a more knowledgeable member then myself answering it something like following. In those examples the popes were damaging their own souls but if some of things proposed in this current synod are approved it will possibly damage the souls of many. In addition, the confusion related to this papacy may also be adversely effecting people’s souls.
Yes, it’s the difference between the personal moral failures of historically bad popes, and our current pope. The historically bad popes at least upheld orthodoxy publicly, even while in their private lives they lived gross immorality. With the current pope, there is NO evidence of private immorality. But far worse, there are words and actions that are literally heterodox, leading many souls astray and placing many souls in jeopardy of eternal damnation. This is why he is seen by many astute, devout Catholics as “the worst pope in history.” Not because of an immoral private life, but because of his public errors. This is also part of why these same Catholics feel we are living during the worst tribulations the Church has faced since Pentecost.
