{"id":2693,"date":"2015-05-28T17:05:10","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T21:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=2693"},"modified":"2015-05-28T20:29:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T00:29:12","slug":"francis-gives-you-a-choice-on-which-type-of-christian-to-be-dont-pick-the-worst-of-the-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=2693","title":{"rendered":"Francis Gives You a Choice on Which Type of Christian To Be. Don’t Pick the Worst of the Three."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Don't<\/a>

Don’t let this ‘Pharisee’ bark you off your faith.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Pope gave some helpful advice on the FrancisGospel and the types of Christians out there.\u00a0 Which one are you<\/a>?<\/p>\n

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis\u2019 homily this morning focused on the Gospel account of Bartimaeus, the blind man who cried out to Jesus to be healed, and whom the disciples called to be silent. The Gospel led the Holy Father to reflect on three different groups of Christians.<\/p>\n

First, there are Christians who are concerned only with their own relationship with Jesus, a \u201cclosed, selfish\u201d relationship, who do not hear the cries of others:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group of people, even today, do not hear the cry of so many people who need Jesus. A group of people who are indifferent: they do not hear, they think that life is their own little group; they are content; they are deaf to the clamour of so many people who need salvation, who need the help of Jesus, who need the Church. These people are selfish, they live for themselves alone. They are unable to hear the voice of Jesus.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is selfish to love Jesus?\u00a0 Doesn’t loving Jesus mean following him?\u00a0 Can you care about your relationship with Jesus yet ignore everyone else?\u00a0 Do such people exist or is this some rhetorical device?\u00a0 I know they exist in Hollywood and on the lips of demagogues.<\/p>\n

Then, the Pope continued, \u201cthere are those who hear this cry for help, but want to silence it,\u201d like the disciples when they sent away the children, \u201cso that they would not disturb the Master\u201d: \u201cHe was their Master \u2014 He was for them, not for everyone. These people send away from Jesus those who cry out, who need the faith, who need salvation.\u201d In this group one finds the \u201cmen of affairs, who are close to Jesus,\u201d who are in the temple. They seem \u201creligious,\u201d but \u201cJesus chased them away because they were doing business there, in the house of God.\u201d There are those who \u201cdo not want to hear the cry for help, but prefer to take care of their business, and use the people of God, use the Church for their own affairs.\u201d In this group there are Christians \u201cwho do not bear witness\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are Christians in name, parlour room Christians, Christians at receptions, but their interior life is not Christian, it is worldly. Someone who calls himself Christian and lives like a worlding drives away those who cry out for help from Jesus. And then there are the rigorists, those whom Jesus rebukes, those who place such heavy weights on the backs of the people. Jesus devotes the whole of the twenty-third chapter of St Matthew to them: \u2018Hypocrites,\u2019 he says to them, \u2018you exploit the people!\u2019 And instead of responding to the cries of the people who cry out for salvation, they send them away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christians who do not bear witness, who use the Church for their own affairs, who silence voices?\u00a0 Hello Synod on the Family!<\/p>\n

Rigorists, hypocrites, exploiters, parlour room Christians….this is the cruel ranting of a political radical.\u00a0 Calumniating faithful Christians by calling them Pharisees is not the work of Christ.\u00a0 It’s just false shepherding.<\/p>\n

The Pope closes with a brief description of some nice Christians, but I don’t think the people he’s envisioning are actually very nice at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pope gave some helpful advice on the FrancisGospel and the types of Christians out there.\u00a0 Which one are you? (Vatican Radio) Pope Francis\u2019 homily this morning focused on the Gospel account of Bartimaeus, the blind man who cried out to Jesus to be healed, and whom the disciples called to be silent. The Gospel …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[379,380,381,19,378],"class_list":["post-2693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-calumny","tag-insults","tag-pharisees","tag-pope-francis","tag-three-types-of-christians"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2693"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2709,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions\/2709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}