Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec 1, 2017 / 11:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a classic off-the-cuff speech to priests and religious in Bangladesh, Pope Francis said it’s sad to see unhappy consecrated people, but he loves looking into the eyes of elderly religious who have spent their lives serving in joy, which is the essence of their vocation.
In his Dec. 2 meeting with the priests and religious, the Pope told them to “have joy of heart,” and said he always feels great affection when he meets elderly priests, bishops, and nuns who have “lived a full life.”
“Their eyes are indescribable, full of joy and peace,” he said, noting that God still watches over those who haven’t lived this way, “but there is that lack of sparkle in their eyes. They haven’t had that joy.”
He said the spirit of joy is essential to consecrated life, and that “you cannot serve God” without it.
“I can assure you it’s very painful when you meet priests, consecrated, bishops, who are really unhappy, with a sad face,” he said, adding that whenever he comes across someone like this, he wants to ask: “what did you have for breakfast today, vinegar?”
These people have “a vinegar face, a soured face,” he said, explaining that the “anxiousness and bitterness of heart” that comes when we focus on promotions or compare ourselves to others is counterproductive, and “there is no joy in that way of thinking.”
Pope Francis spoke to Bangladesh’s consecrated community on the last day of his Nov. 27-Dec. 2 tour of Asia, which included stops in both Burma, and the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.
He arrived to Dhaka Nov. 30, and has so far met with the country’s civil authorities, ordained 16 priests, spoke to the bishops and led an interreligious encounter where he met with Hindu, Buddhist, Anglican and Muslim leaders, including members of Burma’s persecuted Rohingya minority. Before leaving, he’ll also meet with the nation’s youth, as the last encounter before returning to Rome.
In his meeting with religious, which was held at the Church of the Holy Rosary, one of the oldest churches in Bangladesh, the Pope listened to several testimonies before speaking, including Fr. Abel Rozario, a priest of the Archdiocese of Dhaka; Brother Lawrence; Fr. Franco; Sister Mary Chandra; and Marcellius, a seminarian.
After hearing their stories, Francis said he had prepared an 8-page speech for them, but tossed the remarks, jesting that “we come to listen to the Pope, and not to get bored!”
Speaking off-the-cuff in Spanish with his interpreter, Msgr. Mark Miles, offering simultaneous translation into English, the Pope said that as he was coming in, the image of a plant “sprouting from the stump of Jesse” in next Tuesday’s reading from Isaiah came to mind.
The image of the plant growing in a spirit of wisdom and piety and blooming in a life of faith and service also applies to the life of a consecrated person, he said, noting that it all begins with a seed.
“The seed does not belong to you or to me, God sows the seed, and God is the one who provides for its growth,” he said, explaining that while God is the one who takes the initiative, we have to water the seed in order for it to grow.
In order to water the seed of the vocation we’ve been given, we have to “look after it,” as we would look after a child or someone who is sick or elderly: with tenderness.
“Vocation is looked after with human tenderness in our communities, where we live as priests, parishes,” he said, adding that “if there’s no such tenderness, then the plant is very small, it doesn’t grow and it can dry out.”
“Look after it with tenderness, because every brother in the presbyterate, in the episcopal conference, every religious in community, every brother seminarian, is a seed of God. And God looks at them with the tenderness of a father.”
However, Francis also noted that despite our best efforts, the enemy comes at night and plants weeds along with the good seeds that God has sown.
When these weeds come along, “there is the risk that the seed can be threatened and not grow,” he said, saying it is “awful” and “sad” to see these weeds grow within parishes or episcopal conferences.
In order to prevent the growth of the weeds, we need to know how to tell them apart from the good seeds, the Pope said, explaining that this process is called “discernment.”
“To look after means to discern,” he said, and urged them to pay attention to which direction their “plant” is growing in, and whether there is something – a friend or a community or family member – who is threatening the growth of the plant.
Prayer is also a key part of this discernment process, he said, adding that “to look after also means to pray, and to ask the one who planted the seed how to water that same seed.”
“If I’m having a crisis and falling asleep, we have to ask him to look after us. To pray means to ask the Lord to look after us, that he give us the tenderness that we have to then pass onto others,” he said.
Pope Francis then pointed to the various challenges that arise in parishes, seminaries, episcopal conferences and convents, saying these will always be present because each of us have defects and limitations that threaten the peace and harmony of community life.
Noting how Bangladesh is known for it’s achievements in living and promoting interreligious harmony, he said the same efforts have to be made inside faith communities, and Bangladesh “has to be an example of harmony.”
Bringing up a point he often returns to, especially when speaking to religious, Francis said of the greatest “enemies” of harmony in religious life is gossip.
“The tongue, brothers and sisters, can destroy a community by speaking badly about another person,” he said, noting that “this is not my idea, but 2,000 years ago a certain St. James said that in his letter.”
To talk about the defects of others behind their backs rather than confronting the person about it creates an environment of distrust, jealousy and division, he said, and again referred to gossip as a form of “terrorism.”
It’s terrorism, he said, because “when you speak badly of others, you don’t say it publicly, and a terrorist doesn’t say publicly ‘I’m a terrorist.’ A terrorist says it in a private, crude way, then throws the bomb and it explodes.”
The same thing happens in communities, and often times others pick up the bomb that has been left and they also throw it, he said, and told the religious to “hold your tongue” if they are tempted to speak badly about someone.
“Maybe you’ll hurt you tongue if you bite it, but you won’t hurt the other person.”
If a true correction needs to be made, Francis told them, if possible, to first confront the person face to face in charity, and to also let an authority know, so they can do something about it if needed.
“Say it to the person’s face, and say it to another person who can do something, but with charity. How many communities have been destroyed through the spirit of gossip,” he said, and implored them “please, hold your tongue, bite your tongue.”
Pope Francis closed his address by urging the religious to ask themselves a series of questions: “do I look after the small plant, do I water it? Do I water it in others? Am I afraid of being a terrorist, and therefore never speak badly of others? And do I have the gift of joy?”
He then voiced his hope that the “plant” of their vocation continues to grow so that “your eyes will always sparkle with that joy of the Holy Spirit,” and asked for prayer.
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We read: “What is a human being? What is his or her inherent dignity, which is irreconcilable with a digital android?”
Yes, the incarnate Jesus Christ is analogue, not digital. But, we have the progressiveness of first placing Pachamama in a niche in St. Peter’s Basilica alongside the real Eucharistic Presence, and of displacing binary human relationships with a “third option” of alphabetical pronouns, and then the symbolic “coexistence” of rainbow banners within the church of St. Gesu and then in St. Peter’s in what used to be the “eternal city.”
Is LGBTQ penetration of the Church a consequence of transformer toys and then narcissist computer gaming and a digitally disintegrated “universe”? In addition to upending what is cerebral, digitized AI erodes what is created and physical. So, what now of the “survival of the human race,” as in what are “human” and “human race”?
Just words! In practice, Nominalism is the new orthodoxy. About elementary governance within the Mystical Body of Christ, souls are waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Yes to all your rhetorical questions. Although you don’t need my support for your persuasions. And for a short time all seemed so bright.
Our beloved Pope Leo XIV instructs Catholic theologians to root their work in an encounter with Christ, whilst engaging with philosophy, science, economics, law, literature, the arts, and with other cultures and religions.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines theology as: “The study of God based on revelation.” It also repeatedly emphasises the transcendent mystery of God.
In my lowly position, I would rather have read our earthly leader had instructed our theologians to be rooted in an uncompromising devotion and submission to King Jesus Christ, seeking always to be a theologian to whom The Father is revealed by Christ our LORD, as Saint Matthew gives us at 11:27.
“Everything has been entrusted to Me by My Father; and no one knows The Son except The Father, just as no one knows The Father except The Son and those to whom The Son chooses to reveal Him.”
Maybe this is what the Catechism means when it defines authentic Catholic theology as being based on revelation.
Since when has The Church forgotten that divine revelation is given to overcome the lying deceits that are inherent in a universe whose prince is a liar from the start and a thief and murderer and destroyer (see, e.g., John 8:44; 10:10; 12:31). It seems problematic to ignore that aspect of ‘Creation’ alltogether.
The greatest part of Jesus’ earthly ministry was devoted to overcoming the evils that have infected ‘Creation’, and to teaching His disciples (and us) how to do that.
Theologians have fresh opportunities to be creative, constructive and relevant. Remaining on the back foot and calling the shots is replete with short comings. Life keeps evolving all the time, faster than ever before. Pilgrims on the move cannot remain static but are expected to move ahead with eyes, minds and hearts wide open. Day by day the need for an anthropological vision rooted in human dignity keeps challenging our theologians here, there, and everywhere. It’s a healthy challenge to be embraced whole-heartedly.
It’s pleasing to find a Catholic theologian who knows what he’s talking about:
Catholic Theology: An Introduction
Cajetan Cuddy, O.P.
August 15, 2024
The opening paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the whole of the Christian life and, thereby, the purpose of Catholic theology:
God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life. (CCC no. 1)
The profound significance of the very first word of the Catechism is difficult to overestimate. As an authoritative summary of Catholic faith and morals (CCC no. 11), the Catechism begins with God. Why? God is the beginning and the end of Christian doctrine. Likewise, God is the center of sacred theology. A Christian life without God is impossible. Moreover, Catholic theology without God is unintelligible.
In these carefully selected and arranged words, the Catechism highlights the fact that God is “infinitely perfect and blessed in himself.” God does not suffer from any needs or privations. He is perfection. Thus, the existence of creatures does not originate from any insufficiency within God. Rather, all creatures—including rational creatures, whether men or angels—proceed from God’s “plan of sheer goodness.” Creatures exist because God is infinitely good.
God created to share his goodness with his creatures. He did not create in order to receive something that he lacked. He “freely created man to make him share in his [God’s] own blessed life.” God’s loving wisdom accounts for the creation of the human person. Moreover, his good and loving wisdom informs the inherent structures of creation in general and the nature of the human person in particular. Because God created man to share himself with man, “at every time and in every place, God draws close to man.”
There are no barriers between God and the human person. The Christian faith denies any conceptions about God that would posit spatial or affective distance between God and creatures. The God who creates sustains his creation in existence. The Christian faith utterly rejects deistic conceptions of the deity and of creation. God is not an absent watchmaker.
Consequently, God “calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.” God’s presence to his creatures is such that he enables human persons not only to be known or loved by God, but also to know and to love God themselves. No creature can self-create. Moreover, as a creature of God, the human person is created for God. Thus, the created reality of humanity is not simply passive in nature. It is part of the primordial vocation of the human person to pursue God through the active powers of knowing and loving.
The human orientation to God is expressed even in the human experience of things other than God. All truth is God’s truth. All truthful knowledge is ultimately oriented to God because all of reality bears a God-oriented shape and direction. And the human person is uniquely called to pursue God in a specifically rational way through knowledge and love. In its very first paragraph, the Catechism provides a roadmap for the whole of human life and the whole of Catholic thought. In other words, this single paragraph gives a concise account of the essence of Catholic theology.
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How widely among Catholics, is it appreciated that just as there is SCIENCE and there is SCIENCE FICTION, so too there is THEOLOGY and there is THEOLOGY FICTION.
The most serious problem arises: for whilst the sport of Science Fiction is unlikely to genocide human souls, that is exactly what the sport of Theology Fiction does.
Theology Fiction – sadly a popular genre – can be inherently soul-genociding; our willfully blind shepherds (see 2 Corinthians 4:4) leading leeming-like sheep into the pit (see Matthew 15:14 & Luke 6:39)..
There is manifestly no respect for Deuteronomy 27, nor fear of its divine curses;
e.g. “A cures on one who leads a blind man astray . . .”
What hope is there then for the average Catholic?
Every hope, when our Pope, Cardinal, Archbishop, Bishop, Priests, Deacons, Religious, and Lay Leaders are steeped in The New Testament and The Catechism of the Catholic Church – that is, have their eyes wide-open, and their hearts obedient to the teachings of Jesus Christ – our One & Only True Teacher, and so, are full of The Holy Spirit, manifest in their lives.
Let no theologian suggest GOD has left us sheep without help. It’s all there!
Correction
‘e.g. “A curse on one who leads a blind man astray . . .”’
Dear Dr John Grondelski has given us some relevant observations on what real, ‘non-grasping’, Christ-following Catholicism looks like.
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/the-need-to-stop-grasping/
We might add that the far-from-uncommon Catholic method of sermonizing people to change, no matter how well argued, rarely works. People may get dismissive, self-delusional or worse: guilty, hypocritical, or even cynical.
REAL change comes from being filled with GOD’s Holy Spirit, who counsells us from within, helping us move towards a sanctity of Christ-like self-emptyingness we can never achieve by will-power or by so-called ‘spiritual disciplines’.
How, then, does a Catholic get full of The Holy Spirit of GOD? Our LORD Jesus Christ and His holy Apostles plainly taught us -“Obey the Commandments of GOD with love, and GOD will make His home in you!” No pentecostal/charismatic shortcuts! Just OBEY!
The glory of being in-dwelt by GOD’s Holy Spirit is that, year-by-year we find we’re indeed becoming a different person: a MUCH wiser, more-loving person! No sweat!
As this truly beautifully-sung song says:”NOT BY ME BUT BY CHRIST IN ME!”
CityAlight – ‘不是我，是基督住我心’ (现场) [feat. Christie Kwek] – YouTube
In short: Do your best to learn & lovingly obey GOD’s commands – you’ll be filled by The Holy Spirit of GOD – you will be able to give up grasping and step-by-step you’ll start to become like Christ our LORD.
The alternative is to ignore GOD’s commands, sin, & become a slave of sin; left on our own, devoid of The Help, Advocacy, Counsel, Comfort, & Friendship of The Holy Spirit of GOD.
As Moses urged Israel: “For goodness sake, chose Life not death.”
Do theologians who dimiss the commandments have any understanding of this . . ?