The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium | 
#PopeFrancis, nailing part of the modern condition and the Church's role in combatting isolation. #EvangeliiGaudium #Catholic
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#PopeFrancis, nailing part of the modern condition and the Church's role in combatting isolation. #EvangeliiGaudium #Catholic
pickIt seems nearly impossible to sum up in so few words how much I loved this exhortation. Pope Francis calls for a renewed evangelization based on our joy because of our personal encounter with Jesus. This ever-renewing source of life (joy) is what gives the Gospel it's meaning in every age. The book is challenging, explicitly calling us to "enter fully into the fabric of society, sharing the lives of all, listening to their concerns, helping them
When we live out a spirituality of drawing nearer to others and seeking their welfare, our hearts are opened wide to the Lord's greatest and most beautiful gifts.
On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over & over: 'Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen & free you'.... [This proclamation] is first in a qualitative sense because it is the principle proclamation, the one which we must hear again & again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another...at every level & moment.
The challenge of an inculturated preaching consists in proclaiming a synthesis, not ideas or detached values. Where your synthesis is, there lies your heart. The difference between enlightening people with a synthesis and doing so with detached ideas is like the difference between boredom and heartfelt fervor.... The dialogue between God and his people further strengthens the covenant between them and consolidates the bond of charity.
🙌🙌🙌
"Even if the homily at times may be somewhat tedious, if this maternal and ecclesial spirit is present, it will always bear fruit, just as the tedious counsels of a mother bear fruit, in due time, in the hearts of her children."
Needed some encouragement this morning. #motherhoodcanbehard
It is he [the Holy Spirit] who brings forth a rich variety of gifts, while at the same time creating a unity which is never uniformity but a multifaceted & inviting harmony.... We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as monoculture and monotonous. While it is true that some cultures have been closely associated with the preaching of the Gospel...the revealed message is... transcultural.
The elderly bring with them memory and wisdom of experience, which warns us not to foolishly repeat our past mistakes. Young people can is to renewed & expansive hope, for they represent new directions for humanity & open us up to the future, lest we cling to a nostalgia for structures & customs which are no longer life-giving in today's world.
Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people's thirst for God.... Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing & liberation, and fill them with life & peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion & missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human not give glory to God.
This entire passage offers so many things to think on and ponder.
"This opinion [trickle-down theories], which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."
Quoting Benedict XVI:
"Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction."
"We are not here to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flourishing garden of life."
- Pope John XXIII
From the Forward by Bishop Robert Barron:
"This evangelical urgency... is the leitmotif of the Pope's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. He knows that if Catholicism leads with its doctrines it will devolve into an intellectual debating society, and that if it leads with its moral teaching it will appear... fussy and puritanical. It should lead today as it led 2000 years ago, with the stunning news that Jesus Christ is the Lord."
