GENERAL AUDIENCE Paul VI Hall Assembly POPE FRANCIS St. Peter's Square Wednesday, 25 June 2014

[TheWordIsOne]

Part#1
From Paul VI Hall Assembly, Today there is another group of pilgrims linked up with us in Paul VI Hall; they are pilgrims suffering from illnesses. With this weather, between the heat and the possibility of rain, it was more prudent that they stay there. But they are linked with us via maxi screen. And thus we are together at the same audience. And today let us all pray especially for them, for their illnesses. Thank you.

In the first catechesis on the Church, last Wednesday, we began with the initiative of God who wants to form a people to carry his blessing to all the nations of the earth. He begins with Abraham and then, with great patience — and God has that; he has a great deal of that! — He prepares these people of the Old Covenant so that, in Jesus Christ, he will establish it as the sign and instrument of mankind’s communion with God and unity with one another (cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 1). Today we would like to pause on the importance for a Christian to belong to these people. We will speak about belonging to the Church.
The reader and a writer, I am a true Christian, how am I a true Christian? First I read the letter of POPE FRANCIS, by his own words.
By the letter of the law, written law, by scripture, in the language, put forth from time past to the very present time!

I comment on offense words from VATICAN, Paul VI Hall General Assembly.

1 # We read. You are not isolated, and we mean you, are not Christians on an individual basis.
Each one on His or Her owns, not by any means, by the letter of the language! (Meaning by the letter of language, (VATICAN!) if I say by own chooses I am a true Christian it’s not by your own to say I am).

VATICAN: Our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church.
(Meaning, to belong solely under VATICAN Church, one Church under the earth, By the letter of the language! In one way of saying, not above Heaven)

VATICAN: It is like the last name: if the first name is “I am Christian”, the last name is “I belong to the Church”.
(Meaning I belong to a Church under the earth, not above)

VATICAN: It is so beautiful to observe how this belonging is also expressed in the name God gives to himself.
(Using the name and deity of God the Father, Abba)

VATICAN: In answer to Moses in that wonderful episode of the “burning bush”, he defines himself as the God of the fathers (cf. Ex 3:15).
(The Word does not just say I AM,” but to His adversary as well)

In Exodus 3:15-17 (NKJV) it states, Moreover God said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
(I underline the quote they are referring too! But in the same matter, God continues to say, Has sent me to you.)
This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.'
Exodus 3:16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, 'The LORD God of your
Exodus 3:17 fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, "I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt. Remember Egypt pass ………

VATICAN: He doesn’t say: I am the Omnipotent One..., no: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
(The Reader: But God is Not the Father of Darkness, I quote scripture, by letter of the law.)

In this way, He reveals himself as the God who made an alliance with our fathers and remains ever faithful to his pact and calls us to enter into this relationship which precedes us.
God’s relationship with his people precedes us all, it comes from that time.

2# VATICAN: In this sense, one’s thought goes in the first place, with gratitude, to those who went before us and who welcomed us into the Church.
No one becomes Christian on his or her own! Is that clear? No one becomes Christian by him- or herself.
Christians are not made in a laboratory.
A Christian is part of a person who comes from afar.

The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on. But no one, no one becomes Christian on his or her own.
If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we acknowledge the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognize him in our brothers and sisters, it is because others, before us, lived the faith and then transmitted it to us.

We have received the faith from our fathers, from our ancestors, and they have instructed us in it. If we think about it carefully, who knows how many beloved faces pass before our eyes at this moment: it could be the face of our parents who requested our Baptism; that of our grandparents or of some family member who taught us how to make the sign of the Cross and to recite our first prayers.

I always remember the face of the nun who taught me the Catechism, but she always comes to mind — she is in Heaven for sure, because she was a holy woman — I always remember her and give thanks to God for this sister.

Or it could be the face of the parish priest, of another priest or a sister or a catechist, who transmitted the contents of the faith to us and helped us to grow as Christians... So, this is the Church: one great family, where we are welcomed and learn to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus.

• We are able to live this journey not only because of others but together with others. In the Church there is no “do it yourself”, there are no “free agents”.
• How many times did Pope Benedict “describe the Church as an ecclesial ‘we’”! At times one hears someone say: “I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, but I don’t care about the Church...”. How many times have we heard this? And this is not good.
• There are those who believe they can maintain a personal, direct and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside the communion and the mediation of the Church. These are dangerous and harmful temptations.
• These are, as the great Paul VI said, absurd dichotomies. It is true that walking together is challenging, and at times can be tiring: it can happen that some brother or some sister creates difficulties, or shocks us... But the Lord entrusted his message of salvation to a few human beings, to us all, to a few witnesses; and it is in our brothers and in our sisters, with their gifts and limitations, that he comes to meet us and make himself known.
• And this is what it means to belong to the Church. Remember this well: to be Christian means belonging to the Church. The first name is “Christian”, the last name is “belonging to the Church”.

 

[TheWordIsOne]

Part#2
Dear friends, let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, for the grace never to fall into the temptation of thinking we can make it without the others, that we can get along without the Church, that we can save ourselves on our own, of being Christians from the laboratory. On the contrary, you cannot love God without loving your brothers, you cannot love God outside of the Church; you cannot be in communion with God without being so in the Church, and we cannot be good Christians if we are not together with those who seek to follow the Lord Jesus, as one single people, one single body, and this is the Church. Thank you.

I offer a cordial greeting to the delegation from Bethlehem University, which this year is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its foundation, with a special appreciation for its praiseworthy educational apostolate among the Palestinian people.
I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, including those from England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Greece, Australia, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, the Antilles, and the United States. Upon all of you, and upon your families, I invoke joy and peace in the Lord Jesus.

Lastly, I greet the young people, the sick and newlyweds. The echo of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, which we recently celebrated, still resounds. Dear young people, always find in the Eucharist the nourishment for your spiritual life.
Dear sick people — especially those linked with us in the Paul VI Hall — offer your suffering and your prayers to the Lord, that he may continue to spread his love in the hearts of people. And you, dear newlyweds, approach the Eucharist with renewed faith, that nourished by Christ you may be families inspired by concrete Christian testimony.

 

[for_his_glory]

Latin root word for religion is bondage, which is different then that of Gods pure religion of James 1:27, but that of following tradition and the doctrine of a mans church, not Gods true Church. The Latin root word is religare as re is a prefix that means return and ligare means to bind. Religion tells you what you can and cannot do and becomes socially acceptable by mans interpretations, traditions and doctrines. Religion is what nailed Christ to the cross because the Bible is not socially acceptable to society, if it were then Christ would have died in vain. God is not about mans religion, nor does he recognize organized religion. God is about a personal relationship with you and His son Jesus Christ.

A Christian does not belong to the people nor of a man's religion, but belong to God in whom His Holy Spirit works through as we are servants of God to the people as we carry on the works of the Lord as we are anointed and sealed by the Holy Spirit, 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22.

It's the communion of the saints gathered together in the name of Jesus as where two or more are gathered there He will be in the midst of them, Matthew 15:20. This communion is that of the true body of Christ here on earth with Jesus being the head of the body that makes up His true Church.
(Romans 12:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 3:6-10; 4:15, 16; 5:23; Colossians 1:12-24)

The virgin Mary only being a virgin at the time of conception till Christ birth is no longer alive as she sleeps in her grave like all who have physically died. Mary is not our intercessor as it is Christ who sits at the right hand of God making intercession before the Father on our behalf, Romans 8:34.

The Eucharist is a whole topic of discussion on it's own as well as the Vatican, which even though I have a lot to say about the subject I will not get into as discussions between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Church come against the ToS as it becomes a battle ground with how or what one believes.