Pope Francis Encyclical "the Light Of Faith"

[BarbTherese]

New Encyclical by Pope Francis "The Light of Faith".  For any interested, this thread could be a discussion on this first Encyclical Letter by Pope Francis. 

 

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
LUMEN FIDEI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS
TO THE BISHOPS PRIESTS AND DEACONS
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON FAITH

 

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

 

 

 

Pope Benedict "had almost completed a first draft of an encyclical on faith" before his retirement in February 2013, Pope Francis writes, adding that "I have taken up his fine work and added a few contributions of my own."

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1302921.htm 

 

[arfink]

I am beginning my first reading of the encyclical tonight, I'm most of the way through the introduction at this point. I'll be back before too long, I hope. :)

[BarbTherese]

Thank you for posting, Arfink.

I have just started to read it also - along with the concluding pages of "The Gospel and Utopia" http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/130088-lay-and-religious-vocation-and-spirituality/  While this latter is a good read and I do feel as if I was led to it - there is something annoyingly niggling at me about it that I cannot yet bring into consciousness - not yet.

 

Once I have read Pope Francis's "The Light of Faith", then I would like for myself to go back to Pope Benedict's Encyclicals on Love (Charity) and Hope.  Also review "The Apostolate of The Laity".

My director has asked me to write a Rule of Life for myself - my timetable or horarium wasn't difficult at all, just putting into writing what already exists; however, I am finding the Rule of Life per se more difficult to compile, even though it is simply putting in writing an existing way of life.  This will take longer I know.

 

And off topic :sorry:, which is and I hope will remain "The Light of Faith" by Pope Francis.

[BarbTherese]

1. Does this statement "He does, however, seem to prefer not to use the title “pope,” preferring “bishop of Rome,” instead." tell you      anything about Pope Francis's desired style of leadership in the Church?

 

2. Does the statement tell us anything about the leadership structure in The Church and how it can undergo change (although not theologically) especially since pre V2?

 

"14 things you need to know about Pope Francis’s new encyclical" http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/14-things-you-need-to-know-about-pope-franciss-new-encyclical/

(The above is written by Jimmy Akin, Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers)

[BarbTherese]

I have transferred the whole encyclical to Word and am up to Page 20 at this point. 

 

One of the things that has come home to me in a new way is that the Faith of Abraham, our father, was not situated in his own lifetime i.e. he did not expect that God's Promise to make his followers (those who followed after him) more than the sands on the sea shore in every direction, east west north and south.  Abraham understood in Faith that God's Promise was to be fulfilled in time and in the time after Abraham.  The consciousness of Abraham and Israel was very much community minded.  I reflected too on Israel's exile into Babylon and how they were then passing through a dreadful time in history - just as we too now in many ways are passing through a difficult and trying time in our history.

Our secularization, which often can creep in without one being aware, makes us more individual minded than community minded.  More interested in answers in the here and now, then answers unfolding over time and for the community as a whole as it moves on in time.

 

I asked myself this question.  Do I want answers in my own lifetime? ........... or is my Faith more like that of Abraham, our father in Faith, understanding that we might be passing through a difficult time just now - but that Our God is Faithful and the gates of Hell shall never prevail, no matter how bad things seem to be here and now in my own personal picture and in the bigger picture of The Church. 

 

It sort of moves me to a certain sense of shame knowing that many Catholics in our world are suffering persecution even martyrdom for their Faith.  Do I have the strength to face something like that?  In my imagination (which is all I have at this point) I most certainly do not have that sort of strength, but my trust is that if it should be asked of me Grace would not be lacking.  That is my trust.  I am moved too in this reflection to pray for those that are suffering persecution and martyrdom.

 

Because my mind is such as it is or it might be that The Holy Spirit just leads as He Will, something else occurred to me and that is to refrain from being critical unless I can indeed provide some sort of an answer.  And if I feel I really should be critical but do not have any answers - then to admit in the same breathe that I do not have any answer(s).

 

This led me to another reflection.  What exactly is my path?  To respond to The Holy Spirit as it SEEMS He calls me to respond in the day to day ordinary life I live, or to follow the path of our saints which in the main was always a self-effacing outstandingly humble and the more difficult path by far. It strikes me as very easy to mistake one's own desires for that of the Holy Spirit since quite often my own desires can lurk masked in the sub-conscious.   I don't have an answers for myself as yet.  This will take further prayerful thought.  I do think, however, it is a necessary question to put to myself and to discern an answer...........a good question, it has just occurred to me (very often I do think at the keyboard), to put to my director next visit and just now I have started up an exercise book for points to discuss with him.

Edited July 8, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

Because I and many are not community minded where The Church is concerned - more individualistic minded and an 'instant' society and consciousness minded (secularized), we are not prepared to allow The Lord to act in His Own Time which is outside time and yet is here and now.  We want answers in our human now rather than trustfully confident that the answer will come unreservedly and will unfold without doubt, but perhaps not in our own lifetime.  Patience is indeed a quality of Love.  The virtue of patience knows that The Lord is indeed Faithful at all times.  Indeed, "seek after Peace and pursue it" (1st Epistle St Peter Ch3)

 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

28. This discovery of love as a source of knowledge, which is part of the primordial experience of every man and woman,"

 

 

This bit interests me, that all men and women have had some kind of experience of Love knowledge in there lives. This must include even psychopaths if the pontiff is correct in saying 'every man and women', which is what i thought anyway. I read or heard somewhere or pulled it out of my cranium, that all are given enough grace to gain heaven and avoid hell, barring an accident of misfortune.

 

JESUS iz LORD

Edited July 8, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I like chp 19 also, 'salvation by faith'.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

LOL. Running commentary...

 

I like chp/verse 34. I said chapter previously and i think i should have said verse.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

verse 36 is one for the straight A theologians.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I will read the rest tomorrow,i'm tired and am a bit flue. I'm excited about this thread, sharing our hearts and minds on this document of faith and morals.

[BarbTherese]

Wow!  The first time I have been game enough to try "Multiquote" - and it worked!!!

I will read the rest tomorrow,i'm tired and am a bit flue. I'm excited about this thread, sharing our hearts and minds on this document of faith and morals.

 

I think it might be productive to share our hearts and minds on Letters and Encyclicals etc. too.

 

verse 36 is one for the straight A theologians.

 

It took me a couple of reads and marked to be read again when the mind is fresh.

LOL. Running commentary...

 

I like chp/verse 34. I said chapter previously and i think i should have said verse.

 

Hey Tab!  I marked Verse 34 as a  :like2: too

I like chp 19 also, 'salvation by faith'.

 

 

28. This discovery of love as a source of knowledge, which is part of the primordial experience of every man and woman,"

 

 

This bit interests me, that all men and women have had some kind of experience of Love knowledge in there lives. This must include even psychopaths if the pontiff is correct in saying 'every man and women', which is what i thought anyway. I read or heard somewhere or pulled it out of my cranium, that all are given enough grace to gain heaven and avoid hell, barring an accident of misfortune.

 

JESUS iz LORD

 

I wonder if it means not only to love other human beings, but to love other things as well - it might be a totally impoverished even twisted to say the least type of love, but I think we all experience some kind of love - either given or received.  I think that "to like" is a kind of love - way down on the scale of love for sure, but a type of loving.

Sometimes the psychopath (I'm no expert!) has been fashioned by entirely negative experiences that were out of his or her control.  Apparently psychopaths not only do not have guilt feelings but no conscience nor empathy either.  These qualities that comprise our human nature commonly speaking, they do not have.  I wonder just how responsible they will be for their actions before the Infinitely Merciful Judgement Seat of The Lord.  Dunno! :paperbag:

 

Nope, not out yer cranium, Tab - unless its out of mine as well...............Yes, we do have more than enough Grace for salvation and holiness and avoid totally hell.  It is a question of our free will and response to those many Graces.  If we fail, we have failed ourselves and have freely chosen to fail.

We can certainly Hope that all will be saved since anything less is a statement that Jesus died foolishly since He died for ALL mankind and creation.  I am very often moved in the Intercessions at the conclusion of each of The Hours of The Divine Office just how often The Church prays that all indeed will be saved.

 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

:) wonderful BarbaraTherese. I'm just about to read the rest now. :)

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I like this bit, it is from the end of verse 47. 

 

Faith is also one because it is directed to the one Lord, to the life of Jesus, to the concrete history which he shares with us. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons made this clear in his struggle against Gnosticism. The Gnostics held that there are two kinds of faith: a crude, imperfect faith suited to the masses, which remained at the level of Jesus’ flesh and the contemplation of his mysteries; and a deeper, perfect faith reserved to a small circle of initiates who were intellectually capable of rising above the flesh of Jesus towards the mysteries of the unknown divinity. In opposition to this claim, which even today exerts a certain attraction and has its followers, Saint Irenaeus insisted that there is but one faith, for it is grounded in the concrete event of the incarnation and can never transcend the flesh and history of Christ, inasmuch as God willed to reveal himself fully in that flesh. For this reason, he says, there is no difference in the faith of "those able to discourse of it at length" and "those who speak but little", between the greater and the less: the first cannot increase the faith, nor the second diminish it.

 

 

 

I guess it reminds us to be humble however great and to be grateful however small. Because there is no greater or lesser faith, it is all the same faith.

 

 

Edited July 9, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

In the Letter to the Hebrews we read that "God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them" (Heb 11:16). Here the expression "is not ashamed" is associated with public acknowledgment.

 

I like this bit at the end of verse 55. It speaks to me that God is not ashamed of my efforts to bring the good news to others, and nor should i be, even though i seem to fail miserably at times. :)