What did Pope Francis actually say?
In his Sept. 24 vespers homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, addressing a group of priests and religious, Pope Francis said:
We can get caught up measuring the value of our apostolic works by the standards of efficiency, good management, and outward success which govern the business world.
Not that these things are unimportant!
We have been entrusted with a great responsibility, and God’s people rightly expect accountability from us.
But the true worth of our apostolate is measured by the value it has in God’s eyes.
To see and evaluate things from God’s perspective calls for constant conversion in the first days and years of our vocation and, need I say, it calls for great humility.
The cross shows us a different way of measuring success.
Ours is to plant the seeds: God sees to the fruits of our labors.
And if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and produce no fruit, we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus . . . and his life, humanly speaking, ended in failure, in the failure of the cross.
We can get caught up measuring the value of our apostolic works by the standards of efficiency, good management, and outward success which govern the business world.
Not that these things are unimportant!
We have been entrusted with a great responsibility, and God’s people rightly expect accountability from us.
But the true worth of our apostolate is measured by the value it has in God’s eyes.
To see and evaluate things from God’s perspective calls for constant conversion in the first days and years of our vocation and, need I say, it calls for great humility.
The cross shows us a different way of measuring success.
Ours is to plant the seeds: God sees to the fruits of our labors.
And if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and produce no fruit, we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus . . . and his life, humanly speaking, ended in failure, in the failure of the cross.
“Once we realize how much God has given us, we learn that a life of sacrifice, of working for him and for others, becomes a privileged way, a privileged way of responding to his great love,” he said.
For a moment I’d like to point our eyes toward the nun Mother Teresa. She worked tirelessly giving all of herself for kindness to others. She worked as a health-care worker in India. She earned nothing, lived a life of poverty and self-privation, and died with nothing. HUMANLY or from “The WORLDLY perspective” she was an abject failure because ‘THE WORLD” judges everyone by the money they have.
The bumper sticker phrase, “He who dies with the most toys wins” really was believed by many people.
Mother Teresa poured herself out as a drink offering for God. She dedicated her life to God and even if we think she followed the wrong doctrine, still I cannot fault her for the kindness she showed every day to her patients. Even when she was depressed and wondered if she could do even the smallest thing to receive God’s approval, she kept on helping others.
Of course the phrase writers want to point out the opposite. He who died having given all he could to help others will be the huge winner before God. No one can take their house and cars and young lovers, and pedigreed dogs and private jet and bank account “to Heaven.” Whatever earthly treasure you have may be more a detriment to you before God. God looks at your SINCERITY. He looks at your emotional mind as well as your logic and compares all of what you have done to HIS Commandments.
Jesus the Christ could have made himself rich and comfortable and died in his sleep after making love to one of his 66 slave girls. He made a choice to GIVE HIMSELF for God and for the ultimate mission, which was to save the Universe and to Save Humanity so that ALL of us could have the opportunity to be adopted into God’s Family, and one day be matured to Be Like God!!!
He made a choice that cost him everything. He died beaten mercilessly, hanging from a cross, his naked body torturing itself to death, (read my material about crucifixion.) He died with few friends willing to stand by him. He died on a hill next to the city dump and the air he and they breathed stank of rotting meat and vegetables and animal dung and all of it burning, the smoke of it wafting past them as they stood and prayed and suffered with him. From THE WORLDLY point of view he was undefended, penniless, and worthless. He was a total and complete failure.
From God’s point of view he was the Brightest Star in God’s Crown!
There were superficially minded people around me often. When I (a busy doctor) would say that I’m “nothing” they would begin immediately to rebuke me and tell me that I should have sticky notes all over my house and mirrors covered with affirmations.
To me, these people all seemed like idiots. Idiots because they apparently never thought about more spiritual things and measured everything by materialism. They’re a massive lot of lost souls.
I still make jokes that “I only work here.” I’m just a small cog in a big wheel and I hope I can bring a few souls before God and help them find His Light. I still say that if the Almighty Infinite Creator of Eternity even so much as lowers his eyes to look upon you or me, that’s a huge privilege and we should be thankful for it.
The proud are fools. Those who know they are no more than a speck of dust beneath God’s feet are they who will give and work all the more and study many hours to finally fall at God’s feet. And the books will be opened and God will see the good they did for HIS commandments and “for Heaven’s sake” and he will see the bad they did and the repentance they did, and the pardon they have thanks to the Sacrificial Blood of Jesus Our Savior; and He will welcome them into His Family.
As for “the masters of the universe” who will go before God and say, “I was worth 20-Billion dollars” He might tell them, “every dollar is an instrument of debt, so you were indebted to your bank more than everyone else. You did nothing to help others. You died and everyone who knew you said, “I’m glad he’s gone!” Now I, the Creator of Your Life, don’t want you either. Walk into that blackness and never visit me again!
The other saying shorter and truthful is, “You can’t take it with you.”
How do you measure success? My answer is; The number of people you saved and helped up to a better life is the right measure of success. If the King and Queen of England died tonight, would we measure their success based upon their accounting values or would we lay bare all of the bad and good they did and then attempt to determine if we would say they were good people or bad people?
I am not Catholic. I know history of The Vatican and Europe too well to say I love the Vatican. I am a lover of The English Language and apparently many have no idea how to use the language correctly, and likely they haven’t opened a dictionary more than once in 5-years (which indicates they are proudly functionally illiterate and speak a “broken English.) I’m not upset with the Pope. I’m upset with people who want to twist what he said into something else and raise rage about it. They’re the same people who twist the words of the US President to mean something else too. They live with lies and spread lies and make a sport of hurting others. The more a woman or man does for the wider good of society the more they want to hurt him.
What I hear him saying is, You are giving yourself for a doctrine you believe is right and you will not enjoy great luxury or success or adulation in this material world for doing so. You will receive God’s blessings for your efforts when you finally are judged by HIM.
The hate mongers of course, don’t like this, don’t understand it, and don’t want to try to understand. They are so poisoned with contempt nothing will save them. They are the same lot of fools who insult God day and night and finally will come to their bitter end.
The bitter end is a nautical term. The bitt end (or bitter end) refers to the final part of the anchor rope near to where the rope is fixed to the ship’s deck. Usually marked with coloured rags, the bitter end gets its name from the bollards (or bitts) on the deck to which the anchor rope was tied.
In the same way, (If I may attempt to show an analogy) if your anchor is not sunk firmly into holding ground of GOD Almighty, and your bitter end is not firmly lashed to the anchor bitts on deck you’ll soon go adrift and if the wind and wave motion are not favorable you’ll crash against the rocky shore and lose everything, even very possibly lose your life!
If you want to be judged well and receive a reward you must “get right with God,” repent of your sins, change your ways, follow His commandments, and then go before him in bare feet and happily fall on your face before him and beg for His Salvation. The proud men who have a closet full of expensive suits and do nothing charitable to help the miserable, and do nothing to bring others to salvation will never fall before God and will never beg forgiveness. Their reward will be The Second Death. They will “go into outer darkness” which is a poetic way of saying they got blanked out, they are no more, they never existed, they truly are Nothing.
Some hate the Pope and think he is evil. Others love him and think he is all Good. A few say he is deceived and doesn’t really know what he is doing. It’s not our place to be the judge. It’s God’s place and we would be most wise to acknowledge Only God can make such a determination.
We have so much saw dust in our own eyes, we should concentrate on washing that out instead of criticizing the Pope for the saw dust in his eyes.
I still turn over the issue of forgiveness and I still come to the same conclusion. Forego punishing others. Give that issue to God and let HIM take care of it. Forgive is simply giving the problem to God and then let it rest and go about your life and your own issues.
Everyone needs to forgive abusers and everyone must repent of their sins, beg forgiveness and work to follow a righteous path. I am counted amongst this Everyone group. For me this is a serious issue, because I am not worth much money and I know I cannot buy my way into Heaven where there are no Automatic Teller Machines. I cannot buy a fine house and live a comfortable life based upon the ill-gotten money I have collected. I know the only way toward salvation is to give myself to God and make a continual effort to Keep God’s Commandments.
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