The following comes from a July 6 Catholic News Agency article:
As church leaders rallied U.S. Catholics to defend their faith against an increasingly antagonistic society and government, the relics of Blessed Oscar Romero and St. Junipero Serra made an appearance at the Los Angeles cathedral.
“We are living in challenging times. Our society and our culture are becoming more and more secularized,” Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles said July 1. “Sadly, also sometimes, our government is becoming more antagonistic. Sometimes we see policies that are trying to make us compromise our beliefs or deny the commandment that Jesus gives us to love and serve our neighbors,” Archbishop Gomez said during Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
The persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria was on the mind of Archbishop Gomez. He prayed that the saints intercede for them “to give our brothers and sisters courage and hope.”
“What we are experiencing today — in our country and in the world — is something that the martyrs and saints have always taught us. And that is: that discipleship has a price. The freedom to follow Jesus Christ is not free,” he said. To follow Jesus means to share in his mission to spread “the good news of God’s mercy and salvation.”
Archbishop Gomez has a point: Discipleship HAS a price, sometimes a mere inconvenience, and sometimes a very grave price. This is a point that some of my sparring partners and I here on CCD probably agree.
It could be a point for us to discuss more fully and come to some agreement upon if folks are open to it.
Junipero Serra is an example of how current thoughts on race and culture have been twisted to diminish this holy man’s work in the United States. Though the first Hispanic saint of the U.S., various minority groups see him as a man who killed native peoples and forced Catholicism on them. Important that Catholics defend Father Serra, whose character and works were enough to have his name lifted into the community of saints. We all should be working toward the goal of a home in heaven and he has attained it. So yes defend him, and be prepared to be called all the names he was, for certainly there is always a price to pay for standing with righteousness.
“…and forced Catholicism on them.”
This is the prevailing attitude of “leadership” with regard to how Catholics should feel about receiving the fullness of faith from the pulpit. Could be why some prelates find it okay to stump for the supposed “rights” of man even in so much as these manufactured rights subvert the truth about God and man.
“The German Jesuit, Father Klaus Mertes, just said in an interview with a German newspaper that the Catholic Church “should now help to establish a human right to homosexuality,” is a little snippet from OnePeterFive’s interview with Cardinal Caffara on confusion in the Church.
Ann Malley, I offered you and others an olive branch to discuss how discipleship and its price plays a roll in our lives. You used that olive branch to sow more doubt and confusion and get in a dig about homosexuality. Shame.
Perhaps it is because we know your olive branch has strings attached — so-called same-sex marriage.
I think Anne T., you think about same sex marriage more than I do. If Christians cannot have a decent conversation about discipleship, perhaps there is something lacking in one’s own relationship with Christ.
I’m struggling to understand how your post is a response to mine, so I hope you’ll clarify.
I’ll just say that I think the Archbishop’s point was that these were heroic lives lived with faith. If we see in their lives mistakes, we should take heart, not tear them down. We should take heart because we must ourselves go forth into the world in faith, knowing that we will make our own mistakes, and not be afraid of the price we have to pay for discipleship in this world or the next. That’s how I live my life, or at least try to.
Yes, YFC, discipleship has a price. Christ said as much: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”
I think it is clear that American society is becoming hostile to observant Christians, who will have to pay increasingly high prices (loss of friends, jobs, money, opportunities) for fidelity to Christ. Same for Christian institutions: they will be targeted for persecution. So many articles on this website have been about that trend.
History is usually written by the winners. The further one gets from an event, the more current thought and values are written into the history. Today, when so few people have studied history in depth, it is considered bad form for a religion to convert others to their faith. Current people lack the perspective of a society that ruled with an iron fist and knew no other way to keep people under control, as the Spanish did. They may not have been bad people by the standards of the time, but those standards don’t apply today and people can’t seem to see things in the light of the times.
Being a disciple has a price. What is the price of our LIBERTY? Freedom is not free. Will we as a free nation be allowed by the mob to hold conventions? Title: Dallas Shootings Confirm Activists Plans to Disrupt GOP Convention. From the remnant newspaper @ http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2620:dallas-shootings-confirm-black-activist-plans-to-disrupt-gop-convention
Continued………May God bless the fallen in Dallas and their families and all our first responders. God help us and bless this country in His mercy.
What a lovely icon, rich with Christian symbolism.
The GOP Platform: Solid, Conservative
https://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=WA16G10&f=WU16G03
Republicans now have a platform to stand on, a solidly conservative platform… a useful document, a standard, for the party in local, state, and federal elections – to which we should hold our elected officials…
The already pro-life plank of the GOP added a call to enforce born alive protections… As the new platform will say, “we oppose infanticide”
The platform contains conscience protections for health care providers…
The importance of religious freedom was more present in this platform given attacks by this administration trying to quarantine religious exercise to the four walls of the church or synagogue. It called for religious…