Surely whoever designed the official logo for the upcoming synod is trolling us.
Whoever allowed Comic Sans here is surely not a font of wisdom.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also cross-post at Jimmy Akin’s blog.
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 1 September 2021 to 8 September 2021.
Angelus
General Audience
Message
Speech
Tweet
- “The pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected everyone is. If we do not take care of one another, starting with the least, with those who are most impacted, including creation, we cannot heal the world. #SeasonOfCreation” @Pontifex, 3 September 2021
- “Taking into consideration the worsening of multiple converging political and environmental crises – hunger, the climate, nuclear arms, to name a few – the commitment to peace has never been so necessary and urgent.” @Pontifex, 4 September 2021
- “We all have ears, but very often we cannot hear. There is, in fact, an interior deafness worse than the physical one: the deafness of the heart that we can ask Jesus to touch and heal today. #GospelOfTheDay” @Pontifex, 5 September 2021
- “This is the medicine: fewer useless words and more of the Word of God. Let us hear the words of the #GospelOfTheDay addressed to us: “Ephphatha, be opened!” Jesus, I want to open myself to your Word, open myself to listen. Heal my heart.” @Pontifex, 5 September 2021
- “I assure my prayers for the people of the United States of America who have been hit by a strong hurricane in recent days. May the Lord receive the souls of the deceased and sustain those suffering from this calamity.” @Pontifex, 5 September 2021
- “May all Afghans, whether in their home country, in transit, or in host countries, live with dignity, in peace and fraternity with their neighbours. #PrayTogether” @Pontifex, 5 September 2021
- “God is gloriously and mysteriously present in creation since he is the Lord who reigns over it. To discover this, we need to be silent, listen, contemplate. #SeasonOfCreation” @Pontifex, 6 September 2021
- “Next Sunday I will travel to Budapest for the conclusion of the International Eucharistic Congress. My pilgrimage will continue for a few days in Slovakia and will conclude with the great popular celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows, Patroness of that country.” @Pontifex, 7 September 2021
- “This is the first time that @JustinWelby, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and I feel compelled to address together the urgency of environmental sustainability, its impact on persistent poverty, and the importance of global cooperation. #SeasonofCreation messages” @Pontifex, 7 September 2021
- “Today as we celebrate the #BirthOfMary, let us ask our Mother to help us rediscover the beauty of being God’s children, overcoming differences and conflicts, to live as brothers and sisters.” @Pontifex, 8 September 2021
- “Education is one of the most effective ways of making our world and history more human. Education is above all a matter of love and responsibility handed down from one generation to another. #WorldLiteracyDay” @Pontifex, 8 September 2021
Papal Instagram
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 29 July 2021 to 1 September 2021.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also post at Jimmy Akin’s blog.
Angelus
General Audiences
Messages
- 29 July 2021 – Message of His Holiness Pope Francis, signed by the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on the occasion of the 42nd Meeting for Friendship among Peoples [Rimini, 20–25 August 2021], 29 July 2021
- 25 August 2021 – Video Message of the Holy Father
Speeches
- 27 August 2021 – To the Participants in the meeting promoted by the International Catholic Legislators Network
- 28 August 2021 – To the group of the “Lazare” Association from France
Papal Tweets
- “Faith is the ardent desire for God, a bold effort to change, the courage to love, constant progress” @Pontifex 27 August 2021
- “Saint Augustine said: “I fear that Jesus will pass by me unnoticed”. It is important to remain watchful, because one great mistake in life is to get absorbed in a thousand things and not to notice God” @Pontifex 28 August 2021
- “In the #GospelOfTheDay, Jesus cautions us about a religiosity of appearances: looking good on the outside, while failing to purify the heart. He does not want outward appearances. He wants to put faith back at the center. He wants a faith that touches the heart” @Pontifex 29 August 2021
- “I am following the situation in Afghanistan with great concern. I share in the sorrow of those who are grieving for those who lost their lives in the suicide attacks and of those who are seeking help and protection.” @Pontifex 29 August 2021
- “As Christians the situation in Afghanistan obligates us. In historic moments like this, we cannot remain indifferent. For this reason, I address an appeal to everyone to intensify your prayer and practice fasting, asking the Lord for mercy and forgiveness” @Pontifex 29 August 2021
- “What is the secret of a blessed life, a happy life? Recognizing Jesus as the living God. For it is not important to know that Jesus was great in history. What matters is the place I give him in my life” @Pontifex 30 August 2021
- “Today we need prophecy, but real prophecy. Miraculous demonstrations are not needed, but lives that demonstrate the miracle of God’s love” @Pontifex 31 August 2021
- “Saint Paul invites us too to reflect on how we live faith. Does the love of Christ, crucified and risen, remain at the centre of our life as the wellspring of salvation, or are we content with a few religious formalities to salve our consciences? #GeneralAudience” @Pontifex 1 September 2021
- “Today we celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Let us #PrayTogether with our brothers and sisters of various Christian confessions and work for our common home at this time of serious planetary crisis. #SeasonOfCreation” @Pontifex 1 September 2021
- “We pray that we all will make courageous choices for a simple and environmentally sustainable lifestyle, rejoicing in our young people who are resolutely committed to this.” @Pontifex 1 September 2021
Papal Instagram
Yesterday on social media I had posted:
Sometimes I have a great biting comment as a pun that works on several levels.
I then realize that there is no way my conscience would let me actually post it for its lack of charity. But such a great biting pun.
I will remind Jesus of those occasions when I die. He will probably remind me of the ones I let fly.
Today I was thinking about this quote from Chesterton:
“It may seem a singular observation to say that we are not generous enough to write great satire. This, however, is approximately a very accurate way of describing the case. To write great satire, to attack a man so that he feels the attack and half acknowledges its justice, it is necessary to have a certain intellectual magnanimity which realizes the merits of the opponent as well as his defects. This is, indeed, only another way of putting the simple truth that in order to attack an army we must know not only its weak points, but also its strong points. England in the present season and spirit fails in satire for the same simple reason that it fails in war: it despises the enemy.” – “Pope and the art of satire”
Twelve Types 1903
In reaction to this, I think, that if you use humor to attack, it should be too wound so as to heal. Oddly I think of St. John of the Cross’s metaphor of the “sweet cautery” that he uses in Stanza 2 of the “Living Flame of Love” for the Holy Spirit. That there is pain involved in the cautery, but it is used to heal.
Chesterton way of explaining the use of satire is not an exclusive way at looking at the subject. Still, all satire should be written to persuade if it is going to be effective. Some writers have the skills to do this in a more brutal way such as Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”.
Coincidentally, today I listened to two podcasts that both dealt with the subject of humor – linked in the comment section.
Godsplaining Episode 108: Is Joking a Sin? – YouTube
Uncommon Sense #58 – The Importance of Humor wit David Deavel – YouTube
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 13 August 2021 to 25 August 2021.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also post at Jimmy Akin’s blog.
Angelus
General Audiences
Messages
- 13 August 2021 – Video message of the Holy Father to the Participants in the Virtual Continental Congress of Religious Life, organized by CLAR [13–15 August 2021]
- 23 August 2021 – Message of His Holiness Pope Francis, signed by the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on the occasion of the 71st National Liturgical Week [Cremona, 23–26 August 2021]
- 24 August 2021 – Video Message to participants in the Laudato si’ Inter-University Congress [Argentina, 1- 4 September 2021]
Papal Tweets
- “The climate crisis always generates more serious humanitarian crises and the poor are the most vulnerable regarding extreme weather events. A solidarity founded on justice, on peace and on the unity of the human family is needed. #WorldHumanitarianDay” @Pontifex 19 August 2021
- “Patience helps us to be merciful in the way we view ourselves, our communities and our world.” @Pontifex 21 August 2021
- “We should not pursue God in dreams and in images of grandeur and power, but He must be recognised in the humanity of Jesus and, as a consequence, in that of the brothers and sisters we meet on the path of life. #GospelOfTheDay (Jn 6:60–69) #Angelus” @Pontifex 22 August 2021
- “Let us work together to eradicate the appalling scourge of modern slavery that still shackles millions of people in inhumanity and humiliation. Every human being is the image of God, and is free and destined to exist in equality and fraternity.” @Pontifex 23 August 2021
- “It is in humility that we build the future of the world.” @Pontifex 24 August 2021
- “Let us ask the Lord to help us be consistent and to courageously combat anything that can lead us away from the truth and from the faith we profess. Only thus can we truly build unity and fraternity. #GeneralAudience” @Pontifex 25 August 2021
- “Yesterday, in Tokyo, the Paralympic Games got underway. I send my greetings to the athletes and I thank them because they offer everyone a witness of hope and courage.” @Pontifex 25 August 2021
Papal Instagram
At the Chesterton Conference in Chicago, I heard Crystal Downing speak about Dorothy L. Sayers being influenced by G.K. Chesterton. Sayers credited Chesterton for saving her from logical positivism and the path she might have chosen instead.
“When Chesterton died in 1936, Sayers wrote his widow that ”G. K.’s books have become more a part of my mental make-up than those of any writer you could name.“ And she makes clear that it wasn’t simply Orthodoxy that kept her from giving up on orthodoxy, explaining the importance of Chesterton’s novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which she read ”at a very impressionable age.”
I was introduced to Dorothy Sayers books as a teenager via Masterpiece Theater when they did the Lord Peter Whimsey novel “The Nine Tailors.” I knew nothing about her other than I liked these novels. Much later, I started to learn more about her. Mainly in connection with all the authors of that era, I was coming to love. So I decided to pick up Crystal Downing’s book on Sayers called “Subversive.” This book concentrates on her dealing with culture when writing on Christ. The plays she wrote for the BBC on Christianity were not something she sought out, but they affected her with the research involved and how to portray the stories.
“When someone asked her opinion about the evangelistic possibilities of religious drama, she replied by emphasizing the need to place artistic quality first and foremost: ”Piety and a spirit of prayer will not turn a bad play into a good one.“ No matter how sincere the intention that generated it or how orthodox the theology within it, ”bad art is a thing damned in itself and damning in its effects.“
There are several reasons Sayers felt so passionately about this issue. First of all, evangelism through the arts can reek too much of an economy of exchange, turning creation into a utilitarian enterprise. As far as she was concerned, writing to generate converts, though noble in sentiment, is not that different in practice from writing to get wealth or fame in exchange. As she told one popular Christian writer, ”You must not accept money, you must not accept applause, you must not accept a ‘following,’ you must not accept even the assurance that you’re doing good as an excuse for writing anything but the thing you want to say.
She also resisted the call from her friend C.S. Lewis to write a series of books “on Christian knowledge” that might edify “young people” still in school.
I enjoyed this book and the concerns that Sayers had when addressing the secular culture and her concerns regarding fellow Christians, and the tendency to make the faith a safe thing that did not have to be thought through. Reading this, I also thought how her approach to presenting these plays reminded me of Flannery O’Connor.
I especially found delightful that during here adolescent period when she felt totally non-religious how the creativity of Chesterton broke through. When her parents tried to persuade her from Chesterton’s quirky novels towards his works like Orthodoxy, Sayers responded with:
“I am not surprised to hear that Chesterton is a Christian. I expect, though, that he is a very cheerful one, and rather original in his views, eh?”
“Subversive”
I recommend this book highly as there is a lot to think over and the concerns Sayers had are even more prevalent.
My only quibble is that when Crystal Downing brings up Reformation-era controversies, they are not fleshed out very well and tend towards typical misunderstandings and oversimplifications.
I’ve seen this meme pop up more frequently latey. Although I have seen versions of this going back to pretty much when the term selfie came into use.
Today I realized Mary used the first Instagram filter with “indigenous women” mode.
Setting the scene from what would have been last week’s Gospel reading if not for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, Jesus is preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum using realist language telling his followers that they would have to eat his body and drink his blood to have life in them. (John 6:51–58)
In Leviticus 17:11–12 it says:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
So it is no wonder in the first line of this reading many of his disciples call this a hard saying that it can’t be listened to. The realist language Jesus used did not leave room for a metaphorical interpretation. When Jesus did use hyperbolic or metaphorical language in the past the disciples were generally aware of it. When the Apostles were confused on such interpretations, Jesus corrected them such as in the case when they misunderstood the leaven of the Pharisees.
When Jesus ask them if they take offense at this, once again Jesus is referencing the Israelites in the wilderness and their grumbling in connection with the manna. He is not asking them what point must be clarified. Over the course of this discourse Jesus has been ratcheting up his language, not softening it. To think that this was only meant to be symbolic is to say Jesus was aware of their grumbling, but as a teacher failed to correct their misunderstanding.
Instead Jesus asks them a rhetorical question, “what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” Jesus is pointing to his divinity and the fact of his authority. That he has the ability to carry out what he says and that they had to lay down their previous understanding in light of this fact. How often do we think we understand something and its limits and when confronted by something that seemingly contradict this, we are not open to new information. The false conservatism of “this is how we have always done it.”
Chrysostom. (Hom. xlvii. 2.) He does not add difficulty to difficulty, but to convince them by the number and greatness of His doctrines. For if He had merely said that He came down from heaven, without adding any thing further, he would have offended His hearers more; but by saying that His flesh is the life of the world, and that as He was sent by the living Father, so He liveth by the Father; and at last by adding that He came down from heaven, He removed all doubt. Nor does He mean to scandalize His disciples, but rather to remove their scandal. For so long as they thought Him the Son of Joseph, they could not receive His doctrines; but if they once believed that He had come down from heaven, and would ascend thither, they would be much more willing and able to admit them.
Catena Aurea
Verse 63: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” For modern ears this phrase seems to give an out regarding the realism of what Jesus was teaching. Partly because in more modern parlance “spirit” can imply a symbolic underpinning. Spirit is never used in this way in scripture. Brant Pitre says: “For First Century Jews, and for Christians throughout all of history, the Spirit is not less real than the material, it’s more real than the material because God himself is pure spirit.”
It is odd to think of Jesus as a teacher who would spend so much time building up the language regarding consuming his body and blood and then to dispel it all in one sentence. “I’m just kidding guys!” Besides if this was true, why would so many disciples still leave if he had actually dispelled them of their misunderstanding? The next point is that when Jesus speaks of the flesh being of no avail. He is not speaking of his flesh as he specifically used “his flesh” multiple times in this discourse. The flesh [ho sarx] is more properly understood as judging by appearances or by the standards of the fallen world. Anybody who believes that Jesus death on the cross is salvific acknowledges that his flesh was indeed of avail to us.
Chrysostom. (Hom. xlvii. 3.) He does not speak of His own flesh, but that of the carnal hearer of His word. [
Catena Aurea
One of the foremost ways to understand what God is teaching us is with humility. Case in point is Peter’s answer to this question from Jesus.
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
If we start from the premise to reject what we don’t understand, we have just made our world much smaller and inverse connected to the circumference of our ego. St. John Henry Newman said in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.” It is fine to wrestle with difficulties and have plenty of questions regarding what we do not understand. Those that walked away did not have this humility thinking they already knew the answer and actively doubted Jesus’ words. Peter here is showing a humility he did not show in other places were he would restrict what God can and can’t do. He is being guided by the Holy Spirit here.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
- Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. John] ↩
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 12 August 2021 to 18 August 2021.
The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I also post at Jimmy Akin’s blog.
Angelus
General Audiences
Messages
Papal Tweets
- “With the help of young people and their innovative spirit, we can make the dream come true of a world where bread, water, medicine and work flow abundantly and reach those most in need first. #YouthDay” @Pontifex 12 August 2021
- “Prayer is vital for life: just as we cannot live without breathing, so we cannot be Christians without praying.” @Pontifex 13 August 2021
- “There is no better way to pray than to place oneself like Mary in an attitude of openness, with a heart open to God: ‘Lord, what you want, when you want, and how you want’.” @Pontifex 14 August 2021
- “Mary’s secret is humility. It is her humility that attracted God’s gaze to her. Today, looking at Mary #assumed into heaven, we can say that humility is the way that leads to Heaven. #Angelus” @Pontifex 15 August 2021
- “#LetUsPray for Afghanistan, so that the clamour of weapons might cease and solutions can be found at the table of dialogue. Only thus can the battered population of that country return to their own homes and live in peace.” @Pontifex 15 August 2021
- “#LetUsPray also for Haiti. I want to express my closeness to the dear people hard hit by the earthquake. May the solidarity of all alleviate the consequences of the tragedy!” @Pontifex 15 August 2021
- “Let us remember those who cannot go on vacation. I think especially of the ill, the elderly, the incarcerated, the unemployed, refugees and all those who are alone or in difficulty. May Mary extend her maternal protection over each one of you.” @Pontifex 15 August 2021
- “God does not come to free us from our ever-present daily problems, but to free us from the real problem, which is the lack of love. This is the main cause of our personal, social, international and environmental ills. Thinking only of ourselves: this is the father of all evils.” @Pontifex 17 August 2021
- “Vaccination is a simple way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable.” @Pontifex 18 August 2021
- “It is good for us to ask ourselves if we still live in the period in which we need the Law (cfr Gal 3:23–25), or if instead we are fully aware of having received the grace of becoming children of God so as to live in love. ” @Pontifex 18 August 2021
Papal Instagram
After recording The Journey Home there was a kind of a lightning round where I was asked quick questions by John Matthew Swaim and Seth Paine.
This is a short video of my answer when asked about G.K. Chesterton.