"What it means to be mercied"

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"What it means to be mercied"

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A terrific essay by Sr. Gabriela of the Incarnation on the meaning of mercy. Read the whole article here... https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/260 ... be-mercied

...Pope Francis has repeated the assurance that the Church is a family where all are welcome. The Church, the ekklesia, is the community of those who have been called, and Pope Francis repeats tirelessly that “Each of us is called by name. You, you and you, all of us here, myself included: all of us have been called by name.” We have each been called and we are all welcomed: “Jesus never closes the door, never, but invites you to enter: come and see. Jesus receives, Jesus welcomes.”

This assurance that all are welcome was a cause for special rejoicing for one participant at World You Day. Pia Held from Germany brought a rainbow flag with her to World Youth Day and said that “the Pope's ‘todos’ message really resonated with her. She ‘felt like that spoke directly to me. I felt so alone, and then when he said the church is for everyone, I felt like yes, I was right. What I did, and what I keep doing is exactly what we are supposed to do as Christians,’ she said”. Yet, while insisting that all are welcome and all are to be welcomed, in the interview during his return to Rome, Francis made it clear that being welcomed in the Church does not contradict the reality that each one is guided along their own path to God. “Everyone meets God on their own way inside the Church, and the Church is mother and guides everyone on their own path.” For Francis, a welcome is never collective; it is always personal and unique.

This seems to say that the Church’s welcome is not an unquestioning embrace of everyone and everything. This interpretation was confirmed by the President of the USCCB, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who, in discussing the idea of the Church’s way of welcome, said that, “welcoming people into the church and helping them enter a relationship with Jesus always involves a call to conversion.” The Archbishop said that the invitation is important, but that “’in almost every circumstance in the sacred Scriptures, when Christ meets someone, in whatever situation he or she finds himself, the invitation is always to conversion, it's always to change.’"

How should we understand all this? That Jesus and his Church welcomes “all” and yet that one has “to change” in order to accept the invitation?

The key to the riddle is found in Francis’s episcopal and papal motto: Miserando atque eligendo,”which means: “because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him.” This passage from Homily 21 on the call of Matthew by Bede the Venerable expresses what Francis understands as “welcome” in the Church. For us, a welcome is a response to the arrival of someone. I meet up with somebody, and they either welcome me or they don’t. In our understanding, welcoming is not the first step. It is not the one who welcomes who takes the initiative. The initiative is taken with the arrival of someone.

Bede shows that, with Jesus, it works the other way around. In his homily, Bede reminds us that it is always Jesus who takes the initiative in welcoming, and the welcome is preceded by two other actions: Jesus sees, He shows mercy, and He calls. So, with Jesus, an encounter is always welcoming but it is always more than a welcome.

First, it is a vision. As Bede writes, “Jesus saw Matthew, not merely in the usual sense, but more significantly with his merciful understanding of men.” Jesus sees each of us as we are. I don’t need to wear a mask or put on a front. I don’t need to hide or pretend. I can be real, and I can really be myself, because I am seen with mercy.

“Mercy”, like “pity” and “charity,” has unfortunately acquired a condescending overtone. Too often the mercy shown is demeaning. What does it mean to be seen with the mercy with which Jesus sees us?

There is a beautiful illustration of seeing with mercy in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. In chapter 7 of “The Fellowship of the Ring”, we read of the Fellowship’s welcome in Lothlorien. When Aragorn describes their trip through the Mines of Moria and the horror that dwells there, the age-old suspicion of the Elves for the Dwarves is stirred up, and their distrust of Gimli the Dwarf is aroused. Then Galadriel speaks up: “’Dark is the water of Kheled-zaram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nala, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dum in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.’ She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer.”

“He looked into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and compassion.”

That is the essence of our encounter with Jesus. That is what it means to experience mercy. Bede’s use of the Latin verb, miserando, is very awkward to translate into English, for unlike our English phrases, it is a very active verb. As an active verb, it has an effect on its object. I am not just seen with compassion, I am “miseried”. I experience the power of “misericordia”, the love of a merciful heart.

This is where “conversion” takes place. To be seen in mercy changes me. I cannot be seen in truth and love without being changed. I can turn away from the glance, like the rich young man. For “Jesus, looking at him, loved him”, yet the young man “turned and went away grieving”. Yet if I accept to be seen in mercy, I am chosen, and that will change me, for to those whom Jesus choses He says, “Follow me”, and, as Bede explains, “This following meant imitating the pattern of his life – not just walking after him. St. John tells us: ‘Whoever says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.’” And as Archbishop Broglio reminds us, this walking in Jesus’s way, this conversion “is a lifelong process", for John also says, “all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

“Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Only those who have received mercy can give mercy. Only those who have been converted can effectively call to conversion, for their voice carries the reassurance of peace. Their call resonates with the joy of being known and loved, of being mercied...
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Does being "mercied" equal being Justified?
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

I wasn't aware that "mercy" was a verb.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Gandalf the Grey wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:43 pm Does being "mercied" equal being Justified?
His mercy opens up the treasure of justification according to St Faustina. We are then fitted to grow in mercifulness and justification.

"You do not reject sinners; but in Your boundless mercy You have opened for them also Your treasures, treasures from which they can draw abundantly, not only justification, but also all the sanctity that a soul can attain" (1122)
Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:45 pm I wasn't aware that "mercy" was a verb.
The word is an old one resurrected by Pope Francis core mission. His papal motto (coat of arms) is "miserando atque eligendo" ie mercied and chosen. Words from a St Bede homily.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesc ... cesco.html
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

As a Latin speaker, I can vouch that the word "miserando" means "to have mercy," not "mercy" as a stand-alone verb.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 10:37 pm As a Latin speaker, I can vouch that the word "miserando" means "to have mercy," not "mercy" as a stand-alone verb.
I'm not a Latin speaker or student so I'll concede to you on technicalities. But I've been trying to flip through my copy of The Name of God is Mercy to find what Francis said regarding the motto.
Mercyfying.jpg
It's conceivable (and I believe it in the light of Francis' 10 year mission) that the interpretation of the Latin 'miserando', got lost in translation over centuries. You do see people describing mercy as more of a contract between God and man or man and man, or a hall pass, rather than a real embodiment of grace. As Sr Gabriella says in her essay, "To be seen in mercy changes me. I cannot be seen in truth and love without being changed."
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Stella wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 9:25 pm
Gandalf the Grey wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:43 pm Does being "mercied" equal being Justified?
His mercy opens up the treasure of justification according to St Faustina. We are then fitted to grow in mercifulness and justification.

"You do not reject sinners; but in Your boundless mercy You have opened for them also Your treasures, treasures from which they can draw abundantly, not only justification, but also all the sanctity that a soul can attain" (1122)
Ok.

But the problem is that mercy offered doesn't at all mean that it's mercy received. And Justification is a grace that while freely offered is a form of mercy that is explicitly conditional in regards to our receiving it: it requires faith and obedience to God's commandments, the firm purpose of amendment to avoid sin, etc.

If you place obstacles in the way of that mercy-such as habitual and unrepentant sins- even if you intellectually wish to receive that mercy the objective state of your soul and the life you act-out explicitly denies that mercy from being received.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Gandalf the Grey wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:56 am
Stella wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 9:25 pm
Gandalf the Grey wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:43 pm Does being "mercied" equal being Justified?
His mercy opens up the treasure of justification according to St Faustina. We are then fitted to grow in mercifulness and justification.

"You do not reject sinners; but in Your boundless mercy You have opened for them also Your treasures, treasures from which they can draw abundantly, not only justification, but also all the sanctity that a soul can attain" (1122)
Ok.

But the problem is that mercy offered doesn't at all mean that it's mercy received. And Justification is a grace that while freely offered is a form of mercy that is explicitly conditional in regards to our receiving it: it requires faith and obedience to God's commandments, the firm purpose of amendment to avoid sin, etc.

If you place obstacles in the way of that mercy-such as habitual and unrepentant sins- even if you intellectually wish to receive that mercy the objective state of your soul and the life you act-out explicitly denies that mercy from being received.
That explanation harks to a ‘contract’ view of mercy. If you do this, I’ll give you that. Or I’ll give you this and once you change, you’ll receive it.

The original theology of mercy according to the early Church was that mercy was gratuitously given and mercy changes the receiver. He becomes mercified by the gift. St Augustine wrote this…

When the good Master saw His bride in such a plight and swept down into what I might call the very abyss of wickedness, naked and unseemly, He considered neither her ugliness, nor her utter poverty, nor the enormity of her evils, but He manifested His own surpassing kindness and received her into His presence. Such is the disposition He reveals when he says through the prophet: Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear, and forget thy people and thy father’s house. And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty. He demands no accounting of her offenses, nor does He exact judgment, but only counsels and urges her to hear accept His exhortation and remonstrance, and He encourages her to forget the past. Did you see His ineffable kindness? Did you see His bountiful care?

St John XXIII referenced the ‘medicine of mercy’ in his opening letter of VII to make the nature and workings of mercy more clear. Like medicine that by it’s own working, heals a body without requiring health first. What happens after that, comes from within the person. The healing is not taken away by the doctor if change doesn’t come.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Stella wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 5:42 pm
Gandalf the Grey wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:56 am
Stella wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 9:25 pm

His mercy opens up the treasure of justification according to St Faustina. We are then fitted to grow in mercifulness and justification.

"You do not reject sinners; but in Your boundless mercy You have opened for them also Your treasures, treasures from which they can draw abundantly, not only justification, but also all the sanctity that a soul can attain" (1122)
Ok.

But the problem is that mercy offered doesn't at all mean that it's mercy received. And Justification is a grace that while freely offered is a form of mercy that is explicitly conditional in regards to our receiving it: it requires faith and obedience to God's commandments, the firm purpose of amendment to avoid sin, etc.

If you place obstacles in the way of that mercy-such as habitual and unrepentant sins- even if you intellectually wish to receive that mercy the objective state of your soul and the life you act-out explicitly denies that mercy from being received.
That explanation harks to a ‘contract’ view of mercy. If you do this, I’ll give you that. Or I’ll give you this and once you change, you’ll receive it.

The original theology of mercy according to the early Church was that mercy was gratuitously given and mercy changes the receiver. He becomes mercified by the gift. St Augustine wrote this…

When the good Master saw His bride in such a plight and swept down into what I might call the very abyss of wickedness, naked and unseemly, He considered neither her ugliness, nor her utter poverty, nor the enormity of her evils, but He manifested His own surpassing kindness and received her into His presence. Such is the disposition He reveals when he says through the prophet: Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear, and forget thy people and thy father’s house. And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty. He demands no accounting of her offenses, nor does He exact judgment, but only counsels and urges her to hear accept His exhortation and remonstrance, and He encourages her to forget the past. Did you see His ineffable kindness? Did you see His bountiful care?

St John XXIII referenced the ‘medicine of mercy’ in his opening letter of VII to make the nature and workings of mercy more clear. Like medicine that by it’s own working, heals a body without requiring health first. What happens after that, comes from within the person. The healing is not taken away by the doctor if change doesn’t come.
Yeah, no. ^^^ That's a strawman fallacy.

Nowhere did I say anything about Justifying grace being transactional or that it's based on something that you do to earn it.

I explicitly stated that it is freely offered.

All I'm saying is that freely offered however doesn't at all necessarily mean that it is received. The grace of God's mercy isn't of itself sufficient to overwhelm or negate human free will. Sin is a bi-product of the abuse of that will that attaches one to the peculiar passion they've submitted themselves to. "Mercy" of itself is only one ingredient of the solvent required in order dissolve that bond of sin which holds one as a prisoner to it; the other is faith.

Or else you're positing that faith in God is irrelevant to someone being justified and that the mere act of someone existing is salvific. That's in direct contradiction to established Catholic Dogma.

Last I checked "Even the demons believe, and they are saved" isn't a verse that appears in Scripture. If demons who do believe and yet without hope are destined for eternal destruction because of what they did, it's absurd to assert that a human who lacks faith and in contradiction to all Catholic Soteriological teaching is saved without faith.

Medicine has to be taken in order to heal. If you are in unrepentant habitual sin, no matter how much "mercy" is offered
the existence of unrepentant sin on the soul is as good as them not only depriving intentionally themselves of the medicine but it's no different than tossing the medicine in the garbage because they don't even consider themselves ill. You can't be healed by what you never take.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Gandalf the Grey wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:25 pm
All I'm saying is that freely offered however doesn't at all necessarily mean that it is received. The grace of God's mercy isn't of itself sufficient to overwhelm or negate human free will.
I'll just respond to this comment as long convoluted arguments mess up my head space. :shock:

The message of mercy that the Church is pushing today is about the overwhelming power of Gods mercy. I'll continue to draw on St Faustina's dictations because the Church does that in teaching mercy today.

"Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls.’” (No. 1602) This was said in the context of Confession.

Whereas we used to be encouraged to bring laundry lists to Confession, it's more important to bring trust in Gods overwhelming mercy.

Regarding our free will, again Faustina paints a different aspect of our powers in the face of mercy.

"All grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a person’s sins were as dark as night, God’s mercy is stronger than our misery. One thing alone is necessary; that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of God’s merciful grace, and then God will do the rest.” (No. 1507)

The Church uses the term 'infused' talking about Gods grace. That's a work of God and we just need to be the tiniest bit open to it.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Stella wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 10:01 pm
Gandalf the Grey wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:25 pm
All I'm saying is that freely offered however doesn't at all necessarily mean that it is received. The grace of God's mercy isn't of itself sufficient to overwhelm or negate human free will.
I'll just respond to this comment as long convoluted arguments mess up my head space. :shock:

The message of mercy that the Church is pushing today is about the overwhelming power of Gods mercy. I'll continue to draw on St Faustina's dictations because the Church does that in teaching mercy today.

"Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls.’” (No. 1602) This was said in the context of Confession.
[/quote]

What St. Faustina is saying here is no different than what I'm saying and in fact contradicts what you're apparently saying.

Whereas we used to be encouraged to bring laundry lists to Confession, it's more important to bring trust in Gods overwhelming mercy.
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not do both?

That's a really bizarre take.
Regarding our free will, again Faustina paints a different aspect of our powers in the face of mercy.

"All grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a person’s sins were as dark as night, God’s mercy is stronger than our misery. One thing alone is necessary; that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of God’s merciful grace, and then God will do the rest.” (No. 1507)
So then as a corollary a sinner who does not "set ajar the door of his heart"- because that's what habitual sin does, it locks the door, it hardenes the heart against grace-therefore he does not let God's grace in to do the work it's supposed to.

I fail to see how this makes your point for you.
The Church uses the term 'infused' talking about Gods grace. That's a work of God and we just need to be the tiniest bit open to it.
I agree. Nothing that I've said has any bearing on the power or the generosity on God's part on a soul properly disposed to that grace.

My only problem is that, in the way you're apparently trying to frame it, it in effect makes the opposite error of that which you're trying to warn against. It goes beyond hope for mercy into conceited arrogance, expectancy, and presumption; and leads cynically indifferent people into the belief that God owes them something just because they've "graciously acquiesced" to being in His party, not because they are in dire need of reform and healing.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

Infused grace refers to sanctifying grace; it does not refer to the "actual graces" (a bit of an unfortunate term, but it's what we've got) that prepare and dispose the soul to receive sanctifying grace.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Gandalf the Grey wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 8:41 am My only problem is that, in the way you're apparently trying to frame it, it in effect makes the opposite error of that which you're trying to warn against. It goes beyond hope for mercy into conceited arrogance, expectancy, and presumption; and leads cynically indifferent people into the belief that God owes them something just because they've "graciously acquiesced" to being in His party, not because they are in dire need of reform and healing.
In real life who are these people you speak of? A person who approaches the Church with even the slightest desire to meet with Christ, has opened the door just a little crack. In the past they were entitled to nothing the Church had to offer until they had perfected themselves through their own efforts. Paul on the road to Damascus, was given so much by his encounter with Christ and he was changed by that. That movement towards engagement with people before they are perfect is what Vatican II was all about. Allowing for religious liberty. Ecumenism. The Church had become something closed to the type of engagement described by Scripture and the early Church. It was failing to properly practice mercy something like the parable of the unmerciful servant.

I've witnessed the opposite of what you describe in people who approach the Catholic Church. I can say I've witnessed some of what you describe amongst some internet Protestants though.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Stella wrote: In real life who are these people you speak of?
The same sorts that Paul wrote about to the Galatians(chapter 5, verses 19-21).

As a reminder Paul was writing to those who were already made Christian when he wrote that.
A person who approaches the Church with even the slightest desire to meet with Christ, has opened the door just a little crack.
You're seriously begging the question.

As as Father Obi clearly stated, the grace you're trying to say is involved in this simply is not.

We are justified by grace through faith. Not by simply walking into a Church.
In the past they were entitled to nothing the Church had to offer until they had perfected themselves through their own efforts.
That's not only absurd but erroneous.

You seem to have a habit of making up caricatures of your ideological enemies and ascribing to them all sorts of things that are either half-truth of just blatant lies.
Paul on the road to Damascus, was given so much by his encounter with Christ and he was changed by that.
God had a very specific plan when it came to Paul.

You're not Paul, and neither am I.
That movement towards engagement with people before they are perfect is what Vatican II was all about. Allowing for religious liberty. Ecumenism.
That's certainly a story.
The Church had become something closed to the type of engagement described by Scripture and the early Church. It was failing to properly practice mercy something like the parable of the unmerciful servant.
For starters, the Church of the first century took the necessity of repentance no less seriously than the pre VIi Church you despise.

The problem that you're conveniently leaving out is that the major difference is that so did first century Christians. They took sin more seriously and knew that they needed reform and a new life.


Modernists of the sort as such as you apparently endorse instead like to pretend that sin, even Original Sin, simply doesn't even exist....well, that is unless it's the "sin" of being a traditionalist. That's the "new" Original Sin apparently....

So...in that "light"(which is more like darkness) because the Church took repentance too seriously in a world that was becoming more relativist and narcissistic, because they refused to indulge that relativism and narcissism and asked the bare minimum you're view is that such a Church "was failing to practice mercy."

Now you're just being silly.
I've witnessed the opposite of what you describe in people who approach the Catholic Church. I can say I've witnessed some of what you describe amongst some internet Protestants though.
Again, how convenient that your contrived anecdote invents a caricature that so cleanly "works" for confirming your biases.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Gandalf the Grey wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 6:38 pm
Stella wrote: In real life who are these people you speak of?
The same sorts that Paul wrote about to the Galatians(chapter 5, verses 19-21).

As a reminder Paul was writing to those who were already made Christian when he wrote that.
Did you read on to the next bit describing the fruits of the Spirit?
The Church had become something closed to the type of engagement described by Scripture and the early Church. It was failing to properly practice mercy something like the parable of the unmerciful servant.
For starters, the Church of the first century took the necessity of repentance no less seriously than the pre VIi Church you despise.
Did these people 'despise' the pre VII Church? Read some of the reasons for the need for Vatican II.

"...There is no time when the Church has not opposed these errors; she has also often condemned them, and sometimes with the utmost severity. As for the present time, the Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy instead of taking up the weapons of rigor; she thinks that today’s needs must be met by exposing more clearly the value of her teaching than by condemning." (Pope John XXIII)

“[The] Council reinserted into the Church as a whole a doctrine of primacy that was dangerously isolated; it integrated into the one mysterium of the Body of Christ a too-isolated conception of the hierarchy; it restored to the ordered unity of faith an isolated Mariology; it gave the biblical word its full due; it made the liturgy once more accessible; and, in addition, it made a courageous step forward toward the unity of all Christians.”

“It was both necessary and good for the Council to put an end to the false forms of the Church’s glorification of self on earth, and by suppressing her compulsive tendency to defend her past history, to eliminate her false justification of self.” (Cdl Ratzinger)


(Could you tone down your invective please.)
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

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Stella wrote: Did these people 'despise' the pre VII Church? Read some of the reasons for the need for Vatican II.

"...There is no time when the Church has not opposed these errors; she has also often condemned them, and sometimes with the utmost severity. As for the present time, the Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy instead of taking up the weapons of rigor; she thinks that today’s needs must be met by exposing more clearly the value of her teaching than by condemning." (Pope John XXIII)

“[The] Council reinserted into the Church as a whole a doctrine of primacy that was dangerously isolated; it integrated into the one mysterium of the Body of Christ a too-isolated conception of the hierarchy; it restored to the ordered unity of faith an isolated Mariology; it gave the biblical word its full due; it made the liturgy once more accessible; and, in addition, it made a courageous step forward toward the unity of all Christians.”

“It was both necessary and good for the Council to put an end to the false forms of the Church’s glorification of self on earth, and by suppressing her compulsive tendency to defend her past history, to eliminate her false justification of self.” (Cdl Ratzinger)
Ok, and so what?

Do you think that citing these men somehow grants validity to your excessive disdain? So basically according to you the ends justify the means? You're essentially playing the "innocent by association" game.

And if you're going to bring up the presence of abuses and excesses in regards to self-glorification, I bring you the "spirit" of Vatican II:

https://youtu.be/ue9VoAEQ9x8?si=Ak871APv3UajwQIL


And,
https://youtu.be/X2MTQPs5tmw?si=Da5S5L06v0UDipUa


And,
https://youtu.be/eTpaQPUUDJA?si=AG3FVuCg7cuZmggR


And,
https://youtu.be/85s7jE4sKiw?si=Fb1ZPxluQCkmldVn


And let's not forget this little bit where they replaced the Petitionary Prayers with the Litany of Grievances:
https://youtu.be/9jSb-w3WcOE?si=i9GQgpJXoNeADIjK

Are you seriously telling me that this is what the first century Church looked like? I'm not buying that anymore than I would a Protestant telling me that his church service is what the first century Church looked like.

Now, I'm not under any illusions about the state of the Church or the Liturgy pre-VII, nor am I trying to romanticize the TLM or say that VII wasn't without warrant.

Now we can just spend the next several posts incessantly citing apparently contradictory examples of what we find abhorrent about the abuses and excesses present both pre-VII and post-VII.

OR... perhaps we can at least agree that those abuses and excesses are exactly that: abuses and excesses, and that they are blots on liturgies which of themselves given the correct dispositions of both the presiders and participants essentially pure and beautiful.

That said...

To me it's weird how in reaction to the apparent abuses prior to VII what invariably happened in the execution of the "reform" is that it went to the exact opposite extreme. Instead of being a Theocentric Church it went beyond its own mandate and instead became an Anthropocentric Church. Which many people who had seen what had happened at the Council had already predicted before the Council documents themselves were finalized.

Because being ideologies that are favorites of the devils and enemies to God that's what subjectivism and relativism does.

It's not like this trend in philosophy was unknown either. C.S. Lewis pointed it out decades prior in his own philosophical works.
As C.S. Lewis writes in his work "The Poison of Subjectivism":
"C.S. Lewis" wrote: This whole attempt to jettison traditional values as something subjective and to substitute a new scheme of values for them is wrong. It is like trying to lift yourself by your own coat collar. Let us get two propositions written into our minds with
indelible ink.

1)The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary colour in the spectrum.
2)Every attempt to do so consists in arbitrarily selecting some one maxim of traditional morality, isolating it from the rest, and erecting it into an unum necessarium.
In this case what's happened is that subjectivists and relativists within the Church have selected the traditional Catholic maxim of "mercy," isolated it from the rest of Sacred Tradition, and erected it into their own "unam necessarium." Which has invariably lead to a monomaniac version of a mock "Catholicism" that's more aligned with the antinomianism and Pentecostalist flavor of Free Grace evangelical Protestantism than with the actual words of Vatican II, much less the Council of Trent. It's not "new" at all, nor is it "progress" or "reform," its just the opposite extreme of the thing you claim to be fighting against. Both extremes are wrong and are distortions of the Catholic Faith.

As Thomas Sowell once said, "There are no such thing as solutions, only trade-offs.". The reactionary interference in one realm bred it's opposite as it's own offspring. Like Trump's election as the reaction to 8 years of Obama/Clinton and Biden's election as reaction to Trump.

Lewis continues:
C.S. Lewis wrote:These monomaniac systems are then
used as a ground from which to attack traditional morality; but absurdly, since it is from traditional morality alone that they derive such semblance of validity as they possess....The trunk to whose root the reformer would lay the axe is the only support of the particular branch he wishes to retain.
I've seen you several times here cite Catholic writers in such disingenuous, sophistic, spurious, and contextually erroneous ways in order to justify your ideology. Writers who I know would definitely, while possibly granting your premises, would absolutely deny and rebuke your conclusions as defective and erroneous. This is why: the very validity you depend on for your "new" version of the Church depends on the thing that you're trying to uproot. Which is why I've repeatedly told you that you can't have it both ways. It's why it doesn't work, and will never work, to achieve the ends of which you intend. It's not a solution at all to the problems you sought to solve. It's only succeeded in creating a whole host of other problems that the short-sightedness of the ideology intentionally blinded it's adherents to. (Such as the priest abuse scandal).

Mercy can't be removed or isolated from the other ethical and moral maxims such as repentance and virtue. And to use "mercy" as a precipice to attack them is downright diabolical. They all must be maintained in their proper balance and integrated fully by the individual.
"God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to allow us to stay that way." - Scott Hahn

"It is not the task of man to reform the Church, but rather it is the task of the Church to reform man." - Nicholas of Cusa
Stella
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Stella »

Mmmm there's only one poster with 'excessive distain' on this thread and it's an insult to the spirit of the Lyceum IMO. So I'll leave it at that.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Gandalf the Grey »

Stella wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 3:10 pm Mmmm there's only one poster with 'excessive distain' on this thread and it's an insult to the spirit of the Lyceum IMO. So I'll leave it at that.
Engaging in psychological projection as a means of deflection never works, and it's as good as a confession. So since you're apparently in a confessing mood.....

If you wanted to supposedly respect the spirit of the Lyceum, then maybe you should practice what you preach.

There's a reason why younger generations of Catholics are flocking to the Extraordinary form of the Mass and are more traditional in their outlook, including younger seminarians coming into the priesthood. And it's because we're exhausted by the excesses of the ideologies like the sexual revolution that those of that generation got swept up in and who decided to take the Church along with them on that tide. And it will invariably be a victory for God the Holy Spirit when the "spirit" of Vatican II(as opposed to the truths that the Council itself reiterated) will wind up being a mere disreputable blip-like Johan Tetzel selling Indulgences or the heresy of Arius-in the sum of the history of the Church.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ncreg ... ass%3famp
"God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to allow us to stay that way." - Scott Hahn

"It is not the task of man to reform the Church, but rather it is the task of the Church to reform man." - Nicholas of Cusa
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by ProZak »

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:45 pm I wasn't aware that "mercy" was a verb.
I first encountered this at a live in Evangelical discipleship course "Pure Life Ministries." Folks down there would say things like "I mercied Bob yesterday." I said you mean that you showed him mercy? I was told no, that's not how we say it here. You were not allowed any other teaching materials other than PLM books and tapes, no music but Maranatha and Vineyard. I got a creepy vibe from the place and left.
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Re: "What it means to be mercied"

Post by Riverboat »

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:45 pm I wasn't aware that "mercy" was a verb.
Sigh! I've long ago given up all hope on "impacted." I suppose "mercied" should be expected.

In any case, I have a preternatural suspicion of any article, agency or organization that uses such sloppy verbiage.
Why would anyone ever smoke weed when they could just mow a lawn? - Hank Hill
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