Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell. Period. There’s just no doubt about it.
Archbishop Charles Chaput
(quoted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan on his blog about NYC poverty)
In which it is empirically proven that Missionaries of Charity live in rough neighborhoods
Mother Superior: (unlocking the 3 locks on the front door)
Me: Goodbye! See you tomorrow! God bless you!
Mother Superior: I hope your car is still there.
Me: Mmm hmm.
fathershane reblogged
Love to pray. Take the trouble to pray. Prayer opens your heart until it is big enough to hold and keep God. We must know Jesus in prayer before we can see him in the broken bodies of the poor.
Our Lord took poverty as his bride, and invested the poor man with such dignity that now we'll never get him off his pedestal.
Georges Bernanos (from The Diary of a Country Priest)
fathershane reblogged
Mary, give me your Heart: so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate; your Heart so full of love and humility that I may be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life and love Him as you love Him and serve Him in the distressing guise of the poor.
Mother Teresa (via gloria-in-excelsis)
Anonymous asked:
Dear Fr.,I have been talking to a friend who comes from a different denomination about the Prosperity Gospel. I know that it is unBiblical and I have tried to show them why but they rebuke whatever I say. Are there different types of the Prosperity gospel? I'm not too sure how to respond if this comes up again.
That's what the Brits would call a "rare bird": someone who can argue convincingly for the prosperity gospel. I'm sure that my understanding of it is a bit simplistic, but it seems to me that any one of the following (and more) refutes the doctrine that Jesus blesses believers with riches:
- It totally flies in the face of the Beatitudes... Luke's version is mostly about the poor being blessed and the rich not.
- The "anawim" (God's beloved poor) of the Old Testament make no sense in the Prosperity Gospel.
- St. Paul is constantly going on about how he was proud to have worked by his own hands, having taken nothing from the people he evangelized.
- "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you" (Acts 3:6)... faith doesn't imply riches, but something deeper.
- The riches we are promised are in Heaven, not here.
- Jesus died without a single possession. They took it all.
- Does martyrdom make any sense in the prosperity gospel?
- Oh, and I have a vow of poverty. :-)
Just some random ideas. God bless!
- Father Shane