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Preach the Message of the Beatitudes Pope says in Sermon on Mount
Pope John Paul II, celebrating mass on Friday (March 24) before a crowd of some 100,000 Christians by the Sea of Galilee, focused his message on young believers—calling on them to choose the path of good over evil. In a voice that was stronger and clearer than at any time during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the pope's message reverberated across the Mount of Beatitudes.The Mount of Beatitudes, known in Israel by its Hebrew name, Mount Korazim, is the place where tradition holds that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. In one of the sermon's best-known sections, called the "beatitudes," Jesus says those who are blessed include those who are poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, and peacemakers.Many in the crowd were overcome by emotion, tears streaming down their faces, while others waved yellow and white Vatican flags and sung hymns, as they heard the pontiff draw upon the sermon of Jesus."Now at the dawn of the third millennium, it is your turn to go out into the world to preach the message of the Ten Commandments and the beatitudes," the Pope said from a stage that overlooked a sparkling and tranquil Sea of Galilee.And in a message aimed directly at the many young people in the audience, John Paul said the Sermon on the Mount was as relevant today as it was nearly two thousand years ago."How many young people down the centuries have gathered around Jesus to learn the words of eternal life, as you are gathered here today?" he asked."How many young hearts have been inspired by the power of his personality and the compelling truth of his message? It is wonderful that you are here."The Pope urged the young people to listen to the words of Jesus when choosing between the competing voices in the world."The choice between good and evil, between life and death—which voice will the young people of the twenty-first century choose to follow?" the Pope asked."To put your faith in Jesus means choosing to believe what he says, no matter how strange it may seem, and choosing to reject the claims of evil, no matter how sensible or attractive they may seem."The Pope spent the rest of Friday visiting key Christian sites around the Sea of Galilee.The pontiff's visit to the green hills of Galilee—where, according to the New Testament, Jesus recruited his disciples, performed miracles and frequently preached to multitudes—was in sharp contrast to the turmoil of the pope's previous two days in Israel and the Palestinian territories.In the days immediately following his arrival in Israel on Tuesday (March 21), the Pope's itinerary cast a harsh spotlight on the political problems and deep historical divisions in the Middle East.But in Galilee, where the landscape has changed little since biblical times, the emphasis appeared to shift to the spiritual connection the Pope says he hopes to achieve by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.The weather on Friday also appeared to favor the Pope's message. After a night of storms, in which pilgrims sheltered in tents and buses, the sun burst through the clouds.Although there was intermittent rain, the beauty of the area was cast for much of the time in what some pilgrims thought was a "heavenly light."Even those who failed to reach the Mass on time said they had taken part in the spirit of the Pope's pilgrimage to Galilee.One of them was Mario Ridrejo, a Roman Catholic from Seville in Spain. The bus carrying him and the rest of his group arrived late.Ridrejo told Ecumenical News International: "We have seen the environment, the spirit [of Christianity] that joined us here in Galilee."He added that many young people had been inspired by the Pope to become priests and nuns in order to dedicate their lives fully to the service of the Lord. Copyright © 2000 Ecumenical News International. Used with permission.
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The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on The Hill
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. —Jesus Christ
Pope Francis channeled Jesus this morning with a contemporary Sermon on the Mount, and it got just about the same results it did 2,000 years ago.
The Holy Father addressed the assembled members of both houses of Congress, the United States Supreme Court, members of the Cabinet and other dignitaries today. In what might very well have been a one-off for a speaker in that situation, he did not speak to them as a politician. He delivered a homily, in fact a re-run of the THE homily, as the shepherd of souls that he is.
If your god resides in the R or the D, there was something to hate and also something to love in this speech. You could, depending on your personality, walk away from it, angry as a snake biting itself. Or, you could, if you’re turned differently, be patting yourself on the back.
The truth of this speech is that it wasn’t a speech, it was a sermon delivered by a Pope who is first of all a priest, who takes the care of souls as his first duty before God. If you listened to what Pope Francis said today with the ear of someone who reads Scripture on a daily basis, the entire speech echoed Jesus, preaching to and teaching us to care for the least of these, Who told us that the measure by which we judge others would be the measure by which God would judge us.
It was clear to me, after my long years of sitting through joint sessions and reading politicians that the assembled body of listeners were as unmoved by the Holy Father’s words as the stone pillars of the building in which they sat. These people do not listen to anyone who stands in that podium — not even the pope — to be instructed. They listen to be affirmed.
When they felt affirmed, they applauded. When the pope said something that differed from their politics, their faces hardened subtly and their eyes filmed over with an “I-won’t-hear-you” glaze.
Pope Francis spoke of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. He affirmed his life-long opposition to the death penalty, he pled for business practices that provide jobs rather than just suck in wealth for a very few. He spoke against the arms trade that, as he said, sells arms to “those who plan to inflict untold suffering.” He said that this is done “for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.” He called the silence about this arms trade “shameful and culpable.”
Those are strong words from the Vicar of Christ. He told a roomful of elected officials and people of great power that their silence about the arms trade made them “culpable” to the blood-drenched sins of those used those arms to murder innocent people.
The pope spoke of the environment, of immigrants, of the family and of justice and freedom. He couched every word he said in a plea that government be conducted to achieve the common good. He said that working toward the common good was the call of every politician.
As someone who held elective office for 18 years, I absolutely agree with him in this. I would also say that the common good doesn’t get a lot of play in private conversations between elected officials these days. No audience anywhere needed to hear this message more than the one Pope Francis was speaking to this morning.
But they didn’t hear him. Not, at least, as it applied to themselves. Politicians today, as well as many private citizens who have become enthralled with political partisanship, are like the Pharisee who went out to pray at the same time as the tax collector.
Instead of focusing on their own sins and trying to do better, they focus entirely on the sins of the other guy. They tell We the People and God that they are oh, so glad that they are not like that Republican/Democrat standing over there who sins in ways that they would never dream of doing.
That’s what I saw in the faces on the television screen this morning. Their expressions ranged from stony-faced dismissal when the Holy Father said something that pointed at one of their sins against the common good, to ebullient triumphalism when he said something that they thought scored a point against their opposing colleagues.
Joint sessions are, to members of Congress, just one big football game in which they applaud at one another. Pope Francis was speaking to a roomful of closed and bitter minds that will admit of nothing that contradicts their political positions. He was looking down on row after row of little gods, each sitting on his or her own altar of self-reference.
Fast forward a few minutes to Pope Francis, standing on the balcony, looking down at the cheering crowd. People of both political parties and those who don’t even vote stood in that throng. They were as open and loving as the members of Congress were resistant and shut off behind their walls of political sureties.
I saw a parallel between this morning and the events of 2,000 years ago. Ordinary people heard what Jesus said when He told them to love their neighbors and care for the least of these. They cheered and loved Him. But the Pharisees saw Him and His message as a threat to their power and privilege.
The Pharisees then were like politicians now in that they were not free men. They were the errand boys for the real power, which was the puppet government the Romans had set in place in their land. Today’s member of Congress is held hostage by the money interests who put them in office. If they allowed themselves to hear what the pope said, if they actually began to act in the common good, it would mean going against the powerful interests who bought and paid for them. They don’t think that they can win elections without that money. So, they don’t let themselves think at all.
Feed my sheep, protect my lambs, Jesus told Peter. He never once said that the Pharisees of that world or this one would respond to His message.
Now as then, He spoke truth. And now as then, Peter is living that commission.
Rebecca Hamilton Rebecca Hamilton is a former pro-abortion activist and leader. As the Oklahoma Director of NARAL, she helped establish the first abortion clinic in Oklahoma, and she continued her activism after being elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. After experiencing a profound conversion to Christ, voters returned her to office as a pro-life Democrat and she spent twelve years defending life and families in the Oklahoma Legislature. Rebecca left her political career in 2014, and along with the National Catholic Register, she writes at Patheos on her blog Public Catholic .
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Life of christ, part 6: the sermon on the mount.
This is the sixth in a 12-part series looking at the life of Christ.
St. Augustine begins the first book of his treatise on the Sermon on the Mount by calling the sermon “a perfect standard of the Christian life.” He is hardly alone in this praise. For two millennia this compendium of the moral teaching of Jesus has been recognized as a soaring monument of moral wisdom.
But like many monuments, it has detractors, with Friedrich Nietzsche perhaps the most vocal. This 19th-century German thinker, whose best-known contribution to human enlightenment was to announce the death of God, denounced the Sermon on the Mount as a central text in the “slave morality” that he despised. The centerpiece of his own ethical reflections — the preeminence of the “will to power,” embodied in a superior being called the Übermensch (over-man) — later helped shape the thinking of Adolf Hitler and the ideology of Nazism.
The Sermon on the Mount, needless to say, has withstood Nietzsche’s assault and seems likely to weather other such assaults in the future.
Collection of teachings
Rather than being the text of a single discourse by Jesus, the sermon is a collection of his teachings. This is how Jesus Christ said men and women should organize and conduct their lives.
There are two versions of the sermon in the New Testament. One, sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain, is in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke (6:17-49). The site of its delivery is described as “a level place,” apparently to emphasize the universal outreach of Jesus’ teaching.
The second version of the sermon is in Matthew’s Gospel, where it covers three whole chapters (5-7). Here it is said to have been delivered “on the mountain,” the intent perhaps being to liken Christ to Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the tablets of the law and presenting them to the people. The sermon has two parts: first a statement of broad moral principles, the beatitudes, then their application to particular issues, together with a brief treatise on prayer that includes the Our Father.
The continuity between Moses and Jesus is crucial since Jesus’ moral doctrine by no means replaces the Ten Commandments. Rather, as Jesus himself says, he aimed “not to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt 5:17).
The name “beatitude” comes from the Latin word beatus meaning “blessed.” Taken together, the beatitudes provide, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “a kind of veiled interior biography” of Jesus himself. As recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, they are:
- “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
- “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
- “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
- “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
- “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
- “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
- “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.
- “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt 5:3-12).
Virtuous attitude
The beatitudes are often described as paradoxes since they turn worldly values upside down while declaring that those whom the world scorns are “blessed.” The first one — “blessed are the poor in spirit” — announces the underlying moral vision that embraces the other “blesseds” that follow.
In his classic “Introduction to the Devout Life,” St. Francis de Sales quotes the first beatitude and then immediately adds, “Cursed, then, are the rich in spirit, for the misery of hell is their portion.” Here is a surprisingly strong language for a saint famous for his kindliness and good humor. Its use illustrates how important St. Francis considered the virtuous attitude being commended here to be.
Traditionally this attitude has been called detachment. And St. Francis illustrates it when he writes, “Whatever portion of them [riches] you may possess, keep your heart free from the least affection toward them.”
St. John Henry Newman makes a similar point in a sermon that carries the forbidding title “The World Our Enemy.” While conceding that the “goods of life and the applause of men” really are good things as far as they go, Newman notes that they are necessarily “short-lived” and offers this note of caution: “As a traveler on serious business may be tempted to interrupt his trip to linger over a beautiful view, so this well-ordered and divinely governed world, with all its blessings of sense and knowledge, may lead us to neglect those interests which will endure when itself has passed away.”
Everyday applications
Having laid the groundwork with the beatitudes, Jesus next applies the principles that they embody to various situations in everyday life. In doing so, he systematically expands and enriches the commandments of the Torah, the Jewish Law, indicating as much by repeated use of the formula “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.”
So, for example, on anger: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Mt 5:21-22).
On the indissolubility of marriage: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Mt 5:31-32).
And on enemies: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father” (Mt 5:43-45).
The Lord’s Prayer
The Our Father is preceded by a brief instruction on how Jesus’ followers are to pray — not like “hypocrites” who want to seen praying and admired for it, but in a modest manner and without multiplying words (Mt. 6:1-8). “When we pray the Our Father,” Pope Benedict remarks, “we are praying to God with words given by God.” Its first three petitions concern God and his place in the world, while the next four are about our hopes, needs, and hardships (Mt 6:9-13).
After the sermon, Matthew describes the impact that Jesus’ words had on his first hearers: “The crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7:28-29). We, too, may be impressed by Christ’s lofty doctrine yet ask how we, with all our weaknesses and failings, can live up to such high demands. Here, the advice of St. Josemaría Escrivá can be a help: “Your interior life has to be just that: to begin … and to begin again.”
Russell Shaw is a contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor.
Russell Shaw
Russell Shaw writes from Maryland.
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Pope Preaches at Site Of Sermon on Mount
Pontiff returns to religious themes.
KORAZIM, Israel, March 24 -- In a joyful Mass before some 100,000 worshipers, Pope John Paul II preached a gospel of love and forgiveness today on a rocky Galilee hillside where tradition says Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount almost 2,000 years ago.
The Mass was the largest event of the pope's week-long pilgrimage to Christian holy sites in the Middle East. It marked a step back toward the more clearly religious roots of his visit after two days of statements meant to promote amicable dialogue among Christians, Jews and Muslims and to help heal political wounds between Catholics and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis.
"We sit on this hill like the first disciples, and we listen to Jesus," said the pope, his amplified voice echoing off rolling green hills that seemed little altered since Jesus's ministry flourished here. "In the stillness, we hear his gentle and urgent voice, as gentle as this land itself and as urgent as a call to choose between life and death."
The pope, directing his words specifically at youths who composed the majority of the crowd, cautioned them to ignore the calls for violence that are "all around you" and instead help spread Jesus's message to "care for what is right, to be pure in heart, to make peace."
The multitudes had waited since the dark hours of the early morning, huddled beneath gray and rainy skies on a remote, muddy plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Some had camped in tents or stayed in kibbutzim amid olive groves and fields of wildflowers to await a service that papal aides described as one of the high points not only of this pilgrimage but of John Paul's 21-year tenure.
The congregation included pilgrims from Nigeria, boisterous teenagers from Paris, white-robed priests from the Philippines, Israeli-supported Christian fighters from southern Lebanon and several hundred U.N. peacekeepers, who attended in blue berets during a day off from policing the Golan Heights. Many reveled in seeing so many Catholic worshipers in one place; Catholics form a small minority in this region, where Jews and Muslims predominate.
"We are here to let the people know about us, that we are Christians from the Holy Land," said Sami Jabali, 34, who lives in Nazareth and had painted sides of his face in white and yellow, the colors of the Vatican flag.
He and others waved caps, held up flags from their homelands, and sang songs in Arabic, Italian and Hebrew, among other languages, while they waited for the pope, whose arrival from Jerusalem was delayed several hours by gusting wind and rain squalls.
On fences at the periphery of the site, they had erected banners celebrating their travel from such places as Chicago, Minnesota, Romania, Italy, Guam, Louisiana and Krakow. "It's an outpouring of the spirit of unity, bringing all these races and ethnic groups together," said Patricia Minihan, a Warrenton resident who works in Arlington's Roman Catholic archdiocese and had stood in the front row since 3 a.m.
The audience screamed its approval as the 79-year old pontiff finally alighted from a helicopter and was driven through the crowd to reach an immense tent-covered podium where dozens of bishops and cardinals waited in cream-colored robes and mitres. Among them were religious leaders from the Greek Melchite, Latin, Maronite, Syrian and Armenian Catholic communities.
Then the pope walked slowly to a gray, thronelike stone chair, pausing to rest at the base of a cross holding an image of a dark-skinned Jesus before sitting down to deliver his sermon with vigor.
As he looked out at the site where some Christians hold that Jesus named his 12 disciples, the pope asked, "How many generations before us have been deeply moved by the Sermon on the Mount? How many young people down the centuries have gathered around Jesus to learn the words of eternal life, as you are gathered here today? . . . It is wonderful that you are here."
The pope described the event as a dry run for the church's youth day celebration in August in Rome, where a much larger crowd is expected. The largest number of participants today came from Italy, followed by North and South America, Spain, the rest of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, according to organizers.
Many said they are members of the Catholic church's so-called Neocatechumenal Way, a catechism that incorporates adult baptisms and a few other features of the Protestant evangelical movement. The movement constitutes one of the church's fastest growing elements, having reached 800 dioceses since being founded in a Madrid slum 35 years ago. Herve Petit, 50, who escorted a group of several hundred teenagers from Paris, said many had paid for the trip with the proceeds of baby-sitting and summer jobs.
The movement's adherents have been among the strongest supporters of fixing this site as the one where Jesus delivered his most famous sermon, even though biblical references to the site are not clear-cut. The sermon includes the Beatitudes, such as "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
The pope had previously characterized those remarks as "the key to all the morality of the New Testament."
He later visited three other holy sites on the northern and western shores of the Sea of Galilee, including one at the village of Tabgha where Christians believe Jesus fed a hungry crowd of 5,000 with seven loaves of bread and a few fish that miraculously multiplied. It is also the site where Jesus, after his resurrection, is said to have told the disciple Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep," establishing the primacy of Peter's spiritual descendants, the bishops of Rome.
The Papal Pilgrimage
Pope John Paul II yesterday celebrated Mass with 100,000 pilgrims on the Mount of the Beatitudes near Korazim.
In the afternoon, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The pope then went to Tabgha, where he visited the Church of the
Multiplication of the Loaves and the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter.
He then traveled to Capernaum to visit the shrine of the House of St. Peter.
Today, the pope will visit Nazareth and the Garden of Gethsemane
in Jerusalem.
SOURCES: The Vatican, Catholic News Service
Watch CBS News
Pope To Visit Holy Land
By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff
November 17, 1999 / 7:37 AM EST / CBS
The Vatican announced officially on Wednesday that Pope John Paul II would visit the Holy Land in March next year.
Â"The apostolic trip to the Holy Land...is expected to take place in the last 10 days of March. The precise dates have not been set,Â" said Archbishop Cresenzio Sepe.
Sepe was speaking at a Vatican news conference on the calendar for the Pope and the Vatican during 2000 celebrations to mark the third millennium of Christianity.
Sepe said afterward that the pope was expected to visit Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem, Nazareth where he grew up, the Mount of the Beatitudes, the place near Lake Galilee where Christ is said to have read his Sermon on the Mount, and Jerusalem, where he was arrested and crucified.
Bethlehem is a Palestinian-ruled town in the West Bank and Nazareth is Israel's largest Arab city.
Churches in the Holy Land have said they will shut for two days in November to protest plans by Israel for a mosque to be built near the main Christian shrine in Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up.
The mosque row has cast a cloud over the Pope's planned visit and chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls last month described the building plans as a Â"hindranceÂ" to a trip.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry welcomed the Vatican's announcement.
Â"We all hope that this visit is going to reinvigorate and support the spirit of peace and reconciliation between religions and the peoples of the Middle East,Â" said Effie Ben-Matityahu, a ministry spokesman.
Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Land in 1964, before Israel took over the entire city of Jerusalem in the 1967 war with the Arabs.
The pope also was considering a stop in Iraq during his planned millennium tour of Biblical sites. But the Vatican has not yet confirmed that visit.
An advance Vatican team was to leave Saturday for Iraq to plan for a visit in late January, the Vatican missionary news agency Fides said Wednesday, quoting church officials in Baghdad. The pope has said he wants to visit the ancient city of Ur, believed to be the birthplace of Abraham.
Vatican sources said the trip still was not confirmed and there still was a possibility that it would not take place at all.
Â"The delegation is going not so much to prepare for a trip but to find an agreement on whether a trip can take place,Â" one source said.
The U.S. and British governments and the Iraqi political opposition have expressed misgivings about such a trip on the grounds that it could strengthen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's position.
Plans for a visit to Iraq were to have included a brief stop on Egypt's Mount Sinai but if the Iraq trip goes ahead in January, the visit to Mount Sinai might have to be postponed because it would be too cold then, Vatican officials have said.
More from CBS News
Pope Francis: the Sermon on the Mount calls us to a ‘higher justice’
February 13, 2017
Reflecting on the day’s Gospel at Mass (Mt. 5:17-37), Pope Francis said during his February 12 Angelus address that Christ calls us to a “higher justice” beyond “formalism” in the observance of the commandments.
“Jesus examines three aspects, three commandments: homicide, adultery and swearing,” the Pope said to those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
Discussing the commandment “you shall not kill,” the Pope said:
[Christ] affirms that it is violated not only by effective homicide, but also by behavior that offends the dignity of the human person, including insulting words. These certainly do not have the same gravity and culpability, such as killing, but they are in the same line, because they are its premises and reveal the same ill-will. Jesus invites us not to establish a graded list of offenses, but to consider all of them harmful, inasmuch as moved by the intent to do evil to one’s neighbor.
Similarly, “one who looks at a woman who is not one’s own with a spirit of possession is an adulterer in his heart; he has begun the path to adultery.” With regard to swearing, Christ calls us to sincerity and mutual trust, “so that we can be held to be sincere without taking recourse to higher interventions to be believed.”
For all current news, visit our News home page .
- 2017.02.12 Angelus Domini (YouTube Vatican)
- Le parole del Papa alla recita dell’Angelus, 12.02.2017 (Holy See Press Office)
- ANGELUS ADDRESS: Fulfilment of the Mosaic Law (Zenit)
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Well why wouldn't those seeking to be confirmed in their adultery by receiving the sacraments while continuing to live in adultery not be on the path to adultery?
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Pope’s sermon on mount feeds multitude of souls.
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JERUSALEM — Pope John Paul II delivered his own Sermon on the Mount yesterday, fervently urging young people to reject the temptations of the new millennium.
An international crowd of 100,000 people — the largest to see the pope during his weeklong visit to the Holy Land — stood shoulder to shoulder to hear him echo Jesus’ words and beware “the voice of evil.”
“It is a voice which says: ‘Blessed are the proud and violent, those who prosper at any cost, who are unscrupulous, pitiless, devious, who make war not peace, and persecute those who stand in their way,'” the pope said.
Vatican aides underlined that the papal Mass — on the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus delivered his sermon that began “Blessed are the poor in spirit” — was a religious pinnacle of the 79-year-old pontiff’s trip.
Initially, Israeli officials, who had built an open-air amphitheater and huge red altar overlooking the Sea of Galilee, feared the event would be washed out by heavy rains that drenched the area Thursday night.
But the skies suddenly cleared at dawn, and Mount Korazim and its muddy, surrounding hillsides were quickly filled by pilgrims from more than 80 countries.
The audience, many of them teenagers, brought guitars, drums, sleeping bags and picnic lunches, giving the event the air of a religious Woodstock.
“When you get here, it’s like arriving in Heaven,” said Greg Singh, 32, of London.
John Paul, in ivory and gold robes, told the crowd they faced difficult choices — but they had the beatitudes and Ten Commandments as their guide.
“To be good Christians may seem beyond your strength in today’s world.
“But Jesus does not stand by and leave you alone in the face of challenge,” he said in a firm voice.
Despite the 14-hour day, the pope appeared to be gaining strength as the visit progressed.
“Of course he is feeling well,” said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. “This trip is very important to him.”
As a precaution, John Paul spoke shielded by bulletproof glass — the first such security step since he appeared in Detroit in 1987.
Before returning to Jerusalem the pope met briefly with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his ministers and visited Christian shrines.
He saw a limestone church built on the site where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus multiplied two fish and five loaves of bread to feed 5,000 people.
John Paul also visited a church where Jesus is said to have chosen the apostle Peter to lead his church as the first pope.
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The pope's Sermon on the Mount
Not a good week for the pro-capitalist catholic.
This was not a good week for pro-capitalist and culture-warrior Catholics, especially those that hold ultramontanist views of the papacy.
Actually, the last 28 months have been less than jubilant for people in this part of the Church. Yes, that's exactly how long it has been since an Argentine Jesuit known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Bishop of Rome and took the name Pope Francis.
But these last several days must have been extraordinarily difficult for such Catholics, particularly those in the United States (including a number of bishops and priests) because the message their Supreme Pontiff was preaching while visiting his " patria grande " or great homeland of Latin America could not have been very consoling.
If there were still any proponents of global capitalism that had lingering doubts about Pope Francis' real thoughts about this ruling economic system, the pastoral visit to South America should have clarified their thinking.
And caused them horror.
"That economy kills," the pope said July 9 in the most important speech of his three-nation visit.
"Let us say NO to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service," the pope said in Bolivia during a 55-minute address to grassroots movements that included poor farmhands, laborers and squatters.
"The economy should not be a mechanism for accumulating goods, but rather the proper administration of our common home," he said. And he again repeated, "That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth."
Those weren't even the toughest lines.
A more just distribution of wealth is a "commandment," the pope said, because it is "giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right."
No one who has read the 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel), or the recent encyclical, Laudato si' (Praised Be You), will be surprised by this latest address — which, by the way, could easily be added to these first two documents as the anchors of this unfolding pontificate.
The three texts touch on similar themes and repeat certain convictions and ideas.
But Pope Francis tends to be repetitive, especially when it comes to putting forth a vision for human living based on a radical understanding of the Gospel message. And the reason for this repetitiveness is simple — people are still not listening.
"I would ask you to read the beatitudes, later on at home; they are in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel," the pope said in another speech during his pastoral visit to Latin America; this time on July 12 to a huge crowd of young people in Paraguay.
"Read (the beatitudes) and think about them; they will do you a lot of good," he said.
The beatitudes are only the preface of the Gospel way of life and the type of Christian discipleship that Francis has been trying to present since the day he was elected. These poetic lines are just the introduction to the much lengthier Sermon on the Mount, which Matthew chronicles over three full chapters (five-seven) in his Gospel account.
And traces of its teachings can be detected in each of the 22 speeches, talks and addresses that the 78-year-old pope delivered during last week's trip.
At a Mass in Ecuador at the very start of the visit he also noted that at the upcoming Synod on the Family, the Church will "deepen her spiritual discernment and consider concrete solutions and help to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families today." He urged people to pray for the bishops attending the gathering "so that Christ can take even what might seem to us impure, scandalous or threatening, and turn it — by making it part of his 'hour' — into a miracle."
The remarks caused deep distress among some conservative Catholics who want no changes to Church teaching or practice on thorny issues like readmitting divorce and remarried people to the sacraments or being more accepting of same-sex couples. One of the conservatives, a prominent Swiss-Italian journalist based in Rome, wrote: "Independent of the pope's intentions, it's difficult not to interpret this passage as an invitation to the synod fathers to 'be open' on controversial issues and as supporting the position of the 'progressives.'"
But it was the "big speech" to the grassroots movements on July 9 that crystallized what has been, up to now, the hardest among the pope's teachings for free-market-minded Catholics.
"I have heard that some criticisms were made in the United States — I've heard that — but I have not read them and have not had time to study them well," he told reporters traveling with him on July 12 from Paraguay back to Rome. He said he did "not have the right" to comment on such criticisms until he had a "dialogue" with those who have made them.
Of course, Francis will be going to the United States in September and one of his most important appointments will be to address the U.S. Congress, where the majority of members are vowed supporters of the current capitalistic system. It will be a crucial test for a man who has made dialogue with all people, even those of widely contrasting views, one of the central planks and modes of operation in his pontificate.
If the pope softens his criticism of the global economic system even just a little, in order to avoid conflict with the U.S. lawmakers and those Catholics aligned with them, he is likely to see his sincerity seriously called into question.
But if he repeats yet again his now-familiar critique of this "economy that kills," sine glossa , he risks further alienating a good number of affluent U.S. Catholics, many who provide the resources (especially money) that are necessary for "running" the Church and its programs.
It is something Pope Francis will have to ponder over the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, it's the last line of that long section of the Sermon on the Mount that perhaps best describes what happened these past days in the patria grande of Latin America.
"His teaching made a deep impression on the people because he taught them with authority, unlike their own scribes."
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POPE FRANCIS
GENERAL AUDIENCE
Paul VI Audience Hall Wednesday, 29 January 2020
[ Multimedia ]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning,
Today we are beginning a series of catecheses on the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel (5:1-11). This passage, which starts the “Sermon on the Mount”, illuminated the lives of believers and also that of many non-believers. It is difficult not to be touched by these words of Jesus, and the desire to understand them and welcome them ever more fully is righteous. The Beatitudes provide the “identity card” of Christians — this is our identity card — because they outline the face of Jesus himself, his style of living.
Let us now frame Jesus’ words within a wider context. Over the next catecheses we will comment on each individual Beatitude, one by one.
First of all, how the proclamation of this message occurred, is important: seeing the multitude that followed him, Jesus scaled the gentle slope overlooking the Sea of Galilee, sat down and, turning to the disciples, announced the Beatitudes. His message was thus addressed to his disciples . However, the multitude, that is, all of humanity, was on the horizon. It is a message for all of humanity.
Moreover, the “mount” recalls Sinai, where God gave Moses the Commandments. Jesus begins to teach a new law: to be poor, to be meek, to be merciful.... These “new commandments” are much more than a set of rules. Indeed, Jesus does not impose anything but reveals the way of happiness — his way — by repeating the word “blessed” eight times.
Each Beatitude is composed of three parts. Firstly, there is always the word “blessed”. Then there is the situation in which the blesseds find themselves: poverty of spirit, affliction, hunger and thirst for justice, and so on. Lastly, there is the reason for the beatitude, introduced by the conjunction “because”: “Blessed are they because, blessed are those because...”. The eight Beatitudes are like this and it would be good to learn them off by heart so as to repeat them, to have this law that Jesus gave us, precisely in our minds and hearts.
Let us pay attention to this fact: the reason behind the Beatitudes is not a current situation, but rather the new condition that the blessed receive as a gift from God: because “theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”, because “they shall be comforted”, because “they shall inherit the earth” and so on.
In the third element which is the reason for happiness, Jesus often uses the future passive voice: “they shall be comforted”, “they shall be satisfied”, “they shall be forgiven”, “they shall be called children of God”.
But what does the word “ blessed ” mean? Because each of the eight Beatitudes begins with the word “ blessed ”. The original term does not mean one with a full belly or one who is doing well, but rather it is a person who is in a condition of grace, who progresses in God’s grace and progresses on God’s path: patience, poverty, service to others, comfort.... Those who advance in these things are happy and shall be blessed.
In order to give himself to us, God often chooses unthinkable paths, perhaps the path of our limitations, of our tears, of our defeats. It is the paschal joy of which our Oriental brothers and sisters speak, the one that has the stigmata but is alive, has been through death and has experienced the Power of God. The Beatitudes always bring you to joy. They are the paths to reach joy. It will do us good to take Matthew’s Gospel today, chapter 5, verses 1-11, and to read the Beatitudes — perhaps a few more times throughout the week — in order to understand this very beautiful path, so sure of the happiness the Lord offers us.
Special Greetings
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially the groups from the United States of America. Upon all of you and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless you!
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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Sermon on the Mount to the Men of Our Day
Pope John Paul II
GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST
During the General Audience on Wednesday, 6 August, John Paul II delivered the following address.
1. Continuing our cycle, let us take up again today the Sermon on the Mount, and the statement: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). Jesus appeals here to the heart.
In his talk with the Pharisees, referring to the "beginning" (cf. the preceding analyses), Jesus uttered the following words with regard to the certificate of divorce: "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so" (Mt 19:8). This sentence undoubtedly contains an accusation. "Hardness of heart"(1) indicates what, according to the ethos of the people of the Old Testament, had brought about the situation contrary to the original plan of God-Yahweh in Genesis 2:24. There we must seek the key to interpret the whole legislation of Israel in the sphere of marriage and, in the wider sense, in relations between man and woman as a whole. Speaking of hardness of heart, Christ accuses the whole "interior subject" who is responsible for the distortion of the law. In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28), he also refers to the heart, but the words pronounced here do not seem only to accuse.
2. We must reflect on them once more, placing them as far as possible in their historical dimension. The analysis made so far—aimed at highlighting the man of lust in his genetic moment, almost at the initial point of his history interwoven with theology—constitutes an ample introduction, especially an anthropological one, to the work that must still be undertaken. The following stage of our analysis will have an ethical character.
The Sermon on the Mount, and in particular that passage we have chosen as the center of our analyses, is part of the proclamation of the new ethos, the ethos of the Gospel. In the teaching of Christ, it is deeply connected with awareness of the "beginning," namely with the mystery of creation in its original simplicity and richness. At the same time, the ethos that Christ proclaims in the Sermon on the Mount is realistically addressed to historical man, who has become the man of lust. Lust in its three forms is the heritage of all humanity, and the human heart really participates in it.
Christ knows "what is in every man" (cf. Jn 2:25).(2) He cannot speak in any other way than with this awareness. From this point of view, in the words of Matthew 5:27-28 it is not the accusation that prevails but the judgment, a realistic judgment on the human heart. It is a judgment which has both an anthropological foundation and a directly ethical character. For the ethos of the Gospel it is a constitutive judgment.
3. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ directly addresses the man who belongs to a well defined society. The Master, too, belongs to that society, to that people. So we must look in Christ's words for a reference to the facts, the situations and the institutions which he was familiar with in everyday life. These references must be analyzed at least in a summary way, so that the ethical meaning of the words of Matthew 5:27-28 may emerge more clearly.
However, with these words, Christ also addresses, in an indirect but real way, every historical man (understanding this adjective mainly in a theological sense). This man is precisely the man of lust, whose mystery and whose heart is known to Christ. "For he himself knew what was in man" (Jn 2:25). The Sermon on the Mount enables us to contact the interior experience of this man almost at every geographical latitude and longitude, in the various ages, in the different social and cultural conditionings. The man of our time feels called by name with this statement of Christ, no less than the man of that time, whom the Master was addressing directly.
4. The universality of the Gospel, which is not at all a generalization, lies in this. Perhaps precisely in this statement of Christ, which we are analyzing here, this is manifested with particular clarity. By virtue of this statement, the man of all times and all places feels called, in an adequate, concrete and unrepeatable way. This is because Christ appeals to the human heart, which cannot be subject to any generalization. With the category of the heart, everyone is characterized individually, even more than by name. Everyone is reached in what determines him in a unique and unrepeatable way, and is defined in his humanity from within.
5. The image of the man of lust concerns his inner being in the first place.(3) The history of the human heart after original sin is written under the pressure of lust in its three forms. Even the deepest image of ethos in its various historical documents is also connected with this lust. However, that inner being is also the force that decides exterior human behavior, and also the form of multiple structures and institutions at the level of social life. If we deduce the content of ethos, in its various historical formulations, from these structures and institutions, we always meet this inner aspect, characteristic of the interior image of man. This is the most essential element. Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount, especially those of Matthew 5:27-28, indicate it unmistakably. No study on human ethos can regard it with indifference.
Therefore, in our subsequent reflections, we shall try to analyze in a more detailed way that statement of Christ which says: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (or "has already made her adulterous in his heart").
To understand this text better, we shall first analyze its single parts, so as to obtain afterward a deeper overall view. We shall take into consideration not only those for whom it was intended at that time, those who actually heard the Sermon on the Mount, but also, as far as possible, modern men, the men of our time.
1) The Greek term sklerokard ía was formed by the authors of the Septuagint to express what in the Hebrew meant: "non-circumcision of the heart" (cf. e.g., Dt 10:16; Jer 4:4; Sir 3:26f.) and which, in the literal translation of the New Testament, appears only once (cf. Acts 7:51). Non-circumcision meant "paganism," "immodesty," "distance from the covenant with God"; "non-circumcision of the heart" expressed unyielding obstinacy in opposing God. This is confirmed by the exclamation of the deacon Stephen: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51).
2) Cf. Rv 2:23: "....he who searches mind and heart..."; Acts 1:24: "Lord, who knows the hearts of all men..." ( kardiognostes ).
3) "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man..." (Mt 15:19-20).
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 11 August 1980, page 1
L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See. The Weekly Edition in English is published for the US by:
The Cathedral Foundation L'Osservatore Romano English Edition 320 Cathedral St. Baltimore, MD 21201 Subscriptions: (410) 547-5315 Fax: (410) 332-1069 [email protected]
March 25, 2000 A New Sermon of Peace on the Mount Related Article News Analysis: A Pilgrimage Avoids Slips By ALESSANDRA STANLEY OUNT OF BEATITUDES, Israel, March 24 -- Standing where Jesus is said to have told followers, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," Pope John Paul II warned a youthful multitude today against heeding what he called "contradictory" beatitudes lurking in the modern Holy Land. "It is the voice which says, 'Blessed are the proud and violent, those who prosper at any cost, who are unscrupulous, pitiless, devious, who make war, not peace, and persecute those who stand in their way' " the pope said, speaking to about 100,000 pilgrims from a platform overlooking the shimmering Sea of Galilee. "And this voice seems to make sense in a world where the violent are often triumphant and the devious seem to succeed." He described this as "the choice between good and evil, between life and death," and asked which voice the young people would obey. The pope spoke of the Sermon on the Mount in his first public Mass in Israel, part of a weeklong pilgrimage to retrace the steps of Jesus. His trip, the first official visit by a pope, has had extraordinary political resonance in Israel as well as in Palestinian-controlled territories, where the pope celebrated Mass and visited a refugee camp on Tuesday. The pope's visit also has been enormously important to Christians, who constitute a tiny minority in Israel and had never experienced a large outdoor Mass like this. An estimated 100,000 people gathered on grassy slopes left muddy from overnight rain, some having arrived as early as 3 a.m. They seemed to have traveled from everywhere. They included not only Palestinians from Israel and the West Bank but also Lebanese Christians who were allowed to cross the tense border from southern Lebanon and even a scattering of United Nations peacekeepers, recognizable by their blue berets. Nazrin Touba, 33, who works in an orphanage in Nazareth, was among those who arrived at 3 a.m., in a bus with other Arab Christians. Ms. Touba, pressed against a fence by the exuberant crowd, explained why she and her friends came to the Sea of Galilee when the pope is scheduled to come to Nazareth tomorrow. "We're afraid we might not be able to see him in Nazareth," she said. "The security may be so strict that we won't be able to go at all." Blue-and-white Israeli flags fluttered near the Vatican's yellow-and-white banners. In the crowd there were red-white-and-black Palestinian flags and banners, including one that read, "The uprooted people of Kafr Birem welcome John Paul II." The banner, referring to a former Arab village occupied by the new state of Israel in 1948, came down halfway through the Mass, which was under tight security by Israeli police officers. Israeli officials have described the papal visit as the largest security operation for an official visit in the country's history. A black canopy was pitched over the pope's altar and platform, and as he spoke, bulletproof glass shielded him on both sides. The Vatican almost always rejects such measures. The only other time the Vatican allowed bulletproof screens near the altar was in Detroit in 1987. Other pilgrims came from as far as Romania, Guam, the Philippines, the United States and even Italy. Marina Danese, 33, an Italian homemaker, said that she left her three children in Milan with their grandmother to make the pilgrimage. "I can see the pope any time I want in Italy," Mrs. Danese said, "but I could never again see him in the place where Jesus walked." After the Mass, the pope met with Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who outlined the status of Israel's peace negotiations with Palestinians and Syria and asked for the pope's assistance in learning the fate of Israeli soldiers missing in action, including a tank crew missing since 1982 and a pilot captured in 1986. Saying the pope's visit has "immense historical importance," the prime minister added, "I believe it might help making the atmosphere much better in the world, in relations between Jews and Christians and in regard to the peace process." Since the pope arrived in Israel from Jordan on Tuesday, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have pushed their competing claims over Jerusalem before him. On Thursday, the dispute even flowed over into a meeting intended to promote interfaith harmony among Jews, Christians and Muslims that ended after a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim cleric clashed and the cleric left abruptly. The pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, said that if such problems are real, he could hardly avoid them. "It would be a fiction to walk on the clouds and not on the earth," Mr. Navarro-Valls said. But today was reserved for stops at sites near the Sea of Galilee associated with the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. The pope, 79, held up well on the fifth day of his weeklong pilgrimage. He delivered his homily in a strong, distinct voice, and negotiated 30 steps with the help of his cane to pray at a chapel after his lakeside meeting with Prime Minister Barak. The pope stopped to pray at Tapgha, the limestone church built at the place where, according to the Gospels, Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the multitude of 5,000 people with five barley loaves and two small fish. At the Church of the Primacy, the pope kissed the sprawling rock where tradition says a resurrected Jesus shared a festive meal of fish with his apostles. According to the Gospels, after that meal Jesus asked his disciple Peter to succeed him as leader of the Church. At dusk, the pope arrived at Capernaum to the tolling of bells from a nearby Greek Orthodox church to pray at the ruins of what is believed to be Peter's house. As he prayed, a group of Vatican prelates surrounded his armchair and sang "Tu es Petrus," the Latin rendition of the words with which Jesus is said to have designated Peter the first pope. The pope was given an oil lamp from the time of Jesus and a stone from the house by the Rev. Stanislao Loffreda, 68, the Franciscan archaeologist who discovered the ruins in 1968. After the meeting, Father Loffreda said the pope told him, "If your health permits it, keep digging."
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COMMENTS
I don't know more context for the picture, but the title "Pope visits holy site of Sermon on the Mount" indicates, that the chair is not a part of Pope's usual attributes, but that it's part of the chapel on Mount of Beatitudes.. This inverted or Saint Peter's cross is not very common in catholic context, but very few Catholics would feel bad if they were on the same picture with such a cross.
Pope Preaches at Site Of Sermon on Mount ... pope's week-long pilgrimage to Christian holy sites in the Middle East. It marked a step back toward the more clearly religious roots of his visit ...
See our earlier coverage of the Pope's visit to ... (Mar. 24, 2000)More coverage of the Pope's Sermon on the Mount is available at ... site.For more resources about the papal trip to the Holy ...
images in the Sermon on the Mount to make his teachings come alive for the ... faith surely do speak to us from all sides. NOTE † Pope John Paul II, "Homily at the Mass to Celebrate the Unveiling of the Restorations of Michelangelo's Frescos in the Sistine Chapel" (April 8, 1994), available online at www. vatican.va/holy_father/john ...
The Pope offered special encouragment to those who will carry the Church past the year 2000. "You young people will live most of your lives in the next millennium," he said. "You must help the ...
This is Part 3. The longest chapter in Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth is devoted to the Sermon on the Mount. Writing in his personal capacity as Joseph Ratzinger, the Holy Father ...
The Gospel of Matthew places the text of the Lord's Prayer strategically at the centre of the Sermon on the Mount (cf. 6:9-13). Now, let us observe the scene: Jesus goes up the hill by the lake, and sits down; he has his most intimate disciples circled around him, and then a large crowd of anonymous faces.
Pope Francis channeled Jesus this morning with a contemporary Sermon on the Mount, and it got just about the same results it did 2,000 years ago. The Holy Father addressed the assembled members of ...
TO THE HOLY LAND (MARCH 20-26, 2000) HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II. Israel - Korazim, Mount of the Beatitudes. Friday, 24 March 2000. "Consider your calling, brothers and sisters" ( 1 Cor 1:26). 1. Today these words of Saint Paul are addressed to all of us who have come here to the Mount of the Beatitudes. We sit on this hill like the first ...
In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope St. John Paul II addresses the beatitudes and calls the Sermon on the Mount the Magna Carta of Gospel morality.He writes: "The beatitudes are not specifically concerned with certain particular rules of behavior. Rather, they speak of basic attitudes and dispositions in life and therefore they do not coincide exactly with the commandments.
Pope to visit scene of Sermon on the Mount. March 23, 2000 Web posted at: 11:38 p.m. EST (0438 GMT) In this story: ... Preparing for the pope: Fewer Christians in Holy Land March 16, 2000
Upon all of you here today, and upon your families and loved ones at home, I invoke abundant Blessings of peace and joy. I wish you all a good Sunday. And now, with the children of Catholic Action, we will release the doves, a symbol of peace. Angelus, 30 January 2011 - St Peter's Square, Benedict XVI.
March 24, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. EST. KORAZIM, Israel, March 24 -- In a joyful Mass before some 100,000 worshipers, Pope John Paul II preached a gospel of love and forgiveness today on a rocky Galilee ...
Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Land in 1964, before Israel took over the entire city of Jerusalem in the 1967 war with the Arabs. The pope also was considering a stop in Iraq during his planned ...
Pope Francis: the Sermon on the Mount calls us to a 'higher justice'. February 13, 2017. Reflecting on the day's Gospel at Mass (Mt. 5:17-37), Pope Francis said during his February 12 ...
POPE'S SERMON ON MOUNT FEEDS MULTITUDE OF SOULS. By. Uri Dan. Published March 25, 2000, 5:00 a.m. ET. JERUSALEM — Pope John Paul II delivered his own Sermon on the Mount yesterday, fervently ...
Pope Paul VI, First Pontiff to Visit Israel, Is Beatified. Pope Honored by Bar Ilan University. 1682: Pope Closes Jewish Banks in Rome. The visit marks the 50th anniversary of the first papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Arriving May 24, Pope Francis will be meeting with Jewish and Muslim leaders and visiting important Jewish sites - and will ...
HOLY MASS AT YANKEE STADIUM. HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II. New York. Tuesday, 2 October 1979. 1. "Peace be with you !" These were the first words that Jesus spoke to his Apostles after his Resurrection. With these words the Risen Christ restored peace to their hearts, at a time when they were still in a state of shock after the first ...
The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: Sermo in monte) is a collection of sayings spoken by Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7) that emphasizes his moral teachings.It is the first of five discourses in the Gospel and has been one of the most widely quoted sections of the Gospels.
July 14, 2015. Pope Francis gestures as he answers questions from journalists aboard his flight from Asuncion, Paraguay, to Rome July 12. (Photo: CNS) This was not a good week for pro-capitalist ...
GENERAL AUDIENCE. Paul VI Audience Hall. Wednesday, 29 January 2020. [ Multimedia] Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning, Today we are beginning a series of catecheses on the Beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel (5:1-11). This passage, which starts the "Sermon on the Mount", illuminated the lives of believers and also that of many non-believers.
1. Continuing our cycle, let us take up again today the Sermon on the Mount, and the statement: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). Jesus appeals here to the heart. In his talk with the Pharisees, referring to the "beginning" (cf. the preceding analyses), Jesus uttered the ...
The pope spoke of the Sermon on the Mount in his first public Mass in Israel, part of a weeklong pilgrimage to retrace the steps of Jesus. His trip, the first official visit by a pope, has had extraordinary political resonance in Israel as well as in Palestinian-controlled territories, where the pope celebrated Mass and visited a refugee camp ...