FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2021“We often think that evil comes mainly from the outside: from other people’s conduct, from those who think badly of us, from society. How often we blame others, society, the world, for everything that happens to us! It is always the fault of “others”: it is the fault of people, of those who govern, of misfortune, and so on… And we spend time assigning blame; but spending time blaming others is wasting time. We become angry, bitter, and keep God away from our heart… One cannot be truly religious in complaining: complaining poisons, it leads you to anger, to resentment and to sadness, that of the heart, which closes the door to God.”
Pope Francis
ANGELUS, AUGUST 29, 2021
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A Global but Divine Whipping?
A very close friend of mine recently sent me this quote by Pope Francis which seemed like a bit of a “whipping” by the Supreme Pontiff. Maybe He has had enough of the Anti-Vaxers and the Pro-Vaxers alike. Maybe He is just tired of all the complaining. After all, He is only human. Another rather famous character had a similar rant in a well know story called “The cleansing of the Temple”. The cleansing of the Temple narrative tells of Jesus expelling the merchants and the money changers from the Temple and occurs in all four canonical gospels of the New Testament. The scene is a common motif in Christian art. But how should we interpret this rant by Pope Francis? It certainly is not a violent action and nor was the cleansing of the temple by Jesus. So true is this that it didn’t provoke the intervention of the guardians of public order – of the police. No! It seems that the scolding by Pope Francis is a typical action practiced by prophets who, in the name of God, often denounce abuses and excesses. The question posed is that of authority. Namely, you may ask what authority does the Pope have to say these things? I guess we are asking for a demonstration that He is truly acting in the name of God, which clearly the Pope is doing just that. He is telling you to look within yourself. Let’s look at it in a more NON-RELIGOUS way which is exactly what Pope Francis seems to be telling us. “If there is so much friction, violence, and tension in the world, it is only because so many individual persons themselves are inwardly experiencing these things. They fill the world’s energy with bad thoughts which, if sustained, prolonged, and strong enough, break out on the physical level into undesirable or evil happenings. If there is so little real peace in the world, it is only because there is so little real peace in the individuals who live in the world. Their thinking, their emotions, and their passions have affected the mental state of the world.”
The Emily Dahl Foundation
September 4, 2021
