Pope Benedict XVI writes:
"Today in broad circles, even among believers, an image has prevailed of a Jesus who demands nothing, never scolds, who accepts everyone and everything, who no longer does anything but affirm us: the perfect opposite of the Church, to the extent that she still dares to make demands and regulations. F. Schulz recently found something similar in an analysis of the new prayers of the Evangelical Lutheran worship services. He encountered there a twofold 'dechristologizing' tendency: 'First the practice of naming the Person of Christ recedes or disappears. . . , then there is a shift in emphasis that consists in the fact that Christ is no longer addressed in the respectful terms reserved for royalty but that his solidarity with mankind is stressed instead.' The presence of the figure of Jesus itself is becoming diminished. . .,transformed from the "Lord" (a word that is avoided) into a man who is nothing more than the advocate of all men. The Jesus of the Gospels is quite different, demanding, bold. The Jesus who makes everything okay for everyone is a phantom, a dream, not a real figure. The Jesus of the Gospels is certainly not convenient for us. But it is precisely in this way that he answers the deepest question of our existence, which--whether we want to or not--keeps us on the lookout for God, for a gratification that is limitless, for the infinate. We must again set out on the way to this real Jesus."
It is so nice to hear some solid doctrine.
---Katie
2 comments:
Yes, it scares me how much I like this pope.
It is a quote from his book On the Way to Jesus Christ from 2004. I found it on the ALPB forum.
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