I never had a rock band. But if I did, I would definitely call it Prophets of Gloom.

 
From yesterday’s FrancisHomily, where he was catechising catechists, I offer what he truly, surely, reading Francis through Jesus, meant to say:

“Jesus truly loves you, just as you are.”

Jesus hates your sins. He wants you to amend your life and turn away from sin. He wants you to stop worshiping false idols and instead place Him at the center. He is constantly inviting you to gaze upon His broken body on the Cross and NOT remain JUST AS YOU ARE, but rather to unite your sufferings with His and resolve to keep the commandments, the commandments being the way He has shown us how to love Him.

“It is by loving that the God-who-is-Love is proclaimed to the world: not by the power of convincing, never by imposing the truth, no less by growing fixated on some religious or moral obligation.  God is proclaimed through the encounter between persons, with care for their history and their journey…by listening and welcoming, with joy which radiates outward.”

There is no love without truth. Shielding someone from the truth in the name of false ‘encounter’ is the heart of indifference. Do we all recall that the opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference? It’s a word Francis has been using with ferocious deceit the past few weeks.  ‘Welcoming’ someone on their ‘journey’ by telling them they are fine ‘just as they are’ is about as diabolically indifferent as you can get. Doing it with a heaping dose of false humility in the pursuit of perpetual popularity makes it even more so.

“Today’s callousness causes chasms to be dug that can never be crossed.  And we have fallen, at this time, into the sickness of indifference, selfishness and worldliness.”

The chasm is caused by sin, not callousness. Callousness is when we know the truth, but fail to proclaim it to our fellow man out of indifference, selfishness, worldliness, because nuChurch is the Church of Nice.  The idol is niceness.

“We are not prophets of gloom who take delight in unearthing dangers or deviations; we are not people who become ensconced in our own surroundings, handing out bitter judgments on our society, on the Church, on everything and everyone, polluting the world with our negativity.  Pitiful skepticism does not belong to whoever is close to the word of God.”

You know how at some parishes, the weekly bulletin has a list on the front cover of all directors of the various “ministries” offered by the “lay ministers”?  Now we have a few more, and I can’t wait to sign up.
Prophets of Gloom. Danger Delighters. Bitter Judgers. Negative World Polluters (NWP). Pitiful Skeptics.
But mostly I want a leather jacket with Prophets of Gloom on the back.