{"id":879,"date":"2019-09-05T15:18:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T15:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=879"},"modified":"2019-09-05T15:18:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T15:18:31","slug":"reflection-8-september-2019-c-twenty-third-sunday-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 8 September 2019 (C) Twenty-third Sunday of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Reflection &amp; Dialogue<\/em><\/strong><em>: Wakeup\ncall for ethnic and culture Catholics<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Church grows in numbers in a country\nor community, when it experiences no opposition or persecution, and may even be\nrespected in all its works, its members may become nominal, ethnic or cultural\nCatholics with little contact with the living Christ or the Church itself\nthrough regular Church attendance and practice of the sacraments. Such contact\nmay be reduced to baptism, marriage and burial, the second of these becoming\nless frequent in recent years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And\nyet all these would identify themselves as Catholics, and register themselves\nas such in census returns. Certain writers would refer to those as ethnic or\ncultural Catholics. Since faith is a divine gift from God, it is not for anyone\nto judge whether these have the faith or not. Only God can judge this. However,\nsince all believers in Christ are chosen to be witnesses to him to the world,\nto be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, such passive, ethnic or\ncultural Christianity is far removed from what Jesus calls his followers to be.\nWe live in a world which is ever becoming more secular, with a tendency, if not\na plan, to push religious beliefs to the margins, with little or no place in\npublic life. Religious conviction can be seen as a danger to, if not\nincompatible with, public office. In certain political circles it can be\nunacceptable to profess oneself as first a Christian, or Catholic, and then as\na member of one\u2019s country or one\u2019s political party, as if there were an\nincompatibility, which there is not. Christ would certainly add today \u201ccountry\nor political party\u201d to the matters not to be preferred to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; How\nthe priority of the allegiance to Christ and present day realities are to be\nreconciled is a matter for individual and collective conscience. Allegiance to\nChrist must be fostered by devotion to the person of Christ and the Church.\nLessons can still be drawn from the examples of the tower and the preparation\nfor war of the Gospel reading. The person of Christ must be central. Devotion\nto his message requires quiet reflection on how to practice it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reflection &amp; Dialogue: Wakeup call for ethnic and culture Catholics As the Church grows in numbers in a country or community, when it experiences no opposition or persecution, and may &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}