Damaged Icon and other Items from a Burned Gaza ChurchWell not really. But he is talking to us that are talking about Tiger Woods.
Being a person that has practiced law in the past I am a tad more forgiving about sins of the Flesh. I guess I have always been.
I was going to write a post on what I thought was Rod Dreher's un Christian view of this. But Rod seems through the help of a other seen his and OUR FAULT. See Seeing the truth of Tiger Woods. We all fall into Rod's error and like ROD should repent of it.
I love this part
"Every one of us is in the image of God, and every one of us is like a damaged icon. But if we were given an icon damaged by time, damaged by circumstances, or desecrated by human hatred, we would treat it with reverence, with tenderness, with broken-heartedness. We would not pay attention primarily to the fact that it is damaged, but to the tragedy of its being damaged. We would concentrate on what is left of its beauty, and not on what is lost of its beauty. And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person as an individual, but also - and this is not always as easy - with regard to groups of people, whether it be a parish or a denomination, or a nation."
So what does this have to do with Pope Benedict. Well it is the message he gave just a few nights ago on Mary's Feast:
He said :
When do we need such good deeds? Every day, in the newspapers, television and radio, evil is told to us, said again, amplified, so that we get used to the most horrible things, and become desensitised. In a certain way, it poisons us, because the negative is never fully cleansed out of our system but accumulates day after day.
The heart hardens and thoughts become gloomy. For this reason, the city needs Mary, whose presence speaks of God, reminds us of Grace’s victory over sin and makes us hope even in the most humanly difficult situations.
Those who [are] invisible live or rather survive in the city. They make it to the front page of newspapers or the top of TV newscasts—they are exploited until the end, for as long as the news and the images are newsworthy. Few can resist such a perverse mechanism. The city first hides, then exposes them to public scrutiny, without pity or with false pity. Everyone would like to be accepted as a person and considered as something sacred, because each human story is a sacred story that deserves the utmost of respect.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are the city! Each one of us contributes with our lives to its moral climate for better or worse. The border between good and evil runs across everyone’s heart and none of us should feel entitled to judge others. Instead, each one of us must feel duty-bound to improve ourselves. Mass media make us feel like “spectators” as if evil only touched others and that certain things could not happen to us. Instead, we are all “actors” for better or worse, and our behaviour influences others.
There is a line in recognizing sin and talking against it. That is not judging. However I think many of us have crossed this line with Tiger and are in sin ourselves.
Being a person that has practiced law in the past I am a tad more forgiving about sins of the Flesh. I guess I have always been.
I was going to write a post on what I thought was Rod Dreher's un Christian view of this. But Rod seems through the help of a other seen his and OUR FAULT. See Seeing the truth of Tiger Woods. We all fall into Rod's error and like ROD should repent of it.
I love this part
"Every one of us is in the image of God, and every one of us is like a damaged icon. But if we were given an icon damaged by time, damaged by circumstances, or desecrated by human hatred, we would treat it with reverence, with tenderness, with broken-heartedness. We would not pay attention primarily to the fact that it is damaged, but to the tragedy of its being damaged. We would concentrate on what is left of its beauty, and not on what is lost of its beauty. And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person as an individual, but also - and this is not always as easy - with regard to groups of people, whether it be a parish or a denomination, or a nation."
So what does this have to do with Pope Benedict. Well it is the message he gave just a few nights ago on Mary's Feast:
He said :
When do we need such good deeds? Every day, in the newspapers, television and radio, evil is told to us, said again, amplified, so that we get used to the most horrible things, and become desensitised. In a certain way, it poisons us, because the negative is never fully cleansed out of our system but accumulates day after day.
The heart hardens and thoughts become gloomy. For this reason, the city needs Mary, whose presence speaks of God, reminds us of Grace’s victory over sin and makes us hope even in the most humanly difficult situations.
Those who [are] invisible live or rather survive in the city. They make it to the front page of newspapers or the top of TV newscasts—they are exploited until the end, for as long as the news and the images are newsworthy. Few can resist such a perverse mechanism. The city first hides, then exposes them to public scrutiny, without pity or with false pity. Everyone would like to be accepted as a person and considered as something sacred, because each human story is a sacred story that deserves the utmost of respect.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are the city! Each one of us contributes with our lives to its moral climate for better or worse. The border between good and evil runs across everyone’s heart and none of us should feel entitled to judge others. Instead, each one of us must feel duty-bound to improve ourselves. Mass media make us feel like “spectators” as if evil only touched others and that certain things could not happen to us. Instead, we are all “actors” for better or worse, and our behaviour influences others.
There is a line in recognizing sin and talking against it. That is not judging. However I think many of us have crossed this line with Tiger and are in sin ourselves.
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