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Too many American Catholics are complacent. They are lukewarm, and when a church is lukewarm (as it says in the Book of Revelation) God will spit them out.

I am reminded of the Divine Mercy Novena. Our Lord dedicates the Ninth Day to this group:

Ninth Day
"Today bring to Me the Souls who have become Lukewarm,
and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. These souls wound My Heart most painfully. My soul suffered the most dreadful loathing in the Garden of Olives because of lukewarm souls. They were the reason I cried out: 'Father, take this cup away from Me, if it be Your will.' For them, the last hope of salvation is to run to My mercy."
Most compassionate Jesus, You are Compassion Itself. I bring lukewarm souls into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart. In this fire of Your pure love, let these tepid souls who, like corpses, filled You with such deep loathing, be once again set aflame. O Most Compassionate Jesus, exercise the omnipotence of Your mercy and draw them into the very ardor of Your love, and bestow upon them the gift of holy love, for nothing is beyond Your power.

Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon lukewarm souls who are nonetheless enfolded in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. Father of Mercy, I beg You by the bitter Passion of Your Son and by His three-hour agony on the Cross: Let them, too, glorify the abyss of Your mercy. Amen.

The Parable of the Sower

1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Matthew 13: 1 - 23

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If Christ is in your heart, He will complete the work He began in you.

If He is never invited into one's heart, that process never began.

I’m just not into singing every 30 seconds like an off key version of Glee. It’s some lame way of “being modern”.

I’m not into shaking hands, but it’s better than singing to them.

I don’t need a bunch of guitars, pianos and musical arrangements.

What I need is nourishment for my soul and a message from the Bible given to me by someone educated in the Catholic religion before the communist and homosexuals took over.

A simple ceremony to gather us, profess our faith, ask for God’s forgiveness and thank him for all his gifts. To pray for the sick, injured and less fortunate and then the two readings from the Bible then the Gospel, the homily, profession of faith, give some charity, get communion and out the door.

Confession needs to be in secret like it used to be and as far as selling annulments to the Kennedy’s and hiding homosexual predators... I hope there is a nice corner of hell next to Hitler, Mengele, Stalin, Jack the Ripper for a little party with those hypocritical piles of feces.

I loved being a Catholic. I was a terrible Catholic and fell away. It took almost 30 years and the way was shown for me to find my way back to the Lord. But when I stepped back into the church it was a shock. I knew most of the prayers and ceremony but all the extra crap was just odd. I figured that it wasn’t a Catholic problem it was a “me” problem. So I pray and hope that God finds a way to show me another way that nourishes me and strengthens my faith.

As my father said when we last spoke of the subject, “ the Church is the Church.. men come and go. They have all the failings and flaws of any man. I don’t worship the man, I worship the Lord and my church is the Catholic Church.”

Well, we talked about the Catholic church a little bit awhile back, if you recall. You probably also remember I’m not Catholic, but I will take the liberty to reply since I believe that anytime the name of the Lord is mentioned it’s the concern of every Christian.

I would say that the top thing is how the Catholic church regards God’s Word. Most of all, it doesn’t take some things literally, like the Creation account. But, as I’ve seen it pointed out many times, that makes sense. In both Genesis and the Gospels, genealogies are given. For the Creation story just to be symbolic, that would mean that those genealogies are wrong. And, if death came into the world before the fall of man, then what the Bible says about Jesus as Savior is wrong in many places. To begin with, the world would have been fallen before the fall of man.

As I also told you before, I’m from a very Catholic area in NY state (about 80%). I say this with all humility, wanting to offend no one, but from my experiences here, I’ve grown to not agree with many of the teachings of the Catholic church. I grew up in a pretty liberal Lutheran church, and tried that and the Catholic church when I got older, and even considered it a few years ago, so it’s not like I haven’t been open to it. I also have a Catholic relative so I’ve learned a lot about it and heard a lot of EWTN programs. What I have found is that to me it doesn’t follow the Bible in many other ways, too, and polling has shown that Catholics know very little about it, while evangelicals know much more.

In Ephesians 6 Christians are commanded to “take up the whole armor of God,” including “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” The New Testament especially is filled with things that God wants us to know, and by knowing them we know Him better. Being in the church I was, and in this area, we were never told to read the Bible either, and I see that as a great loss and tragedy. This area, too, where the Catholic church dominates, really is like Europe. It’s left Christianity. In all my over 40 years here, I never knew anyone, up until very recently, to bring up the Lord or show a concern for living for Him in any way except one Jehovah’s Witness I knew in high school. Knowledge of God and desiring to do His will just isn’t there, even though many people say that they’re Christian and that they pray about things. They do so, but they also will make the crudest sexual jokes, go to psychics and strip clubs, and believe that even their grandchildren should live together to try a relationship out. Someone who considers sex outside of marriage a sin here will be considered a religious nut or an alien. What does make a difference to many people who believe in Jesus, though, is to see for themselves what God has to say about things. And that makes our relationship with the Lord personal.

Another example of a problem is Catholic Charities. As I’ve mentioned on here a number of times, I lived briefly as a lesbian in my 20’s (and praise the Lord He delivered me out of it). A couple of times I went to Catholic Charities for counseling because of the troubles in my life. You don’t hear of people going to pastors for counseling, and many of them here will just refer you to psychological counseling, even though what you need is to draw closer to the Lord. While in that counseling with Catholic Charities both times, homosexuality was encouraged. Catholic Charities gives psychological counseling, according to the world’s beliefs, many of which go against Christian beliefs. I believe it’s wrong for the government to be forcing employers to provide birth control for their employees, and it really concerns me that they might get away with it, but I have to wonder how Catholic Charities can argue against that policy on religious grounds when they’re offering the worldly counseling that they do.

Other things killing the Catholic church in America are also killing and attacking many other churches, but the Catholic church, like many other churches, seem to be cooperating a great deal with these things.

As I said, I humbly bring these things up, and if I was offensive in any way in how I’ve said things, I apologize and ask forgiveness. But Jesus said that you’ll know them by their fruits, and how this area is and what I’ve experienced here says a lot to me.