You want to hear a religious service filled front-to-back with scripture recitations, go the a Mass. Not just the readings, but the prayers and the psalms and the canon and the creed - all the discourse is scriptural. You want to hear a service filled with expressions of personal sentiment with Christian words thrown in now and again, go to an evangelical service (at least the ones I’ve been to). The songs and the sermons are sentimental effusions of emotion - great gushes of words - but are not as rich in the Word as the Mass. They are rich in sentiment and mawkish rephrasings to pump one up to see if one actually “feels” anything.
What a joke. I’ve heard expositional preaching that is nothing BUT scripture... in many, many non-Catholic churches. One can go in any church and hear non-Scriptural messages. My church sometimes has them too - they are always scriptural based but just not meaty. I’ve been to Catholic churches where the message was such a bunch of hooey I thought I was in a Unitarian church and let me assure you that my mother-in-law’s old church had a priest who regularly regaled them with tripe about how Satan was a figment and fantasy and not real and my poor mother-in-law fell for it hook, line and sinker. She argued and argued with me about this.
I believe that God’s children will always find his truth when in His true church. There are bastard churches in every single denomination that exists; churches that are being run by the Devil himself and I guarantee you that there are Catholic churches in that group.
I knew a man that was a pastor in a Methodist church. He had been preaching for years but didn’t know Christ - he had not experienced the circumcision of the heart. When he did, he was a new man and started preaching like he was on fire and the congregation did not like it and tried to get rid of him; we were all praying for him. At the time, I was attending a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church but working in a Southern Baptist Church. This church was as dead as a doornail.
Christ’s remnant is everywhere. I know Roman Catholics that are so spirit-filled and love the Lord with all their heart, mind and soul. I know charismatic Catholics. I also know Catholics that are completely dead too. Just like there are people in my own church that go through the rituals, the motions and everything else because they feel some kind of compunction to do so.
Tony Evans has one of my favorite quotes, “Where does the Devil sit?” “In the first pew.”
I think the Devil is up on a few Catholic (and Lutheran, and Episcopalian, and Methodist, and Presbyterian, and so on) altars too! Don’t be fooled Puddleglum.