Where is the Prodigal Son? (An Appeal to the Lost)
The facts are undeniable at this point, statistically speaking - conversions are at an all-time low in the Catholic Church, and this, ever since the Second Vatican Council.
As the decades wind down to bring us face-to-face with the inevitable Final Battle between Good and Evil, it seems that the window of God's Grace through which men used to find the truth of Catholicism is getting smaller and smaller.
In this way, it seems the Church is walking exactly in the footsteps of Her Divine Husband. When was it easiest to recognize Our Lord as being truly divine? At the high point of His ministry, when He was healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, etc.
When was it most difficult to see Him as being divine? Right near the end ... when He was bloodied, bruised, weak, and letting His life leak out of Him like any other mortal man would.
This is the Church, now, you see. She is experiencing the Passion of Christ in Her own body, which of course, is none other than the Body of Christ. His physical body suffered in agony - His mystical body must go and do likewise.
Who would convert now? The Church is in total disarray. There is an unheard of liberal faction in the Church - when has this ever been permitted before? The very men who would have been excommunicated 100 years ago are now promoted as professors in Catholic universities, accepted into the priesthood, even elevated to wear the red robes of the College of Cardinals.
What a confusing time!
Those who cling to the Traditions of the Church are persecuted, run underground, slandered and vilified by their own bishops ... who has ever seen anything like this?
In the middle stands the majority of souls in the Church, trying to maintain a "middle ground," all the while not realizing that there is no middle ground - you are with Christ or you are against Him; you are friends with the world or you are friends with God. But who to follow? The liberals who challenge every conceivable teaching of the Church, yet are still ostensibly (visibly, anyway) "in union" with the pope? Or the radical right-wingers who refuse to give up the traditional teachings of the Church, who refuse to practice anything but the traditional devotions and worship of the Church - and who, for their uncompromising stance, are accused by their bishops of being "not in union" with the pope?
***********************
I tell you, it makes being a Catholic apologist almost impossible. Imagine the conversation! ...
Yes, I want you to believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ, infallible in her teachings, and indefectible in her orthodoxy - oh, and by the way, once you've converted, I'm going to ask you to stay away from every Catholic parish in your city and instead drive 2 hours to a Latin Mass, and I'm going to warn you to be critical of anything your bishop or the pope says regarding conversion.
You must leave your Protestant mindset and submit to the Vicar of Christ - that is, when he teaches things in line with Catholic Tradition, which he rarely does at the moment.
Who would take me seriously?
Then again ... who would have taken me seriously in 33 AD? Imagine that conversation ...
Yes, you must believe that this Jesus is God, the divine son, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity - oh, and by the way, that's Him there on that cross, about to die. Yes, I know immortal deities aren't supposed to die, but please just trust me ... in three days, you'll see.
I can't explain it, but this is how God works. His mercy extends to the very last minute, but as we come closer to that defining moment when every man must decide whose side he is on, the blind will only get more blind. God will hide the truth from them, concealing it a little more each day.
The Church is in eclipse, it is true - but this is precisely God's judgment on an unbelieving world. You wouldn't come and believe while the Church was a spotless and shining beacon of truth - so that witness is slowly being dimmed. It will ever shine, but in the last days, its light will be but a flicker.
You had your chance.
The Eastern Orthodox have had nearly 1,000 years to get it straight. The Protestants have had 500 years to repent and come back home. God has shown mercy and patience to the Nth degree, practically bending over backwards to show the world the truth.
Count the signs since the Reformation alone! Did He not give the world St. Francis de Sales? Oh, but he lived in the 16th century, so what good is that now? Are his writings not preserved even today? Good God, for less than $50 you can have the witness of this saint before your eyes! His several short tracts in The Catholic Controversy are enough to convince any honest man of the truth, provided that man is not already been handed over to judicial blindness; and his Introduction to the Devout Life is enough to take that new convert into the path of sanctity once he has seen the sense of the first book mentioned.
Both books are available today, perhaps at $15 a piece. I would happily purchase them for you if you promised to read them with an open mind!
But moving on, what about Our Lady of Siluva, whose miraculous apparition resulted in the conversion of thousands during the aftermath of the Reformation? Have you never heard of her? Discharge your duty to seek the truth, then, and read about her!
Go back in history even further, if you will. No sooner had Luther and Calvin wrought their destruction than Our Lady mercifully intervened - did she not appear in 1531, in the very throes of the Reformation, as Our Lady of Guadalupe? Did she not leave evidence of the miracle by imprinting her image on the cloak of Juan Diego? Independent critics, secular and religous alike, have verified that this image cannot be explained by natural causes, and this very same image can be seen today at the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City!
And what of Our Lady's apparitions at Lourdes in the mid-19th Century? These apparitions resulted in TWO miracles! Not only have the miraculous water-baths at Lourdes been the cause of many supernatural healings, but the young saint to whom Our Lady appeared - St. Bernadette - is now on display in Nevers, France, as one of the few "incorruptible" saints of the Church.
That is, although she died decades ago, her body has not experienced decay. You can go to Nevers, France and see it for yourself! Proof that the Catholic Church is the Church of miracles, granted power from God in order to authenticate Her divine mission.
As if all of this were not enough, Our Lady appeared again in Fatima less than 100 years ago. Her final apparition there in October of 1917 was accompanied by a miracle - a miracle witnessed by 70,000 spectators, both secular and religious!
Yes, even in today's climate of confusion and disorientation, the Truth remains there for anyone who will do their part - as they are obliged by God to do - and look for it.
What does Our Lord say? Ask. Seek. Knock. Get out there and perform due dilligence, humbly asking in all sincerity to be shown the Truth. Those who ask, receive. Those who seek, find. Those who knock find the door being opened.
The trouble today? People are lazy. People are selfish. People are, above all, prejudiced and not given to a love of truth.
How are they lazy? They refuse to seek out the answers. A trip to Lourdes or Guadalupe should settle the matter - but, gosh, that would cut into our family trip to Disneyland. So the Mouse wins out over the Blessed Virgin - laziness.
How are they selfish? They expect God to knock them over the head, as if somehow they deserve special treatment. What He has revealed has been revealed for all. All have the equal opportunity to see the truth, not only revealed plainly in Scripture, but in the documents of history, in the writings of brilliant saints (such as St. Francis de Sales), and in the miracles of the Church that are still preserved for us today. What more do you require?
Well, some insist on more. Some insist on receiving their own personal Fatima, or Lourdes; they will not believe until God sends them a miraculous apparition or a miraculous sign - as if they alone in all the earth deserve special treatment, special graces, out-of-the-ordinary signs from God.
What selfishness and arrogance! They should be the ones crawling before God and begging Him to make them worthy enough to receive the Truth - instead, they presume themselves already worthy of signs and wonders, and insist that He come groveling to them with miracles before they will condescend to believe His Truth.
And how, finally, are they prejudiced? The word is a funny one: pre, meaning "before," and judica, meaning "to judge." They judge the case before they hear it. They purposefully look for reasons to not believe all that they see and hear, and are inordinately predisposed to give credence to the most unlikely excuses, so long as it gives them a reason to reject the Truth.
This is in the nature of Truth and Error. Truth is one; Truth is singular; Error is legion. The sky is blue - that is the truth, the only truth. But to say the sky is red, or green, or purple, or yellow, or orange - just now I have spoken five distinct and unique errors, none of them being true.
So it is with men considering the Catholic Faith - the truth is there, but it is singular. The errors and excuses which will present themselves, on the other hand, will be infinite. Only a deep love of Truth for the sake of Truth will cause a man to embrace the Catholic faith, even against his love of comfort.
Why do I pit truth against comfort?
Because it is the case - following the Truth will get you martyred every time. You may suffer an instantaneous and bloody martyrdom, or most likely you will suffer a prolonged and dry martyrdom (verbal persecutions, strange looks, etc.) - but either way you will be martyred.
Error is always easier to follow, is always more pleasurable in its immediate consequences. Sin is tempting precisely because it is pleasurable, and this applies to intellectual sin just as much as physical and corporal sin. Virtue, just as much as Truth, will present itself clearly as the obvious choice - but in a quiet sort of way; the multitude of vices and errors will shout for your attention and flash their wares before you in order to entice you away.
Which will you follow?
Men just do not love Truth the way they used to. Used to be that Truth was synonymous with honor, and it was considered a great disgrace to embrace an error or to follow a dishonesty purely for the sake of convenience. Such a thing would be detestable to an honorable Man of yester-year.
This is why a man would engage in polite and public debate! He knew that, if his opponent was an honest and virtuous man, he would gladly suffer the humiliation of having to publicly admit his error, for the sake of obtaining and holding to the Truth.
Today? Forget it! I get emails all the time from Protestants who want to "scrap" with me - but these are not men who are fond of truth. These are men who are fond of arguing, and even fonder of feeling as though they have "won" a "fight." They love their own egos, not the Truth.
They are not alone in this. There are even a good number of Catholic apologists today who are more interested in carving another notch on their "victory" wall than they are in seeing a fellow soul come to embrace the Truth. They love to extol the quality of their own arguments, and more than this they love to talk to other Catholics about their past "victories," when they used such-and-such an argument and "blew away" their opponent. These two classes of men deserve each other.
Meanwhile the world languishes on. Men love prejudice rather than Truth; Men are lazy; the Church is less and less the shining beacon it ought to be; the window of grace gets smaller and smaller; time continues to run out.
Which raises the question: why are you reading these words, right now? You didn't have to read this far, did you? But you did. Why? Do you suppose that God is even now extending a moment of grace to you, a moment that you are free to either accept or reject? Do you realize that in ten minutes, you will be killed in an unforeseen accident?
You won't?
How do you know? You don't. That's the point. Why reject a moment of grace now, when you have absolutely zero assurance that another moment such as this will be yours in the future? God promises to forgive you as soon as you repent; He does not, however, promise you repeated opportunities to repent. You have this moment, and perhaps this will be your last. What will you do with it?
Do you wonder what you should do? Find a priest who will uncompromisingly give you the Truth, the full and undiluted Traditional teaching of the Holy Church - if you wish to test him, you can ask him one simple question: "Father, must I join the Catholic Church in order to be saved?" If he says yes, then your search is over. If he says no, thank him, and keep looking for a priest who won't sell you short.
But find that priest, and then ask him to hear your confession; renounce your errors and swear before God to cling to everything the Catholic Church teaches. Go and buy yourself a $2.50 Rosary and start invoking the prayers of the Mother of God. Find a Traditional Mass where you can receive the Most Holy Eucharist while kneeling in adoration. Start living a life of penance to make restitution for the many years you have wasted.
Go ahead - seize this moment of grace and spend every last drop of it to show God you're not totally ungrateful for His mercy.
Or will you ignore Him yet again, causing Him to say as He did in the gospels, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you!"
That's your choice; it always has been. But please don't say that I didn't at least do my best to warn you.
St. Francis de Sales, pray for us.
Our Lady of Siluva, pray for us.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
OUr Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, pray for us.
St. Bernadette, pray for us.
All you holy saints and angels, pray for us.
Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
As the decades wind down to bring us face-to-face with the inevitable Final Battle between Good and Evil, it seems that the window of God's Grace through which men used to find the truth of Catholicism is getting smaller and smaller.
In this way, it seems the Church is walking exactly in the footsteps of Her Divine Husband. When was it easiest to recognize Our Lord as being truly divine? At the high point of His ministry, when He was healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, etc.
When was it most difficult to see Him as being divine? Right near the end ... when He was bloodied, bruised, weak, and letting His life leak out of Him like any other mortal man would.
This is the Church, now, you see. She is experiencing the Passion of Christ in Her own body, which of course, is none other than the Body of Christ. His physical body suffered in agony - His mystical body must go and do likewise.
Who would convert now? The Church is in total disarray. There is an unheard of liberal faction in the Church - when has this ever been permitted before? The very men who would have been excommunicated 100 years ago are now promoted as professors in Catholic universities, accepted into the priesthood, even elevated to wear the red robes of the College of Cardinals.
What a confusing time!
Those who cling to the Traditions of the Church are persecuted, run underground, slandered and vilified by their own bishops ... who has ever seen anything like this?
In the middle stands the majority of souls in the Church, trying to maintain a "middle ground," all the while not realizing that there is no middle ground - you are with Christ or you are against Him; you are friends with the world or you are friends with God. But who to follow? The liberals who challenge every conceivable teaching of the Church, yet are still ostensibly (visibly, anyway) "in union" with the pope? Or the radical right-wingers who refuse to give up the traditional teachings of the Church, who refuse to practice anything but the traditional devotions and worship of the Church - and who, for their uncompromising stance, are accused by their bishops of being "not in union" with the pope?
***********************
I tell you, it makes being a Catholic apologist almost impossible. Imagine the conversation! ...
Yes, I want you to believe that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ, infallible in her teachings, and indefectible in her orthodoxy - oh, and by the way, once you've converted, I'm going to ask you to stay away from every Catholic parish in your city and instead drive 2 hours to a Latin Mass, and I'm going to warn you to be critical of anything your bishop or the pope says regarding conversion.
You must leave your Protestant mindset and submit to the Vicar of Christ - that is, when he teaches things in line with Catholic Tradition, which he rarely does at the moment.
Who would take me seriously?
Then again ... who would have taken me seriously in 33 AD? Imagine that conversation ...
Yes, you must believe that this Jesus is God, the divine son, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity - oh, and by the way, that's Him there on that cross, about to die. Yes, I know immortal deities aren't supposed to die, but please just trust me ... in three days, you'll see.
I can't explain it, but this is how God works. His mercy extends to the very last minute, but as we come closer to that defining moment when every man must decide whose side he is on, the blind will only get more blind. God will hide the truth from them, concealing it a little more each day.
The Church is in eclipse, it is true - but this is precisely God's judgment on an unbelieving world. You wouldn't come and believe while the Church was a spotless and shining beacon of truth - so that witness is slowly being dimmed. It will ever shine, but in the last days, its light will be but a flicker.
You had your chance.
The Eastern Orthodox have had nearly 1,000 years to get it straight. The Protestants have had 500 years to repent and come back home. God has shown mercy and patience to the Nth degree, practically bending over backwards to show the world the truth.
Count the signs since the Reformation alone! Did He not give the world St. Francis de Sales? Oh, but he lived in the 16th century, so what good is that now? Are his writings not preserved even today? Good God, for less than $50 you can have the witness of this saint before your eyes! His several short tracts in The Catholic Controversy are enough to convince any honest man of the truth, provided that man is not already been handed over to judicial blindness; and his Introduction to the Devout Life is enough to take that new convert into the path of sanctity once he has seen the sense of the first book mentioned.
Both books are available today, perhaps at $15 a piece. I would happily purchase them for you if you promised to read them with an open mind!
But moving on, what about Our Lady of Siluva, whose miraculous apparition resulted in the conversion of thousands during the aftermath of the Reformation? Have you never heard of her? Discharge your duty to seek the truth, then, and read about her!
Go back in history even further, if you will. No sooner had Luther and Calvin wrought their destruction than Our Lady mercifully intervened - did she not appear in 1531, in the very throes of the Reformation, as Our Lady of Guadalupe? Did she not leave evidence of the miracle by imprinting her image on the cloak of Juan Diego? Independent critics, secular and religous alike, have verified that this image cannot be explained by natural causes, and this very same image can be seen today at the basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City!
And what of Our Lady's apparitions at Lourdes in the mid-19th Century? These apparitions resulted in TWO miracles! Not only have the miraculous water-baths at Lourdes been the cause of many supernatural healings, but the young saint to whom Our Lady appeared - St. Bernadette - is now on display in Nevers, France, as one of the few "incorruptible" saints of the Church.
That is, although she died decades ago, her body has not experienced decay. You can go to Nevers, France and see it for yourself! Proof that the Catholic Church is the Church of miracles, granted power from God in order to authenticate Her divine mission.
As if all of this were not enough, Our Lady appeared again in Fatima less than 100 years ago. Her final apparition there in October of 1917 was accompanied by a miracle - a miracle witnessed by 70,000 spectators, both secular and religious!
Yes, even in today's climate of confusion and disorientation, the Truth remains there for anyone who will do their part - as they are obliged by God to do - and look for it.
What does Our Lord say? Ask. Seek. Knock. Get out there and perform due dilligence, humbly asking in all sincerity to be shown the Truth. Those who ask, receive. Those who seek, find. Those who knock find the door being opened.
The trouble today? People are lazy. People are selfish. People are, above all, prejudiced and not given to a love of truth.
How are they lazy? They refuse to seek out the answers. A trip to Lourdes or Guadalupe should settle the matter - but, gosh, that would cut into our family trip to Disneyland. So the Mouse wins out over the Blessed Virgin - laziness.
How are they selfish? They expect God to knock them over the head, as if somehow they deserve special treatment. What He has revealed has been revealed for all. All have the equal opportunity to see the truth, not only revealed plainly in Scripture, but in the documents of history, in the writings of brilliant saints (such as St. Francis de Sales), and in the miracles of the Church that are still preserved for us today. What more do you require?
Well, some insist on more. Some insist on receiving their own personal Fatima, or Lourdes; they will not believe until God sends them a miraculous apparition or a miraculous sign - as if they alone in all the earth deserve special treatment, special graces, out-of-the-ordinary signs from God.
What selfishness and arrogance! They should be the ones crawling before God and begging Him to make them worthy enough to receive the Truth - instead, they presume themselves already worthy of signs and wonders, and insist that He come groveling to them with miracles before they will condescend to believe His Truth.
And how, finally, are they prejudiced? The word is a funny one: pre, meaning "before," and judica, meaning "to judge." They judge the case before they hear it. They purposefully look for reasons to not believe all that they see and hear, and are inordinately predisposed to give credence to the most unlikely excuses, so long as it gives them a reason to reject the Truth.
This is in the nature of Truth and Error. Truth is one; Truth is singular; Error is legion. The sky is blue - that is the truth, the only truth. But to say the sky is red, or green, or purple, or yellow, or orange - just now I have spoken five distinct and unique errors, none of them being true.
So it is with men considering the Catholic Faith - the truth is there, but it is singular. The errors and excuses which will present themselves, on the other hand, will be infinite. Only a deep love of Truth for the sake of Truth will cause a man to embrace the Catholic faith, even against his love of comfort.
Why do I pit truth against comfort?
Because it is the case - following the Truth will get you martyred every time. You may suffer an instantaneous and bloody martyrdom, or most likely you will suffer a prolonged and dry martyrdom (verbal persecutions, strange looks, etc.) - but either way you will be martyred.
Error is always easier to follow, is always more pleasurable in its immediate consequences. Sin is tempting precisely because it is pleasurable, and this applies to intellectual sin just as much as physical and corporal sin. Virtue, just as much as Truth, will present itself clearly as the obvious choice - but in a quiet sort of way; the multitude of vices and errors will shout for your attention and flash their wares before you in order to entice you away.
Which will you follow?
Men just do not love Truth the way they used to. Used to be that Truth was synonymous with honor, and it was considered a great disgrace to embrace an error or to follow a dishonesty purely for the sake of convenience. Such a thing would be detestable to an honorable Man of yester-year.
This is why a man would engage in polite and public debate! He knew that, if his opponent was an honest and virtuous man, he would gladly suffer the humiliation of having to publicly admit his error, for the sake of obtaining and holding to the Truth.
Today? Forget it! I get emails all the time from Protestants who want to "scrap" with me - but these are not men who are fond of truth. These are men who are fond of arguing, and even fonder of feeling as though they have "won" a "fight." They love their own egos, not the Truth.
They are not alone in this. There are even a good number of Catholic apologists today who are more interested in carving another notch on their "victory" wall than they are in seeing a fellow soul come to embrace the Truth. They love to extol the quality of their own arguments, and more than this they love to talk to other Catholics about their past "victories," when they used such-and-such an argument and "blew away" their opponent. These two classes of men deserve each other.
Meanwhile the world languishes on. Men love prejudice rather than Truth; Men are lazy; the Church is less and less the shining beacon it ought to be; the window of grace gets smaller and smaller; time continues to run out.
Which raises the question: why are you reading these words, right now? You didn't have to read this far, did you? But you did. Why? Do you suppose that God is even now extending a moment of grace to you, a moment that you are free to either accept or reject? Do you realize that in ten minutes, you will be killed in an unforeseen accident?
You won't?
How do you know? You don't. That's the point. Why reject a moment of grace now, when you have absolutely zero assurance that another moment such as this will be yours in the future? God promises to forgive you as soon as you repent; He does not, however, promise you repeated opportunities to repent. You have this moment, and perhaps this will be your last. What will you do with it?
Do you wonder what you should do? Find a priest who will uncompromisingly give you the Truth, the full and undiluted Traditional teaching of the Holy Church - if you wish to test him, you can ask him one simple question: "Father, must I join the Catholic Church in order to be saved?" If he says yes, then your search is over. If he says no, thank him, and keep looking for a priest who won't sell you short.
But find that priest, and then ask him to hear your confession; renounce your errors and swear before God to cling to everything the Catholic Church teaches. Go and buy yourself a $2.50 Rosary and start invoking the prayers of the Mother of God. Find a Traditional Mass where you can receive the Most Holy Eucharist while kneeling in adoration. Start living a life of penance to make restitution for the many years you have wasted.
Go ahead - seize this moment of grace and spend every last drop of it to show God you're not totally ungrateful for His mercy.
Or will you ignore Him yet again, causing Him to say as He did in the gospels, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you!"
That's your choice; it always has been. But please don't say that I didn't at least do my best to warn you.
St. Francis de Sales, pray for us.
Our Lady of Siluva, pray for us.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
OUr Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, pray for us.
St. Bernadette, pray for us.
All you holy saints and angels, pray for us.
Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
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