A Strange Request

A young mother was dying of cancer. Her husband and two little children were at her bedside. Tommy was six, and his little sister Judy was four. They were very sad because they knew that their mother would never get well again.

Judy took her mother’s hand and said, “Mommy, what are we going to do when you’re gone?”

The mother was deeply touched by this tender love of her little daughter, and she reassured her, “Don’t worry, Judy, somebody else will take care of you. You’ll have everything that you need.”

Two big tears filled Judy’s large blue eyes as she pressed her mother’s hand to her heart. Then she exclaimed, “No, Mommy, we won’t have everything that we’ll need. We won’t have you. Mommy, please take out your heart and leave it here, because your heart means everything in the world to us.”

Judy’s mother died and was buried. Her heart was buried with her. Judy’s request was a strange one. Her mother couldn’t take out her heart and leave it with her.

What Judy’s mother couldn’t do, Jesus really did. When His apostles must have asked Him at the Last Supper, “Master, what are we going to do when You’re gone?” Jesus must have reassured them by saying, “I won’t leave you. My Sacred Heart will be with you in the Holy Eucharist. That Heart will mean everything in the world to you.” He was also speaking of the Holy Eucharist when he spoke his last words before ascending into heaven, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

In Protestant Christianity, they’re idea of Jesus being with us is nothing more than a vague idea that Jesus is everywhere because He’s God. While it’s certainly true that He’s everywhere, Jesus was being specific about His presence in the Church that He established—the Catholic Church. At the first Mass in the upper room on Holy Thursday Night, He gave us something that absolutely no Protestant religion has: the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist—body, blood, soul, and divinity. Christianity makes absolutely no sense without the Real Presence of Christ.

Pew Research and EWTN/Real Clear surveys tell us that 70% of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence. Based on my experience in this apostolate, I contend that it’s not that Catholics no longer believe, but that they never believed. Why would I say that? Simple: they’ve simply never been taught.

After Vatican II, Neo-modernists (who are basically Marxist) infiltrated the Church at every level of leadership—the episcopacy, the priesthood, and the chancery offices. The very first thing they did was to dumb down the catechism. They stopped teaching the fullness of Catholic truth and began teaching a false Marxist based form of so-called social justice. (The only real form of “social justice” is found in the corporal works of mercy in Matthew 25.) Because Catholics had always been taught to trust the hierarchy of the Church, the laity bought it all hook, line, and sinker.

Every week, I host free webinars in a series called Sharing the Catholic Faith. Without fail, every attendee that I’ve ever had has told me that they learn all sorts of things they never knew before, and some of them go so far as to say that these webinars are like going to a Catholic college on catechesis. That’s sad, because everything I teach in these webinars are exactly what Catholic eighth graders had to know in order to graduate from Catholic school seventy years ago. So this is some pretty damnable evidence that catechesis has been really dumbed down.

You’re not going to like what I tell you next, especially if you consider yourself a well-catechized Catholic. I was speaking on the phone with Michael Voris of ChurchMilitant.com one day and I told him that I believed that at least 95% of Catholics are wholly or almost wholly ignorant of the Catholic faith. He responded that I was being entirely too charitable. About two weeks later I was interviewing Terry Barber, co-host of the popular Terry & Jesse Radio Show, and I related to him my conversation with Voris. Terry told me that Voris was right: I was being entirely too charitable.

Not only did a Judas-like hierarchy dumb down catechesis, but they also began to do all they could to divest the lay faithful of any belief in the Real Presence by making them believe there was nothing special about the Holy Eucharist. Prior to Vatican II, the only way to receive Communion was on the tongue while kneeling before your Savior and Creator. And only a priest, whose hands were consecrated at his ordination, could communicate the Sacred Host. Now the Eucharist is handed out like candy to the faithful by other laymen. Message sent: the Eucharist can’t be anything very special. Well, message received! 

Prior to Vatican II confession lines on Saturday were typically as long or longer than Communion lines on Sunday. Thanks to the message sent that the Eucharist isn’t anything special, there are only a few people (if any) in confession lines on Saturday, but everybody goes to Communion on Sunday. Again, message received.

Catholic politicians who promote platforms antithetical to Church teaching—e.g., abortion and the LGBT agenda—are permitted to receive Communion sacrilegiously, despite the fact that Canon 915 forbids it. Again, message received.

Every single Catholic in America has been cheated, deceived, and stolen from. You haven’t been taught the faith. That’s why I’m extending an invitation. Either go here and enter your name and email in the provided form, or send me an email at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com and tell me to add it for you. You’ll begin receiving an email course of short lessons every three days in your inbox. You’ll also begin to get invitations to the free webinars. Join us, won’t you?

It’s not enough to simply know the faith. Satan knows the Catholic faith better than any of us ever will, but it does him no good. You also have to live it. You can’t live what you don’t know. So take me up on my offer and begin learning what every Catholic eighth grader should know. Again, send me an email at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com and tell me to add your name and email for you. You won’t regret it!