What About the Lukewarm?

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There was a reading today about the lukewarm. I have a lot of friends who are not Catholic and as a matter of fact don’t attend church at all. Yet they claim to believe in God. They are very wonderful and nice people. What does the church say about such people? Will our natural virtue help us to get to heaven?
 
Your natural virtue will not help you get to heaven. That sounds like earning your way to heaven to me. However, I do not think that just because these people do not have a church you can assume they are lukewarm. Wonderful and nice people can still end up in Hell. Get busy helping these wonderful people find a church home to help them persevere until the end.

A joke that I heard during my fundamental days, that I think more Catholics need to think about more often:

A pastor was talking to one of the husband’s of one of his flock. He asked him if he drank. “no sir, not a drop”. Did he smoke, “Never!” Did he fool around on his wife? Cheat on his taxes? Look at porn? The man answered him, " I don’t do any of those things!"

The pastor looked him straight in the eye and said, “Well then, you’re going to hell for nothing!”

Just because a person is nice and believes in God does not mean they will go to heaven, but just because they don’t go to church does not mean they will go to hell. But they ought to want to go to church. (Another saying from my fundamental days:D )

God Bless,
Maria
 
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safety14:
There was a reading today about the lukewarm. I have a lot of friends who are not Catholic and as a matter of fact don’t attend church at all. Yet they claim to believe in God. They are very wonderful and nice people. What does the church say about such people? Will our natural virtue help us to get to heaven?
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If you have ever done the Divine Mercy Novena you will see a reference to the lukewarm > ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/novena.htm

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." **
 
Today’s reading from Revelation 3:14-16 isn’t very encouraging for the lukewarm:
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 "To the angel of the church in Laodicea, 1 write this: " 'The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the source of God's creation, says this:
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"I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot.
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12 So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
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One of the books instrumental in turning me around from I’m OK You’re OK Catholic to believing, practicing Catholic is called The Good Enough Catholic, I want to say it is by Paul Wilkes, correct me if I’m wrong. Since I always heard we are all supposed to try for holiness and sainthood, and he makes it sound like this is absurd for most people, it really woke me up. He basically recommends lukewarmness as the way for Catholics to get through life with the minimum of demands on behavior, attitude, virtue and holiness. In clearing books out preparatory to a move, I offered it to my parish library. Even my liberal pastor refused to have the book around, saying it denied everything the faith stands for.
 
Hi,

Yes, I know many people like that too. They all have some vague understanding about God, hell etc. And if they believe in Heaven, they are definitely going. They are insane to live this way. They don’t seem to understand that to have eternal life you must walk the narrow path. They never seem to make a sincere effort to discover the truth, but drift aimlessly through life. They are on the path to perdition, generally speaking. Because thats what our Lord told us. Ofcourse we can’t judge individuals. We have to do what we can to help these people get on the right track.

Yours in Jesus, Mary & Joseph,

John
Saints are just sinners who keep trying.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon7.gif
 
one thing to realize about the spiritual journey is that it’s not easy. taking up our cross daily, dying to ourselves daily - this is part of becoming citizens of heaven. the lukewarm are, in effect, disqualifying themselves from the ‘race’ by not preparing. Jesus said things like ‘the way is narrow and difficult to enter’ and ‘he who endures to the end will be saved’.

think about it in terms of persecution - when a time comes, as it often does (historically speaking), when we must make a decision between Christ and our physical lives, the lukewarm aren’t likely to, as indiana jones did, ‘choose wisely’.
 
Well, I’ve been a lukewarm Catholic in the past: one of those people who never actually rejected the faith but also never worked at it very much, i.e. not praying often, skipping Mass, not going to confession for years, etc. Eventually I began to realize that if I truly believed it, I should take it seriously or else I should be prepared to reject it outright (something I was NOT going to do). I still have a long way to go in terms of prayer life, etc., but I can safely say that I stand up to be counted.

Unfortunately, many Catholics of my generation suffered from this & I really think it had to do with the fact that we were poorly catechized. We were raised in the late 60s & 70s when the prevalent attitude was to make Christianity seem peaceful, happy, & nice - and not go any deeper than that. Then, we went out to face a world that became increasingly hostile to the faith & so it was far too easy for us to be nominal or lukewarm about it. Now, within the past few years, we’ve been confronted with an unprecedented, publicly condoned hatred of what we believe and it’s made many of us think hard about it. That was my story, anyway: I’ve lived in a predominately Catholic city all my life and never encountered any personal, face-to-face attacks until a couple of years ago. That was a wake-up call.
 
Some pretty strong words spoken by the Lord. Being lukewarm is worst than being hot or cold. Of course Jesus is speaking to us about our spiritual condition here. In the natural we would think lukewarm is pretty good. Let us pray that we can move out of that spiritual tempeture and move into the position that we will be on FIRE for the Lord.Now thats HOT!!! 👍 God Bless
 
Dear friends

To remain lukewarm is neither here nor there, , it’s a state of limbo, it is Catholicism for performing the motions, without it entering the heart.

I like the lukewarm, they have the possibility of becoming raging HOT. Personally when I speak about God to the lukewarm , I can see the lights going on brighter, they start to burn a little! The lukewarm remain so because they do not take the time to look a little closer at their faith and learn more about it and that is the reason why, once things dawn in the mind, then they can dawn in the heart and the lukewarm who do heat up tend to heat up to VERY hot!😃 It’s a journey in Christ, we were all lukewarm at some stage or another in our faiths, we did not burn hot from day one, it is those who remain lukewarm all of their life our Lord is referring to…because they knew and never looked any further than through the door, instead of stepping fully through the door.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
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Teresa9:
Dear friends

To remain lukewarm is neither here nor there, , it’s a state of limbo, it is Catholicism for performing the motions, without it entering the heart.

I like the lukewarm, they have the possibility of becoming raging HOT. Personally when I speak about God to the lukewarm , I can see the lights going on brighter, they start to burn a little! The lukewarm remain so because they do not take the time to look a little closer at their faith and learn more about it and that is the reason why, once things dawn in the mind, then they can dawn in the heart and the lukewarm who do heat up tend to heat up to VERY hot!😃 It’s a journey in Christ, we were all lukewarm at some stage or another in our faiths, we did not burn hot from day one, it is those who remain lukewarm all of their life our Lord is referring to…because they knew and never looked any further than through the door, instead of stepping fully through the door.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
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Well said sister Teresa. 👍 God Bless.
 
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MariaG:
Your natural virtue will not help you get to heaven. That sounds like earning your way to heaven to me. However, I do not think that just because these people do not have a church you can assume they are lukewarm. Wonderful and nice people can still end up in Hell. Get busy helping these wonderful people find a church home to help them persevere until the end.

A joke that I heard during my fundamental days, that I think more Catholics need to think about more often:

A pastor was talking to one of the husband’s of one of his flock. He asked him if he drank. “no sir, not a drop”. Did he smoke, “Never!” Did he fool around on his wife? Cheat on his taxes? Look at porn? The man answered him, " I don’t do any of those things!"

The pastor looked him straight in the eye and said, “Well then, you’re going to hell for nothing!”

Just because a person is nice and believes in God does not mean they will go to heaven, but just because they don’t go to church does not mean they will go to hell. But they ought to want to go to church. (Another saying from my fundamental days:D )

God Bless,
Maria
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:rotfl: :rotfl: Wow, that is one of the funniest jokes I have heard in a while.
 
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