Losing a generation

We are losing a generation... again. We are letting our youth slip right through our fingers into the waiting jaws of a culture that wants to eat them alive, and we are sitting back and watching. Some of us don't lift a finger because we are ignorant and don't know any better – but that doesn't reduce the blame. Some of us sit idly by, while are children are watered down only to seep into a culture that wants to sexually abuse them and twist their hearts and minds into believing that sexual perversion is a matter of fun vs. boring. And still, others of us sit back in the name of civility and politeness, not wanting to disrupt the status quo.

WHAT IN GOD's NAME ARE WE THINKING?!? 

Mostly, us men are to blame. We are a weak and effeminate bunch of pansies. We could wage a war against smurfs! It is no wonder are daughters are getting pregnant, having abortions, and becoming hooked on birth control and consumerism. And our sons? Dear Lord in Heaven, they are a bunch of rude and disrespectful heathens that don't the difference between beauty and perversion. It pains me to even blame our children because their sins are simply being passed on from our failing hands. What a disgrace we are to the greatest gift we could ever receive from God. And where is the safeguard against all of this - our Church? She sits and mourns while our Catechetical leaders feebly attempt to make the Faith relevant, but doing nothing more than feeding our children a putrid form of heresy and heterodoxy.

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upsetting the natural order

This all stems from a 10 minute "talk" that I gave tonight to the boys from our parish going on a mission trip. The talk wasn't theological - at least not in its content. It was about modesty, appropriate dress, proper conduct around females, and representing themselves as upright gentlemen. Very basic, straightforward and simple. Shortly after this meeting, I received a bunch of text messages from one of the guys telling me that he wished I could teach his confirmation class, and that the rest of the guys agreed. I was floored. I was both humbled and upset. I was upset because it would never, ever, come to be.

Now don't get me wrong – I do not think I am qualified nor do I know enough to instruct our youth, but at least I am wise enough to know that, unlike those currently doing so. I do know though that if someone like myself were to be in that position the kids would learn something. They would learn something real, something authentic, and they would be forced to choose between the Truth and ignoring it. They wouldn't be given a Faith that would allow them to make excuses as to why they didn't adhere to certain precepts. They wouldn't find themselves in college despising their religion out of ignorance. 

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letting them slip away

I don't get it. We work so hard to give our children everything under the sun, yet the one thing we should be focusing on – we don't. I don't understand how we have a generation of Catholics that are Confirmed having never prayed a Rosary, or gone to Adoration, not knowing the Beatitudes, having no clue what the Fruits or Gifts of the Holy Spirit are, or even really knowing what the Mass is. It is great that we get our youth to Soup Kitchens, Mission Trips, and expose them to lots of culturally Catholic things like that  - but without any theological base they have no way of relating back to their faith! These things become empty stand alone memories, and only foster a modernist understanding of a spiritually forward faith with no need for structure or religious infrastructure.

We need to get off our butts and quit being lazy and wimpy. Statistics are dire. Chances are if you have  3 kids, you'll be lucky if one turns out to be a practicing Catholic. The real scary part is that statistics are backwards looking, so that means this current generation might be the source for even worse stats. And what do we do? We sit back and hope they turn out ok. Do we even know what they are being taught? Do we ever sit in on their classes? Oh I know, that episode of Grey's Anatomy was really important. 

Gosh - it is so frustrating. Knowing we are losing a generation to apathy and modernism. It is no wonder so many people think we should have womyn priests, gay marriage, and liturgical innovation. It is probably being taught and cultivated right under our noses. We spend more time and money buying our children designer clothes to make them look the best, but don't expend anywhere near those resources in helping our children learn the faith to ensure they don't burn eternally in a lake of fire. We are losing a generation thanks to our apathy and laziness. Time to wake up and defend the ranks! 

We need better Catechists. "Doing my best..." isn't good enough. We need Truth, we need orthodox teachings, we need theology, we need understanding, we need passion! We need to care about the eternal souls of our children. We must demand the authenticity of the faith be taught to our children. We must not accept the hogwash of modernism that is passed off on our children as a legitimate interpretation of 2000+ years of tradition and intellectual pursuit. It starts in the home - we must be the guardians of faith and knowledge, but we must also demand that those that are entrusted with presenting the faith to our children adhere to the Truth that is the teachings of Holy Mother Church. We must reclaim our children and we must reclaim the Catholic faith. We must war against the powers and principalities that have slithered their way into our midst and stomp on the heads of the demons with our heels crushing the vile life that seeks to inject the venom of relativism in our children. We must call on the Angels and SAints to wage ferocity on the demons that prowl the halls of our parishes seeking to ruin the souls of our children. We must reclaim the generation that is being lost!

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