I Know When the “Rapture” will happen…
Surely we’ve all seen the news about the predicted date for the Rapture. Spoiler—it already passed. If you haven’t, here is the original video. Rather surprisingly, “Pastor” Joshua Mhlakela was incorrect in his prediction. Now, why was that? Easy! He clearly wasn’t listening to the SPIRIT! But—fear not. For those still looking for their cosmic Uber ride, we here at Living Catholic can tell you EXACTLY when the Rapture is going to happen so read on…
But—before we get there we really have to get into that Protestant Evangelical Mindset so LEMME TAKE YOU TO CHURCH AND LEMME PREACH!!
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[paces stage in $4000 striped suit, and wipes sweaty brow with over-sized handkerchief]
BROTHERS AND SISTERS CAN I GET A AMEN?! YOUR BREAKTHROUGH IS JUST ONE SEED OFFERING AWAY! CALL OUR PRAYER LINE TO MAKE YOUR OFFERING!
I stand before you today with a DEE-VINE revelation hotter than a Chick-fil-A sandwich on Friday in Lent: I’VE BEEN TOLD NOT JUST THE DAY but the very HOUR that the Rapture is A-COMIN!
CAN I GET A WITNESS AND AN AMEN?! WE AIN’T WATCHING FOR NO UNDERTAKER! WE’RE PRAYIN’ FOR OUR UPPERTAKER!
That’s right CHURCH—I’ve cracked the code. Forget Harold Camping, forget those Left Behind novels and bad Kirk Cameron movies! Forget all them YouTube preachers with their Scofield Bibles, Dispensation Theology, bad lighting and striped suits and Miracle Water! [do not ingest]
ARE YOU WITH ME? DO YOU FEEEEL THE LORD UP IN HERE CHURCH? HELP ME PREACH IT CHURCH! HELP ME PREACH!
I NEED SOMEONE TO SHOUT HALLELUJIAH!
ARE YOU READY CHURCH? DO YOU FEEL ME?!
IF YOU HEAR ME, TURN TO YO’ NEIGHBOR AND SAY: “NEIGHBOR! IT’S YO’ SEASON”
SOMEONE READIN’ THIS ABOUT TO GET A BLESSING!
OUR LORD DIDN’T BRING YOU THIS FAR TO LEAVE YOU HANGIN’ WIT THEM PAGANS!
The exact day of the Rapture is:
THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH OF:
Never.
[insert Price is Right Losing Horn or Click Here.]
That’s right. Never. It’s not gonna happen. It’s a scam. It’s what happens when people stop listening to Christ’s Church and appoint themselves Magisterium, discard 1800 years of Tradition and wind up peddling Miracle Water. [again, do not ingest]
Now, pass the plate. We’re done here.
How the Scam Started
Let’s stop pretending this Rapture business is “Biblical.” Nobody in the first eighteen centuries of Christianity said, “Yeah, Jesus is gonna show up, suck us into the sky like a divine Roomba, and leave the pagans behind to fight Mad Max.” Not Augustine, not Jerome, not Chrysostom, not Aquinas. The Apostles didn’t teach it, the martyrs didn’t die for it, and the Fathers certainly never footnoted it with, “See Kirk Cameron, Left Behind, Vol. 1–16.”
Nope. This circus act was dreamt up in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby—an Englishman with the theological instincts of a used-car salesman. Darby took St. Paul’s beautiful teaching about the Parousia (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17) and decided to stage it like a two-act Broadway show: “First the Rapture, then the Second Coming!” Basically, he turned the Gospel into a Marvel franchise: “Jesus: Endgame, Part I” followed by “Jesus: Endgame, Part II.”
Problem? The Fathers and Doctors of the Church unanimously knew better. St. Augustine, in City of God (Book XX, ch. 7), ridiculed millenarian speculations as carnal delusions. St. Thomas Aquinas taught plainly that the Second Coming is one, singular event: “There will be one coming of Christ to judgment, not many” (ST, Suppl. Q.73, Art. 1). The Nicene Creed—recited by Catholics for 1,700 years—didn’t leave room for “the secret rapture of believers” or “pre-trib evacuation packages.” It says: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.” That’s one Coming, not two.
So if you’re waiting for the Rapture, you’re not following Jesus Christ or the Apostles. You’re following Darby, a man whose greatest theological contribution was inventing Scofield Bible footnotes and single-handedly ruining Protestant Sunday schools for generations. Thanks to him, entire denominations now spend their Bible studies diagramming timelines that look like conspiracy boards from a bad Netflix docuseries.
Let’s be blunt: Darby was the Joseph Smith of eschatology—a man who confused his own imagination with divine revelation. And just like Smith, he left behind a movement that spawned endless splinter groups, each one trying to out-predict the other. Harold Camping, Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey—every one of them is standing on Darby’s shoulders, shouting at the clouds and waiting for their personal space elevator to Heaven.
The Church, meanwhile, stays sober, steady, and consistent. The Catechism (CCC §675–677) teaches that the Church must endure her final trial, that the Antichrist will appear, and then—only then—Christ will return in glory. Not in secret. Not in phases. Not in a pilot episode with a season finale seven years later.
In other words: the Catholic faith offers a Cross, a fight, and a crown. Darby offered a get-out-of-tribulation-free card and a bad fan-fiction ending. Guess which one sounds more like Christ?
What the Church Actually Teaches
The Catholic Church—Christ’s one true Church, the only Church He actually founded (cf. Matthew 16:18, “Upon this rock I will build My Church”)—teaches exactly what Christ Himself taught, without the Darby add-ons, Scofield study notes, or apocalyptic fan fiction.
Matthew 24:36 — “But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.” Translation: Jesus didn’t give us a date. He didn’t tell us to draw prophecy charts, host “rapture countdown” conferences, or binge-watch YouTube prophets with mullets. He told us to be ready.
Catechism of the Catholic Church §675–677 — The Church will endure a final trial. That means persecution, apostasy, Antichrist, and tribulation. Then—and only then—Christ will return visibly and gloriously. Not invisibly, not in two parts, not like a sneak peek at Comic-Con. One final, glorious Coming.
Nicene Creed — For 1,700 years, every Catholic in every corner of the world has professed this: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.” Notice the absence of fine print. No “terms and conditions may apply.” No “pre-trib optional.” No “secret evacuation for people who bought Kirk Cameron’s devotional guide.”
What’s Missing
Notice what’s glaringly absent: any mention of a “beam me up, Jesus” event for comfortable suburban megachurch goers who tithed faithfully, wore WWJD bracelets, and bought the DVD box set of Left Behind.
The Fathers of the Church never said, “First, the righteous will be snatched into the sky like helium balloons, and then seven years later Jesus will make His real appearance.” St. John Chrysostom, preaching on 1 Thessalonians 4, taught that the faithful will go forth to meet Christ in the air as a royal escort accompanying Him back in His triumphal arrival—just as Roman citizens went out to meet a conquering general returning to the city. No evacuation. No spiritual Uber ride. Just the majestic Second Coming.
St. Augustine laughed off these fantasies, calling them “too carnal” (City of God, 20.7). Aquinas doubled down: Christ comes once, visibly, for judgment (ST, Suppl. Q.73, Art. 1). The Church has repeated it ever since.
The Catholic Reality
Here’s the reality: Christ promised us a Cross (Luke 9:23), not a pre-trib helicopter out of town. He gave us the Sacraments as weapons, not beanbag chairs in the sky. The saints didn’t get raptured; they got martyred. They didn’t get beamed up; they got torn apart, burned, crucified, exiled—and they embraced it for Christ.
So what does the Church teach? That we endure trials, stay faithful, and wait in hope for His one, final, glorious Coming. Not a two-part miniseries. Not a Darby-sponsored doomsday flight. Just the King returning in glory, and every knee bowing (Philippians 2:10).
Preacher Parody Time
Now picture this with me—your average Rapture preacher at the pulpit:
“Brothers, sisters, cousins twice removed, the Lord’s chariot is warming up in the celestial garage! Any day now, He’s gonna swoop down, grab us all by the armpits, and haul us skyward like helium balloons at the Macy’s Parade! Praise God, we’ll be outta here before things get rough!”
Translation: “I don’t actually want to carry a cross like Jesus told us to (Luke 9:23). I want my salvation to come with free shipping and no suffering required.”—like a Divine Amazon Prime subscription.
The Comedy of Rapture Culture
Rapture believers act like they’ve been handed elite boarding passes, strutting past the rest of humanity with their shiny “pre-trib platinum status.” They imagine themselves sipping heavenly champagne in first class while the rest of us slog it out in the back row of economy with the Antichrist tossing out peanuts and charging extra for checked baggage.
And of course, they’ll tell you with a straight face that this is “Biblical.” Sure. Just like VeggieTales is Biblical.
The Bumper Sticker Gospel
And don’t even get me started on those bumper stickers: “In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned.” Cute. Adorable, even. If bumper stickers were doctrine, we’d all be saved by reading, “Honk if you love Jesus.” Unfortunately, salvation doesn’t come through honking—it comes through Baptism, the Eucharist, and perseverance (cf. Mark 16:16; John 6:53; Matthew 24:13). But hey, at least the Rapture crowd has mastered car evangelization.
The Left Behind Obsession
Then there are the Left Behind novels—the Harry Potter of bad theology: wildly popular, terrible for your soul, and full of made-up nonsense. Except, of course, J.K. Rowling had the decency to shelve her work under fiction. Tim LaHaye? He shelved his alongside actual Bibles, as though his paperback airport thrillers were the lost epistles of St. Paul.
People devour these novels like they’re spiritual fast food, and then walk away with indigestion of the soul. LaHaye basically weaponized Darby’s 19th-century fever dream, sprinkled in some soap-opera romance, and sold it to millions of American Protestants who prefer Tom Clancy plotlines to Catholic dogma.
Cultural Absurdities
Rapture culture doesn’t just distort theology—it creates an entire subculture of religious absurdities—for a fee of course:
Prophecy charts that look like rejected subway maps.
Sermons that sound more like weather forecasts: “Chances of Rapture are high this September, folks!”
YouTube prophets who predict dates as confidently as used-car dealers promising a warranty.
Christian Rapture kits sold online with canned beans, duct tape, and King James Bibles—because apparently the Lamb’s Supper isn’t enough, but Spam is.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church just calmly keeps saying what it’s always said: Christ will return once, in glory, to judge the living and the dead. No charts, no stickers, no novels, no nonsense. Just the Truth.
The Bottom Line
Here’s the Truth: there is no “Rapture.” There is only the Second Coming—one glorious, terrifying, all-encompassing event where Christ judges the living and the dead. Everyone will see it. Everyone will be there. No sneak previews, no limited releases.
So if you’re still clinging to this Rapture fantasy, you might as well believe Bigfoot is showing up at the same time to hand out free Chick tracts.
So when’s the Rapture? Never. Never, never, never. If you want to be ready for Christ’s return, don’t pack a bug-out bag and watch the sky like a doomsday weatherman. Go to Confession. Pray your Rosary. Receive the Eucharist. Live as though judgment is tomorrow—because it might be.
Until then, stop waiting for your cosmic Uber ride. Christ didn’t promise us a Rapture. He promised us a Cross, a Church, and eternal life—if we stay faithful.