I start with friends first, because my family is heavily Christian. I suggest to not to force evangelization too much directly but start by inviting them and showing them the love of Christ.
Merry Christmas!
My wife and I invited my mother to go to Mass with us one Sunday. She went and peace immediately descended upon her when she walked into the church. She is now going through RCIA and is converting to Catholicism. We are very happy for her. (Now we’re working on my sister .)
On the other hand, my wife invited a friend to Mass. We’ll call my wife’s friend “Jane” for the purpose of this post. Jane immediately loved everything in the church except for one thing - the people. Jane reported that she would have loved to convert to Catholicism, but the people in the Parish were aloof and unwelcoming. She smiled at several and did not receive smiles in return. Jane felt she was unwelcome. I found this odd as I find our Parish to be extremely welcoming. Jane decided Catholicism was not for her based on the reception. Perhaps Jane was attending for the wrong reason - a more social event? I’m not sure.
I would follow pulchraesamicamea’s advice of beginning with friends and family and just invite them to Mass with you a few times. Either the Holy Spirit will speak to them, as the Holy Spirit spoke to my mother, or not.
I had a similar experience but I ignored it reminding myself that I was there to have a relationship with God rather than people. Two years later and I receive lots of return smiles now. Someone said the other day that Catholics may tend towards introversion and I think that’s true, for my part I do often feel that my Catholicism is actually private if you see what I mean.
As far as evangelising is concerned, I managed to convince a very reluctant atheist to help me change a lightbulb in my church last evening! It’s a start.
I am a supervisor at work and 50 years old. I was in my cubicle when I heard a young (29) supervisor discussing his appointment to get “fixed” with our senior supervisor. This young man and his wife have two children and are christians. They sacrifice so that the wife can stay at home with their children. It was clear to me that he had no idea that what he was bout to do was a grave evil. I told him that he didn’t need to be “fixed” and that his body and his wife’s body were working exactly as God had designed for them. I mentioned that less than 100 years ago all major Christan denominations believed artificial contraception was a grave sin. I mentioned that the Catholic church has beautiful teachings on the human body and that Pope John Paul II gave several teaching sermons on how God reveals Himself through the human body. I suggested that he look into it a little more. This was about 18 months ago.
I knew back then that this man did cancel the vasectomy after discussing it with his wife. They are open to doing God’s will. They moved away shortly after that and I have very limited contact so I didn’t know what they eventually decided, until last week. His wife posted her baby bump on Facebook.
It is humbliing to know that simply stating a truth may have had some small part in another immortal soul being created. We have to remember, we are only the messengers. The message itself has the power to bring about conversion to the truth.
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