To Be God's Leaven

[Sister_Helena]

You don’t need a religious like me to tell you that our world needs a lot of prayers. Our Lord told us that to make a difference, we should forget ourselves and follow Him. God is everywhere. He is in convents as well as marketplaces. He wants us to follow Him wherever he goes. We are to be His hands and feet. "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this earth. Christ has no body now on earth but yours." I love this prayer attributed to St. Teresa of Avila.
How can you be a leaven in the place where God has placed you? How can you make a difference?

 

[joamy]

That is an amazing prayer by St Teresa.

For me, being leaven is in a million small things throughout the day. For example, I can be leaven by saying a kind word to the checker in the grocery store when it is 5:30 in the evening and there is a line a mile long (possible with a few grumpy people in it - especially if perhaps the checker is slightly grumpy.)

 

[Sister_Helena]

There is a real challenge between trying to answer to the call of new evangelization and being “pushy” with what you believe in. For all the annoying tactics that some people do to promote their cause, one has to admire their perseverance and dedication in trying to convert people to their faith. Why can’t Catholics be more like them? Are we afraid or too politically correct to “convert” people? I believe that if we truly understand our Faith and are comfortable with our knowledge of it, we would not be afraid or ashamed to engage others and become witnesses to that which gives us hope. We don’t have to fight our way in, we don’t have to grab people by their shirts (figuratively speaking I hope), or go nose to nose with them in useless arguments, or worse yet, calling them names, but to present the truth in charity and love. But to do this effectively and become truly a leaven, we should study our faith and understand why we believe things we believe as Catholics.