RANDOM ACCESS - OUR READERS

JWs, pity parties, drunken football players, and a Sweathog
Readers share their experiences of random opportunities to share the Catholic Faith with others.

Men at Work

One summer, when I worked on a construction crew, I had an interesting chance to share the Faith. On my lunch hour I would sneak over to the Mass at the VA hospital, which was near the construction site. I say "sneak" because I didn't want the other guys to know that I was going to Mass, a very uncommon thing for construction workers to do, especially those on our crew. Most of them were Italian, working-class guys who had pretty much all fallen away from the Church, and I knew they'd razz me if they found out I went to Mass. But somehow the word got out. As the summer wore on, and always when no one else was within earshot, quite a few came up to me and asked, "So why do you go to Mass every day?" I told them it was because I didn't feel strong enough to go it alone in life without God's grace that comes through the Mass and Communion. They were really taken aback by this. I never advertised my Catholic beliefs, nor did I ever ask any of them questions first, but slowly and subtly, it had a big effect. I lost track of them after the summer job ended, so I don't know if any ever returned to the sacraments, but they gave me a lot of respect, and many seemed to really clean up their act in a lot of ways.

Dan Davidson, Syracuse, NY

Semi-Tough

At a Catholic meeting I attended last October, I and some others were sitting in the hotel lounge discussing the Faith when several drunken semi-pro football players came in. I tried to evangelize one of them, but he was belligerent and confrontational and used a lot of foul language. Because he was a football player, I started talking to him about how I had played football in school. One thing led to another, and there we were, in the middle of the hotel lobby playing tackle football. I knocked him down a few times, and that hurt his ego, so he tried to pick a real fight with me. I wasn't going to fight him, so the "evangelization" ended when I ran out of the hotel to avoid a fist fight. It was an utter failure.

Bud Macfarlane, Jr., Cleveland, OH

Welcome Back

I was attending a convention and happened to run into Ron Pollilo, the actor who played "Horshack" on the late-70s TV program "Welcome Back, Kotter." Pretty quickly we got into an argument about abortion. He said he was raised Catholic and was surprised that I was still Catholic because the "propaganda coming out of the Church is disinformation." He argued that the Church doesn't have the right to "force its morality" onto anybody. The twenty-five minute conversation was a failure because I couldn't break through his rhetoric to the logical side (though I could see he understood me). He didn't have a clear focus on the issue, and couldn't understand the Church's position on the morality of defending life. In the end, we had to agree to disagree. I wasn't satisfied with that, but there wasn't anything else I could do.

Ed Pankus, Steubenville, OH

Do the Right Thing

My wife, Kathy, was injured and had surgery earlier this year and had to undergo physical therapy. Because we home school, she would take one or two of our kids to the therapy office. Other patients noticed our kids with her, and eventually questions came up about our Faith. It turned out that every person working in that office was Catholic. The woman who owns the facility is a fallen-away Catholic. Eventually the topic of abortion came up in a conversation with the owner. I happened to stop by on my way to work that morning and walked in on this debate. Everyone in the place, including the patients, was listening intently to their conversation. It look liked the old "E.F. Hutton" commercial: there was total silence in the room; everyone was paying attention. The owner stated that although abortion wasn't a "good thing," everyone had a right to "make a choice." My input was to sit back, say nothing, and start praying the rosary, while my wife debated the other woman. At the end of the session, my wife said in her gentle way, "We really agree on most everything, but we have to come to grips with the fact that there is a living human being involved here." The woman wasn't converted that day, but seeds were planted. Other Catholics in that room had a chance to see the Catholic teaching on abortion explained well and convincingly. I'm sure that had an impact on them.

Steve DiCarlo, Cincinnati, OH

It's Her Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To

During my second year in college I was at a party. One of my friends, who could be obnoxious at times and so didn't have many friends, was also at the party. She started complaining loudly that she had no friends and that when she was sober everybody liked her, but when she drank nobody liked her. She was having a real "pity party" for herself. She left and tried to walk back to the dorm, which was about a mile away. I followed her and drove her to my room and tried to calm her down. She went on and on about wanting to die. I got so fed up with her I took her to the bathroom and said, "So you want to kill yourself? Go ahead. Here are some razor blades and some pills. Take your pick!" She started crying. My reaction had shocked her. The week before, someone had given me one of those little pocket-size Bibles, and I had it with me. I opened to an appropriate Psalm (which I can't recall now) and read it to her and highlighted it. I said gently, "The next time you get depressed read this." A year later I saw her again. She said, "Remember last year when you gave me that Bible? I still have it and I read it all the time. I'm such a different person." I could see a genuine change in her."

Kristin Byerly, Huntington, IN

I Hear You Knocking, but You Can't Come In

I had an encounter with some Jehovah's Witnesses who were going door-to-door on my street. They tried to convert me from the Catholic Faith. One asked me why I called priests "father," when the Bible says, "Call no man father." I reminded him that the Blessed Mother referred to Abraham as her "father" in the Magnificat (Luke 1:55), and how St. Paul referred to himself as

a father to Timothy (1 Cor. 4:15-16). He said he didn't care what the Blessed Mother or St. Paul said. I said, "Wait a minute. You just quoted me the passage that says 'All Scripture is inspired by God' (2 Tim. 3:16). So weren't those passages where Mary and St. Paul said those things also inspired by God?" The one man, the leader of the pair, became very angry. The other man was in training. He was taken aback because he wasn't expecting to hear that kind of an answer, especially from a Catholic! They immediately changed the subject to the papacy and claimed that there were many bad popes. I asked him for specific examples so we could deal with that subject. But he couldn't give me any specific examples. He was quite upset by this. They left and haven't been back since.

Christopher Clarkon, Oldbridge, NJ

Hang in There, Baby

A woman came into my Catholic bookstore and asked me about the wall rosaries on display. She said, "I'm not a Catholic, but would it be all right if I got one of these rosaries and hung it on my wall? I really love the Catholic Church and feel very drawn to it. I'm also drawn to the rosary." This gave me the opportunity, one of many I've had over the years, to tell her about the rosary and that it is a prayer based on Scripture. It's a prayer prayed by Lutherans, Methodists, and Episcopalians, and it's one that all Christians can cherish. She was so happy. If the bookstore hadn't been there we wouldn't been able to do that.

Barbara Landers, Rapid City, SD

 Send in your Random Access encounters with friends, co-workers, or family members to: Random Access, Envoy Magazine, P.O. Box 85152, San Diego, CA 92186. Or e-mail us at editor@envoymagazine.com.