Random Access - Our Readers

Dancing...Er...Praying In The Street
Readers share their experiences of random opportunities to share the Catholic Faith with others.

Would you like some fries with that verse?
It started off great. I got accepted to a three-month summer stint at the fast-food restaurant which serves America's favorite fries. It didn't take me very long, however, to find out one of my managers was a Baptist. Of course, he believed the Catholic Church to be "unbiblical." This was my time. We chatted through several topics, including justification by faith alone, purgatory and the papacy. When I reminded him of James 2 and its clear statement that we are not saved by faith alone, he admitted he didn't believe in the traditional Baptist/Calvinist position that there are absolutely no works required on our part. I jokingly threatened to tell his pastor about that "deviation from real Baptist teaching." Finally we came to my favorite subject: calling priests "father." Not remembering all the Bible references I wanted to refer him to (I'm Catholic, after all!), I decided to give him a Catholic tract, explaining why it's biblical to call priests, "father." Besides that, I also gave him a copy of Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth, several tapes by Dr. Scott Hahn and a copy of Fr. Mateo's Refuting the Attack on Mary. I dumped all this stuff on him the day after our discussion. We never talked about apologetics again.
Mario Derksen, Orlando, FL

Out in the streets, like the first Apostles
I was working as a missionary with Youth for the Third Millennium, a Catholic door to door evangelization ministry. Our team had just finished a two and a half hour session and we were on our way back to the parish. As we walked, we were praying for all the people we'd encountered and all those we were going to meet. While we prayed, a tall, middle-aged man approached us on the opposite side of the road. My friend and I went over to meet him, always conscious of how God leads us to the people who need most to hear the gospel. In evangelization, there's no such thing as a coincidence.

As we approached the man, he seemed preoccupied — so much so, that I don't even think he noticed us until we were right in front of him. We caught him off guard with our greeting. "Hello, sir. How are you doing today?"

"Terrible!" he replied, tersely. With this, I thought he'd just walk away. But for some reason, he remained, waiting for us to respond. I started in with our standard evangelization approach, explaining that we were going through the neighborhood all morning, praying with people and talking about the Catholic Faith. As soon as I said that, he perked up.

"I can't believe it," he exclaimed. "I've been walking around the neighborhood all morning praying that God would send me help!"

After we paused a moment to marvel at another Christ-incidence, the man introduced himself as Arthur, and proceeded to tell us that he'd just saved his best friend's life. The more he spoke about it, the more we could hear anger building up in his voice. Even with his rage, though, we could see he was also hurting. Apparently, his best friend had betrayed him, and "didn't deserve to live." The man went on and on for several minutes, never really revealing what his friend had done. I have to admit, my curiosity was piqued.

All of a sudden, Arthur stopped. He turned to us and said, "You know what amazes me about you guys? This whole time I've been ranting on about this thing my friend did, and not once have you asked me what it was. I hadn't planned on telling you, but I can see in your eyes that you really care, so I'm going to tell you." The anger in his face turned to sadness as he revealed that his best friend of thirty years was having an affair with his wife.

There was confusion and fear in Arthur's eyes. He'd been walking around aimlessly all morning, caught between the past friendship and the present betrayal, unsure of which to hold on to. He wasn't sure what to do or where to go, but he knew he needed God.

My friend and I stood dumbfounded. I didn't know what I could possibly say to this man. Words failed me and my mind was blank. All I could do was ask him if he wanted to pray. He gratefully accepted, so we stood in the street with this hurting soul and prayed. We each took a turn. Arthur thanked God for sending us to him, and then proceeded to make a confession, asking God for forgiveness for all the times he messed up. Lastly, he begged God to help him forgive his friend, because he didn't want to live with the anger he had. It was a simple prayer, but as sincere as any I've been blessed to hear. When we finished, he began walking away, wiping tears from his eyes. After walking about twenty yards, he turned around and said, "Thank you. Have a great day."

My friend and I walked back to the parish in silence, still processing what had just happened. The needs of the world are so great. We have a responsibility as baptized Catholics to be tools for the Lord, to spread the love of Christ and to bring His people back.
John Pascale, Neptune, NJ

Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip!
One of the neighbors in the apartment building into which I just moved is a fervent Fundamentalist and member of a nondenominational church. We had a couple conversations in the hallway about religion, but nothing terribly in-depth. One day, the man, Eric, invited me over to talk about the differences between Catholicism and "plain and pure" Christianity. As someone interested in apologetics and evangelism, I happily accepted.

We started off talking about authority and the canon of Scripture. I asked him how he knew 2 Peter was inspired. His reply was that it was inspired because it was in the Bible. When I then asked how he knew the Bible was inspired, he looked at me strangely and said, "Because I believe that the Bible is the Word of God." Eric seemed not to notice the circularity of his argument: the Bible is inspired because it's the Word of God. How did he know the Bible was the Word of God? "Because it's taught throughout Scripture," he replied. After going around and around with that for a while, I pointed out to him that the list of inspired books was heavily debated in the early Church. There was a general agreement about the Gospels and most of Paul's epistles, but diversity in the views of the other writings. Additionally, there were other works that were considered by many Christians to have been inspired (Didache, 1 Clement). It wasn't until the Catholic councils of Hippo and Carthage (A.D. 393 and 397) that the canon issue was, for the most part, settled. How was it, I asked Eric, that the Catholic Church had the authority to set out the canon of the New Testament — the same canon he was using today? "Well," he said, "we shouldn't be digging too deep in this. When you dig too deep in a well, sometimes you come up with mud. I don't believe that God would make things so complicated that you need to study history to follow Him."

This anti-intellectual attitude came up again and again in our conversation. His basic approach to the Bible was: don't dig too far into it and don't think too much about it's history or you'll run into trouble. I tried to point out that God doesn't want us to turn our brains off when we study Him and His word, but it seemed to have little effect. Eric had his "plain and pure" nondenominational Christianity, and he didn't want to be bothered with the facts.
Ed Lynn, Arlington, VA



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