Replies

Let me tell you about my Catholic friends and neighbors.

With God and my guardian angel watching me key these words, which are true:

* The example of the Catholic neighbor when I was a little girl who was my first experience with any Catholic and became my godmother at my baptism at age 21

* The wonderful priest, now deceased, who was my spiritual adviser for many years

* The parishioners at my parish, where I have gone to Mass for many, many years. They were the ones who prayed with me when I needed it, gathered in my home for Scripture study, gave me courage and the support of prayers in the face of a tragedy in my life. They are also the ones who helped to support Vietnamese refugees (in the wake of ‘Nam)) with housing and sustenance, and who also did the same for Sudanese and Iraqi refugees from persecution.

* The over 100 fellow parishioners who are there at morning weekday Masses to share Mass and prayer with me and to provide the “shelter” of their friendship as described in the Book of Proverbs

* The priests and lay people who helped in the catchesis of our children

* The countless number of people who come to the 24-hour prayer chapel at the parish. The chapel is open 24/7 and there are always people there, at any hour of day or night. They come as young couples to pray together, they come when they get off their night shift at the hospital and before they go home to sleep, they come leaving prayer requests in a notebook there for that purpose: that we would be aware for the needs of others and pray for them. They come in all ages and sizes. They come in good weather and in bad. They come with their Bibles.

* My own children—who have blessed me in my old age with their prayerful lives and their loving concern for their parents and for each other.

It is a Biblical truth: “all that is hidden will be revealed”. Because so much of what I have described as my experience of living life as a Catholic may seem not-so-typical to those of you who are not Catholic, you would be very surprised at how widespread it is without being noticed by anyone.

There’s a life going on that is hidden from many, but is very real and is happening. One day, it will all be revealed.

You should be one, then, to come to my neighborhood and evangelize. Come to my family and evangelize. I mean evangelize the professing Catholics.

My own Catholic aunts and uncles were never interested in the well-being of my soul. My own Catholic dad, raised under French Catholic nuns in Ottawa, Ontario, never spoke the truth to me about eternal life or about the safety of my eternal soul. . . . until he was born-again at the age of 45 in 1974, and the next morning called me to testify of the grace of God.

My Catholic neighbors in the San Francisco Bay Area never “witnessed” to me when I was growing up. Where I have lived over the years in Kansas City, Jacksonville, FL., Dallas/Ft. Worth, Miami, Louisville, Winston-Salem, never “witnessed” to me-—not one time.

They were Presbyterians, Wesleyans and Four Square Holiness, and Baptists, mostly, who ever deliberately spoke to me about eternity and the things that matter. Then there was the odd J.W. and Seventh Day Adventist that came around. But never once did a Catholic ever try to speak to me or put a piece of Gospel literature in my hand.

And once, when I was distributing Gospel literature in the Philippines (never forcing, only offering, never coercing), it was a Catholic priest who grabbed a stack of tracts from my hands and threw them on the ground. He didn’t try to offer me anything he thought might be more enlightening.

My Catholic family and neighbors could never be distinguished from any heathen in the same general locality, and I have no reason to think their priest(s) are attempting to do anything to help them away from the world. They are simply part of the beer and bar-b-que set around town.

So, I would recommend that Catholics who have been so encouraged as you concerning the faith become missionaries to such neighborhoods as mine, and you could begin with the Catholic populace and their priests.

The neighborhood is also inhabited by members of almost every church who are exactly the same way, who couldn’t tell a soul how to take one step toward a Holy God.

But I must repeat that there are members of the other churches actively involved in evangelism, along with their pastors, and we see them often attempting to fill a void, that, I should say, if not filled by Christians, will be filled by Muslims before very long.