Church exists. Yes, the Church exists to evangelize, as Pope Blessed Paul VI (who will be canonized in 2018) reminded the world in his apostolic exhortation Evangelization in the Modern World:
“We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church” (“Declaration of the Synod Fathers,” 4: L’Osservatore Romano [October 27, 1974], p. 6). It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize.3
Yet when a lot of us were growing up, much of the world agreed with the basic tenets of Christianity, so we really didn’t see a need to open the box or build a bigger and better one.
If this describes you, here’s where you can begin to move a bit outside that comfort zone. The first step is to think a little harder and a little differently. Seeing or treating faith as a private or personal thing is kind of a strange approach, isn’t it, if we know anything at all about the Gospel? The word “gospel” means “good news,” and good news is meant to be shared. When was the last time you kept a piece of really good news to yourself? So, actually, it’s odd that many of us were raised to keep the best news and the greatest story ever told to ourselves.
That said, evangelization comes later. Yes, we all have that responsibility, but when and how we evangelize takes some time, prayer, and discernment. It’s not all that different from other efforts in our lives. How many new parents do you know who right away go around sharing their parenting tips? Most new moms and dads are doing just the opposite: asking for help, advice, and input from more experienced parents. They learn, and eventually they share.
The primary way to share our faith is to live it to the best of our ability and with real joy. That’s what this book is all about. And as you begin to take further steps outside of your comfort zone, I encourage you to start thinking differently about what evangelization means and looks like.
There are plenty of ways to proclaim the Good News. Not everyone is called to stand on a soapbox in Central Park or at the local town hall, or even share on Facebook or Twitter. (Though, for the record, Pope Francis has one of the largest Twitter followings on the planet. Just saying.) Yes, we’re all called to evangelize, but evangelization comes in all shapes and sizes. You just need to find yours. It most likely will mean some movement and change in your life, but don’t panic. Remember, everyone is on a different journey, and we get there when we get there. We just have to be willing to take the faith box out of hiding and move, maybe slowly at first, but eventually, to a better place.
What’s in Your Faith Box? Taking Inventory
There is an old saying: “Good things come in small packages. And so does poison.” I think this is key to understanding what can happen in our lives — and, most importantly, in our hearts and minds — when we attempt to put God in a box and keep him at a safe distance. When we keep him at arm’s length, or even farther, we make ourselves extremely vulnerable to influences, messages, and ideologies that can — again speaking from personal experience — “poison” us.
If I was heavily influenced by the culture back in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s — before we had Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, hundreds of satellite channels, iPhones, iPads, iWatches, etc. — then how much more are we being formed by media today? It’s not that we are bad people, or that the people behind the messages we’re getting bombarded with constantly are bad, either (only God can judge hearts, after all). Yet the messages we receive from all sides are not designed to give us true joy and inner peace. They tell us that materialism, sex without attachment, and professional success (just to name a few) equal total fulfillment and happiness. But anyone who has gone down that road, including me, will tell you these things alone don’t bring happiness. Instant gratification is gone as fast as we attain it. And once it’s gone, we’re running on empty.
I was running on empty and going nowhere fast. It wasn’t until my life was spinning out of control that I finally cried out for help, and things slowly began to change. The soul-searching, along with the job search, lasted for some six months. At that point, my husband and I realized things had to change. If we were going to save our marriage, we needed help. Most importantly — and I believe this was our Catholic roots coming to the surface — we realized that we needed God in our lives. We made a commitment to get some counseling.
As I mentioned, my husband had already felt that we needed to address our fast-paced, and what proved to be empty, lifestyle. Since I was too busy at first to notice his discontentment, I went on my merry way, continuing at a very hectic pace. In the meantime, he was invited to a men’s Bible study by a mutual friend. It was a study that had a huge impact on his life and was actually the initial catalyst of our return to the Church. In the pages of Scripture, he rediscovered the Catholic Church and began to take classes at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Detroit. Years later, this would eventually lead him to discern becoming a deacon. But that was a long way off.
In the meantime, after I lost my job, even though I agreed that we needed counseling and also agreed that we should start to take our faith seriously, deep down I was angry with God. Seems kind of silly, don’t you think? I really had no relationship with God, but I was angry with him and secretly blamed him for my problems. The really big turning point came when I simply cried uncle. I was finally getting a clue that God is God and I am not. My prayer certainly wasn’t sophisticated. I just prayed really hard, out of desperation.
God answered those prayers in a number of different ways, one of which was a job offer at another local TV station, which I eventually took. That’s when the real work began, though, because as my priorities changed and faith became the central part of my life, my career also changed. Joining the Bible study with my husband, getting back to Mass every week, and learning how to pray resulted in the scales falling from my eyes and me feeling very differently about the news business.
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