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by Ms. Mary Kay Welgoss, OP Categories All  St. Paul Preaching in Athens, by Raphael, 1515. Wikimedia Commons It was a Saturday in early June. The day was perfect for a local festival–sunny and warm with a light breeze. I felt the knots-in-my-stomach kind of trepidation I usually experience when setting out for a day with St. Paul Street Evangelization. Sharing my faith in Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church with strangers and acquaintances always feels daunting at the outset. I imagine crumbling under anticipated hostility or proving totally inadequate in my effort to explain the truths of the Gospel and of Church teaching in on-the-spot encounters. But God always encourages me. Somehow, he lets me know that there is value in trying. With a group of dedicated team members from my church, we set about preparing our table among all the other not-for-profit groups. We displayed an array of colorful rosaries, holy medals, prayer cards, pamphlets, note cards and the wooden box for prayer intentions made especially for us by a fellow parishioner. We prayed the rosary together before the festival started with the special intention that the Holy Spirit would help us to plant many fruitful seeds that day.
Things started out amicably enough; we met many people who were cordial and receptive, people with a wide variety of religious experiences who were genuinely interested in connecting with the Catholic Church on some level. We also experienced a few scoffs and mild jeers, but these people tended to move on quickly. Then, sometime in the early afternoon, a beautiful young woman walked up to the table and started looking at the rosaries. My colleague–who excels among us at being the welcoming presence that draws people into conversations about faith and religion–began talking with her, asking if she would like to take one of the rosaries and whether or not she knew how to pray it. The young woman was quick to inform us that she knew all about rosaries. She had attended Catholic school until sixth grade and knew all about Catholicism. Her manner was not hostile or angry, just very matter-of-fact. But as she continued to speak, it was clear there was something more on her mind. There was an earnestness about her, a sense of being owed an explanation for something that was important to her. She began by informing us that she just graduated from high school and was heading off to an ivy league college in the fall. She said she thought that intelligent people didn’t believe in religion because they have the capacity to apply reason to solve problems rather than turning to God. Never being one to walk away from a debate, I jumped into the conversation. I asked her whether or not she believed in God, and she said yes, she did. It was the first of many answers she gave that seemed to logically contradict her stated positions. It wasn’t long before she was asking about hot button issues, like the Church’s teaching on abortion, contraception, and same-sex attraction. I tried in my best educator way (I am a retired high school teacher of 32 years) to answer her questions as clearly as I could. But they kept coming–-one after another. Again, it was not an angry exchange; she was respectful throughout. But she wanted answers. We talked intensely for over an hour. Every time I was sure the conversation was coming to a close, she would take up another question. It was not that I wanted it to end, but I have never experienced this level of intensity in a conversation with someone I just met. Without a doubt, she was a person of great intelligence who thought deeply about the world around her. Something happened along the way that severed her connection with the Catholic faith, but I am convinced that deep down she still believed it to be true or desperately wanted it to be true. The conversation finally ended when her father appeared at the table and told her he wanted to get something to eat. So, I shook her hand, wished her well and sat down, exhausted and unsure if anything I had said to her actually made any sense. As I debriefed with my colleagues, I realized that this conversation had been a bit of a spectacle among people at nearby booths. The young woman and I were so engaged in our conversation, that we didn’t notice others listening around us. The woman at the table next to ours said, “It sounds like you were having a therapy session rather than talking about religion!” This seemed like an apt description of what just happened. So this is where you might think the story ends, but you would be wrong! About forty-five minutes later, I was completely dumbfounded to see the same young woman standing in front of me, this time with two of her friends. One was another young woman of 18, originally from El Salvador, who had been adopted by an American family shortly after birth. The other friend was a young man who was grappling with questions of gender identity. Initially all three of them launched into a debate about abortion rights that sounded rehearsed. But quickly the conversation turned. The woman who was adopted said that being given up by an impoverished mother had left her feeling unwanted all of her life. Despite the love and opportunities afforded to her by her adoptive parents, she felt abandoned and unloved by her birth mother–and these feelings drove her to depression and despair. Then she made two statements that absolutely horrified me: she said she wished her mother had aborted her, because it would have made life easier for both of them. Because her mother was Catholic, she did not believe in abortion or did not have access to the procedure in her native Catholic culture. She went on to say that she recently attempted suicide, because she could not imagine ever getting over this feeling of being unwanted. It was then that I truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit giving me the words this young woman needed most to hear: I told her, “God wants you. God loves you. He made you in his image and likeness. He conceived his idea of you and your unique life path long before he knit you in your mother’s womb. He knows the number of hairs on your head. Your life is infinitely valuable to him. And it seems much more likely to me, especially because I am a mother myself, that your mother made two extreme acts of loving sacrifice for you, her beloved child. First, she cooperated with God to give you life, and second, she gave you up to be raised by others in the hope that you might have a fuller and happier life than she could provide. This was not an act of someone who didn’t want her child. This was an act of a woman who loved her child more than she loved herself.” At that point the young woman turned away in tears. It was clear to all of us standing there that she was in deep pain. The conversation continued for a few more minutes before the three friends left. It was obvious we were no longer debating an abstract social issue. We were witnessing what a life without God is like; it is a life full of pain, loss, confusion, hopelessness and a lack of meaning and purpose. It is a devalued life. While there is no guarantee that a life with God in this world won’t have its share of pain and loss, the confusion, hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lack of purpose are gone. With God we experience the joy that comes from knowing we are deeply loved and deeply valued. His love gives meaning to all things. In the inspired words of Saint Paul, “It [Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8) This is the good news! God loves us so much that he sent his only son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile us with God and so to save us from a life of sin, a life without God. This is the message all of us on the evangelization team so fervently hoped these young people would hear. We prayed as they left that the Holy Spirit might open their minds and hearts to receive it. Jesus tells all of us to go forth and spread this good news. My experiences with St. Paul Street Evangelization have convinced me in a very personal way of the absolute necessity of doing this, especially in our current culture that is so dominated by nihilism and hedonism. Our neighbors are carrying heavy burdens, and they do not know that God can alleviate them. They do not know of his infinite mercy and love. Evangelization is work that can be intense and demanding, but so wholly satisfying too. To connect with fellow travelers and to share what Christ has done is truly a great blessing and a great gift.
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