You have a duty to fish for souls, whether you like it or not. We have to pick and choose our spots. Francis isn’t making it easy, but that’s no excuse.
The Passion and death of Jesus Christ is a historical reality. It is easily verified through secular non-biblical sources. It requires zero faith to accept this reality, so it’s a really good starting place for evangelizing.
Here is what I put on my personal facebook status today. Maybe you can try something similar to grab the attention of all your pagan friends. You kind of owe it to them.
Happy Palm Sunday! The Passion and death of Jesus Christ is not a fairy tale. It is a historical reality and easily verifiable from many non-biblical sources of the time, including non-believers. You can choose to ignore it, but you can’t claim it didn’t happen. Why did it happen? Because Christ willed that He would take on the punishment due for your sins, so that you might someday enter heaven to be with Him forever. No one ever merits heaven on their own. There is no such thing as being “good enough” to get there, apart from Christ’s sacrifice. Think about how enormous the weight of the sins of all humanity past present and future, that the appropriate counterbalance to blot out this guilt was for God Himself to come down from heaven and be executed. It is only by the merits of the Cross, and by uniting your sufferings to it, and finally amending your life by cooperating with the sanctifying grace which God is offering to you every second of every day. Stop trying to do it all on your own, and admit that you can’t. How many more years are you going to waste trying to focus on “positive energy”, being “true to yourself”, or following the gospel according to Whitney Houston, “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” Please stop. The way out of this is exactly the opposite: You empty yourself. Dying to self and having that singular moment of clarity where you finally hand it all over to Christ, even while knowing you still aren’t really ready. You don’t need a plan, you don’t need to know how to be “holy”, and you certainly don’t need anyone’s permission. Be advised that it’s a life-long project, and you will still fall many, many times. We all remain sinners on the journey, and no one ever out-holies the need for a Savior. I know it’s scary, but you have to work up the courage. It’s only scary because you don’t know what comes next. Let Him take care of that for you. Prayers to all who read this; have a blessed Holy Week.
Thank you for being a faithful Catholic and inspiring us through your writings. A very blessed Holy Week to you.
Thank you for illuminating our mind to the truth
I often think about this, especially in light of the current state of affairs in the church. It’s so hard to evangelize now. I have a young relative who is in RCIA, and I rejoice, but, I doubt he has any idea what is going on in the church, and honestly, I can’t imagine saying anything about it to him, even though I hate to see anyone taken in by this pope or this “New Church”.
You’re right, we do have a responsibility. I like the Facebook post. It is most hard to evangelize our family and friends, they seem most closed to evangelization. What’s that saying “a prophet is never accepted in his own land”? Not that we are prophets at all, but family knows us, and they see our failings and hypocrisies. I give you credit for trying. Better than that, I’m sure God does. 🙂 God bless!