Look Who Knows the Faith!

In my book The Lay Evangelist's Handbook will be a word-for-word presentation of how I present the faith to anyone—practicing Catholics, non-Catholics, and lapsed Catholics—and I include lots of supplementary information in the form of notations telling you what I say and do, as well as why I say and do it. It’s unvarnished and blunt. I don’t get namby-pamby, I don’t water it down, and I don’t make apologies for anything said. And you can be assured it most certainly isn’t politically correct! My approach may disturb some readers who think you have to be all gooey nice, so I’ll offer two defenses.

The first defense for the way I do things is this: it works! My thirty years of successful experience proves that it works. I’ve had a let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may attitude and approach since I first began, and frankly, I don’t know of any other lay evangelist who has experienced the level of success God has given me in helping people come home to Rome that doesn’t do it this way. My methods certainly work best for me, and they work best for my evangelizing godchildren too, so I suspect they’ll work for you too.

My second defense—and clearly the best one—is that I’m merely imitating our Founder. What I present is not nice Catholicism. Nice Catholicism is namby-pamby milquetoast; a watered-down version of the faith where hard truths are left out or glanced over for fear of offending people. We leave out these hard truths at the risk of costing people their souls! Maybe our own, too.

I don’t practice nice Catholicism. Jesus wasn’t nice in the things He said either. He was full of love, but love doesn’t equate to being nice. He called men broods of vipers (Matthew 3:7, Matthew 12:34, Matthew 23:33, Luke 3:7), white painted sepulchers full of dead men’s bones (Matthew 23:27), hypocrites (Matthew 23:13, Luke 12:56, Luke 13:15), liars (John 8:44, 55), and chased them out of the temple by beating them with a whip (John 2:15). Despite that Jesus wasn’t nice, He’d already developed quite a following of disciples before He even performed His first public miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. Why? Because truth sells—a lesson Madison Avenue, politicians and (sadly) many Catholics in authority have never learned. People have an inherent need and desire for truth, because the human mind was made for truth. The whole truth, not just partial truth.

Nice Catholicism—worrying about truth being offensive to people and being politically correct—is the biggest reason why Catholics don’t know their faith, why so many people leave the Church, and why we aren’t making converts these days. Did I mention that 6.5 people leave the Church for every one who joins?

Truth is not controversial and it’s not possible for it to be offensive. Truth is truth, plain and simple. Truth may get folks emotionally worked up, but it’s not controversial. Is 2+2=4 controversial? Of course not! But someone who doesn’t want to face that truth may become emotionally charged. People like those are why there is still a Flat Earth Society today. No kidding! Look it up.

At the end of the day, truth remains truth—it’s immutable. The best definition of truth is when the mind conforms to reality. It has nothing to do with subjectivism and everything to do with objectivism. Feelings don’t come into play when dealing with truth.

You can stand on top of a 40 story building and shout, “I don’t believe in gravity!” Then you can leap off the rooftop and repeat that ridiculous phrase all the way to the ground. Does your subjective opinion that gravity doesn’t exist in any way alter the objective reality that it does? No! By the way, the person leaping off the roof will at some point between jumping and impact conform his mind to reality.

Anyway, to get back to what I was saying, the presentation in The Lay Evangelist's Handbook is exactly the way I present the faith. I’ve added notes here and there, provided all the references I can think of, and even provided for some anticipated questions from students and the proper responses. Remember: all of this stems from 30 years of experience. I’ve heard every question there is to ask (sane ones, anyway), so it’s rare when an inquirer or catechumen can throw me a curve ball. It does happen from time to time, though.

Can I guarantee you’ll make lots of converts using The Lay Evangelist's Handbook? No, I can’t, because conversion is between the student and the Holy Spirit. In thirty years of doing this, I’ve never once asked a single inquirer to become a Catholic. Whether they convert or not is none of my business, until the student decides to make it my business. You must always remember that you are merely the sales person, and that the Holy Spirit is the closer. If the sale (conversion) isn’t made, it’s either because the Holy Spirit has a future plan for the student, or because the student’s heart is hardened against the movement of the Holy Spirit (grace). So it’s important for you to understand that you haven’t failed in your work if there’s no “sale.”

But here’s what I can guarantee: If you will share the faith as I’ve laid it out in these articles and follow my instructions in The Lay Evangelist's Handbook, you’ll earn graces beyond belief and take a huge step toward working out your own salvation (Philippians 2:12). Remember that we aren’t obligated to be successful, but rather only to perform the tasks God gives us to do. Success as most people view it is not our job. That’s a job left to God alone.

Before moving on, I want to digress here to mention something I think is important. It’s so important, in fact, that you’ll probably see it again later in this future.

While you need to know all you can about our holy and ancient faith, there’s more to it than knowledge. You actually have to live it. Satan knows the faith better than you or I ever can. The greatest mind the Church ever produced was St. Thomas Aquinas, and Satan knows the faith even better than he did. But what good does Satan’s knowledge of Catholicism do him? He’s still condemned to hell for all eternity. So in addition to becoming proficient in your knowledge of the faith, you have to apply it to your own life.