In many previous posts I’ve mentioned the need to develop a close personal relationship with Jesus through prayer, especially mental prayer or mediation, in order to make our evangelizing authentic.  In prayer, we spend time with Jesus, we converse, and we build a friendship with Him that becomes so exciting that we want to introduce Him and share Him with others!  

As Catholics, we are fortunate to be able to claim two thousand years of tradition in our lineage.  We are the original Church, instituted by Christ Himself, and built on the rock of Peter.  We have thousands of saints to whom we can look as role models: men and women who performed incredible acts of charity, who evangelized savage cultures at the risk of losing their lives, and who staunchly defended their faith and were martyred. Our faith is deep, and we have a plethora of books, magazines, podcasts, television, videos, and speakers to help us learn and go deeper into the finer details of Catholicism.  It’s all good and exciting stuff and we can easily get lost in it.  So lost, in fact, that we can begin to think that our religion, our Catholicity, is first and foremost.  And, when we do, Jesus gets relegated to the back seat.  Our excitement about Catholicism becomes a hinderance to actually promoting Jesus. 

If we read the Gospels closely, we see the popularity of Jesus.  People heard of his miracles, and they flocked to Him.  They were cured of sickness and demons, and, as they told more people about Him, more and more people followed Him everywhere He went.  During Jesus’ public ministry, His disciples didn’t tell people to come join them in a new religion.  The term Christianity was not coined until a few decades later.  Rather, they simply invited them to encounter Jesus.  People got excited about Jesus and not some new religion.

If we’re not careful, we can fall into the trap of thinking we are evangelizing when, instead, we are selling Catholicism rather than sharing our love for Jesus, and hoping that an interest in Him will ensue.  We have it backwards.  We ought to follow the example of the Apostles and invite people to meet Jesus.  Once they find and get excited about Him, then we can introduce them to the beauty and truth of our Catholic faith.

How do I know this?  Because it worked on me.

“Dear Jesus, thank You for Your love, for drawing me closer to You each day.  I love You, and in our friendship, Your love overflows so that I may offer it to others who may not know You…yet. Amen.”

(Relationship vs. Religion was first published on the blog Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

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