Tracksuit to go to massI was recently told a curious anecdote: a girl, a good Catholic, wanted at all costs to bring her boyfriend closer to the faith, since he is not a believer but very respectful.
One day, at the end of Mass, talking with some friends and a priest from the youth group in which she participates, she commented that she had the idea of "putting" her boyfriend in an Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but without telling him anything. She would tell him that they were going to pick up something that she could not carry by herself and so she would accompany him... her intention was not good, it was great. "Surely he will convert" she would say; to which the priest replied: "or not".
This girl then understood that it was ridiculous to impose the moment of her boyfriend's conversion, even more, with a lie in the middle.... If you ask me whether or not he went to worship, yes, he went... but there was no miraculous conversion... for the moment.
With the best of our intentions, I have no doubt, we can often act in this way: trying to set God's times and ways, without taking into account the most important asset in this "business": the freedom of each one of us. Most of us, the Lord does not call us to be coaches of Catholicism, successful men and women of the faith, whose love of God is measured in the price of those who are converted thanks to our wonderful ways, words and ideas. No.
It is true that, especially in our "handsome, rich and famous" society, it does not seem particularly pleasant to work hard without having something to boast about in the Instagram of our life of faith. We fall into inner discouragement, as we watch the rest taking selfies of themselves in environments "flowing with milk and honey." But it is what it is. We only have to peruse Holy Scripture to see that the men of God, those prophets, apostles had more reason to be members of the failure club than to be TEDx speakers talking about their exploits. And Salvation was made this way, with discarded cornerstones, with half-baked failures, with those who put all the means to bring God to men, but who perhaps died without seeing even half a wall of the promised land.
God asks us pull out all the stopsWe are asked to invite our boyfriend or girlfriend to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but, above all, to pray for him or her in each of our encounters with the Lord, even if we have been sent to that smelly place where we all know so many people. Put the means in place keeping in mind that the end is not for you and me to taste success.
There is nothing less evangelical than the "Theology of merit" - if I do well, God will reward me with fruits, if I do not see fruits, it means that we are doing badly.
Evidently, when we do our work for the love of God, well, with dedication, the fruits will come, sooner or later. As we were always told at the University: "a good script can make a bad movie, but with a bad script, you can never make a good movie". Our script will be good if it is not signed by us but by God Himself, perhaps for that reason, it does not make much sense to impose the forms or the times to Him who is the Owner of time. What we have come to is to use human means as if there were no supernatural ones, and at the same time to call on God with all our heart, as if there were no human means.
Editor-in-Chief at Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.
