Diocese of Toledo, Ohio

Browsing From the Pastor

Evangelizing and Preparing for Marriage

   As a priest, I treasure opportunities to help to prepare couples for marriage. When couples come for marriage preparation, there is a mutual love that exudes from each person for the other. The outward expressions of affection that each has for the other come forth naturally. During the pre-marriage sessions, I invite the couple to continue to work in order to keep the love that each has for the other vibrant. Silver and golden wedding anniversaries don’t just happen. They occur because each person does what the situation of their marriage calls for to keep it alive and upbeat.

   In certain ways, evangelizing or witnessing to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can be likened to preparing for and remaining faithful in marriage. As we allow the love of God in Jesus Christ to transform us, it will become more and more natural for us to evangelize. As we experience how deeply we are loved by the Lord, how can we keep this to ourselves? The love of Christ in us will exude in the way we regard ourselves, in the manner in which we relate to others, in the way that we spend free time and in our attitude toward the financial resources presently entrusted to us. We will grow in the ability to come across to others with the attitude that life is an opportunity to be embraced rather than as an ordeal to be endured. 

   If we are to continue to be alive with the love of Christ and witness of this to others, we need to be proactive in regard to sharing our faith. One reason for this is that our endeavor to live as the Lord wants us to live can be misunderstood. We need to reflect upon why we believe, speak and act as we do so that we can meaningfully share this with others. Hopefully, all that we do springs from the desire and the determination to do our part to extend God’s love for us in Jesus to persons in each of the settings in which we find ourselves.

   Witnessing to our faith in the Lord calls us to be proactive because of the challenges of living that we encounter with all other persons. Sooner or later, suffering that we do not deserve will come our way. Apart from a vibrant faith in our Lord, we can become bitter, resentful, and filled with self-pity when we experience hardships that we do not deserve. We  need the Lord’s strength if we are to relate to suffering and hardships in a manner that benefits ourselves and others. Perhaps, one of the most powerful and effective ways in which we can witness to our faith in the Lord is in the way in which we relate to undeserved pain and hardship.

   We also witness proactively to our Faith as we acknowledge our own need to receive and to extend the Lord’s forgiveness with one another. It’s hard to allow the Lord’s love for us to be at the heart and center of our lives at all times. Every day, we are pulled in so many different directions, many of which, in and of themselves, are good. As a result of trying to please others and ourselves, we experience at times that we are too busy or too tired to pray as we sense we should be doing. Consequently, we cut corners in our relationships with ourselves, with others, with the environment and with the Lord. This is how sin comes to expression. As we acknowledge our own need for forgiveness and avail ourselves of the Lord’s forgiveness, especially as this is offered to us in a distinctive way in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we are set free and empowered to extend the Lord’s forgiveness to persons who have hurt us in the settings in which we find ourselves with others. We witness in a proactive manner to the reality that is at the heart of our Faith as we grow in the willingness and in the ability to receive and to extend the Lord’s forgiveness to one another.

   Yes, to evangelize, to witness to our Faith in the Lord is natural, it is spontaneous. Let us also acknowledge that if our Faith is to remain vibrant, we need to continue to act in proactive ways to enable this to happen.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor  

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