Encounter - Burst Into Flame
"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." - Albert Schweitzer
There are two people in my life who have helped me rekindle my faith and I'd love to share you the stories of each of them. Both are women, and both are wonderful. To Carly and Ms. C - thank you for helping me rekindle my faith and helping it burst into flame.
When I was at Texas A&M University, I found myself a little lost because all I did was go to mass on Sundays and immediately go home afterward. My encounter with Carly was completely happenstance, but it's a prime example of when you look back and see that God had a hand in making this all happen. He put Carly in my path and I couldn't be more grateful.
In my Sophomore year of college, I was volunteering at a recruiting meeting for a group called the Creativity and Innovation Alliance. This is where I met Carly for the first time and we got to talking and I somehow mentioned I went to St. Mary's. I probably mentioned in that conversation that all I did was go to mass and not much else. It takes a truly special person like Carly to do what she does in this first conversation we had together - she asked me if I wanted to go to mass with her and her roommates. Wow. Of course I agreed! How could I say no?
So there it was. Evangelizing at its finest. It took a great person like Carly to ask, and on my end, it took a person willing to say yes. Our friendship was fostered through St. Mary's. My early dependence on Carly was later substituted by my eventual love for Aggie Awakening (a retreat put on by students, for students). And even after that, she and I stayed good friends. I often think fondly back to how pivotal that encounter with Carly was to guiding me to God.
Carly literally invited me to join in communion with her and her roommates (who were all lovely, by the way) and it led me to embrace the St. Mary's community. It was like saying yes to God and joining him and embracing the love he showed through St. Mary's. This example of saying yes to God is but one example of many times I said "yes" to opportunities to grow in faith. I said yes to Aggie Awakening (which, as a side note, before Aggie Awakening, I kind of hated retreats). I said yes to volunteering with Aggie Awakening. I said yes to being a Lector for daily mass as often as I could. I said yes to going to more St. Mary's functions and meeting more faithful people. I even said yes to working one summer at The Pines Catholic Camp (go trees!). I said yes to as much of it as I could handle because I was bursting into flame. I was so on fire for my faith and it was such a wonderful feeling. I hoped that I could be that faithful even after I graduated, but alas, there is no place like St. Mary's. I had to say goodbye in 2013.
Many years later in the summer of 2016, after getting laid off from my job, I found myself back in my hometown - Houston. Though I was drifting along the previous 3 years, I still had a great desire to embrace my faith and be surrounded by those who felt the same. I wanted to find a community like St. Mary's again. I found the Houston chapter of the Young Catholic Professionals (YCP) and immediately latched on. Luckily for me, there were many people with whom I reconnected from my time at St. Mary's and I started feeling like I found what I was looking for. After a few months of attending events, I had the opportunity to jump into a volunteering role with a friend and we had such a great time doing it that we decided to join the leadership team together.
I became the Director of Outreach for YCP and one of my duties was to join a group that was creating an event series called Cafe Catholica North. This new 2018 series was special because it was meant to mirror the incredibly popular Summer series in central Houston called Cafe Catholica but allow young adults on the North side of the Houston metropolitan area to join in. The series of events was run by young adults, for young adults. After establishing myself in the group as the liaison from YCP, I became friends with a number of the folks in the group. After about two or three months, I had noticing a certain person in the group, let's call her Ms. C, and Ms. C was just something else. I was interested; I was infatuated. I got to know her more in the later weeks and asked her out on a date! Since then, we've been inseparable (awwwwwwwwww).
So you know who Ms. C is, right? To you, she may be just another writer on this blog. But to me... She's my world. Ms. C has challenged me to be a better man in many different ways, but none more important than my faith. I've explained to you in a previous blog post (found here) who Ms. C is for me, but her presence in my life is just as influential as Carly's has been. She helps me keep the flame ablaze. What better partner in life is there than the one that helps you live a meaningful life? None - there is no one better for me than Ms. C.
With Ms. C's encouragement and a willingness to say yes, I currently volunteer at a Catholic Church that has a program called Encounter where we prepare the kids for confirmation. Trust me when I say this was a big challenge for me. Now that I am responsible for my own boys in my small group, there have been many times I have referred back to these two ladies and the lessons I took from my encounters with them. I am often reminded that there are two types of churchgoers - the person that invites and the person that accepts that invitation. I tell my boys to think about what person they are. It's okay to be one or the other, as long as they are open to the options. I want them to know they are always welcome, even if they fall away from the church, they just need to be open to the the invitation.
Ask yourself the question - Am I courageous enough to invite others, or am I here to just accept the invitation? I challenge you to be the one to reach out and send the invitation. Because even though there are two types of churchgoers, there is the other set of people, the non-churchgoers! It's our job to invite them in too and let them know that there is love in the church, and that they are always welcome.
There is a lot of work to be done, but it doesn't mean we need to rush. I think our goal as Christian Evangelists should be to convince others to accept our invitations. And to do that, we have to first meet them where they are and be there for them when they're ready to accept the invitation in their own time. So to our friends who receive an invitation, churchgoer or not, consider saying yes.
With love,
Mr. K
P.S. Ms. C and I are engaged!