Thank you so much to all who took part in our book giveaway. Our winner is Eva! Congratulations!!!
Many thanks to Karen Edmisten for inaugurating our new website feature “Guest Essays” with her essay on “Being There”:
Is there someone in your life who doesn’t know God? What’s the best way to evangelize that friend, acquaintance, or spouse? We’re called to share the Good News, but it’s hard to know where to start. If finding God is a process (and it often is), how can we be there for those who are working their way through a process that sometimes feels like a minefield?
As a former atheist who was blessed with loving Christian friends who never gave up on me (even when I seemed to be a lost cause), I know there’s no simple answer to that question, and one size certainly does not fit all. But we don’t have to overcomplicate the answer either.
Karen is a dear friend and a kindred spirit and has just published a wonderful book on sharing the faith with others (which is very complementary to the aims of this website!) and so we are very pleased to be able to offer a copy of this book, You Can Share the Faith: Reaching Out One Person at a Time in a giveaway. If you would like to be entered in the drawing, please leave a comment on this post.
*OPTIONAL*: We would love it if you would include in your comment something simple about how someone has “been there” for you in your own faith journey, even if you don’t have a dramatic story of conversion.
A winner will be chosen randomly on Friday, February 19th.
Note: For cost reasons, we are only able to ship the book to a U.S. address.
Living Differently 
I am grateful to Monsignor Popek who was the pastor at Our Lady Queen of Peace during grade school and while I was a young adult. He was a very good role model for me and remained very loyal to Rome during our difficult times in the Milwaukee archdiocese.
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Growing up, I did not have any friends who actively practiced their Catholic faith but after marrying and becoming a mom, I began attending Daily Mass. Through Daily Mass, I met and made friends with amazing moms who loved their faith and practiced with a zeal that was inspiring – this attracted me. From then on out, I have learned the importance of the influence of who one surrounds oneself with. I went from becoming a 1 hour a week Catholic to, I hope, a 24/7 Catholic.
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As I got into my 20’s no one I knew, friends or siblings, were really practicing the faith. This is when I started to come back to the faith after a brief but turbulent time away from it in college. It was my mother though, a daily communicant and fervent rosary devotee, that was the grace I needed to come back and build on the foundation she had laid for me as a child.
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A very dear friend and holy priest taught me to love. Really and truly loves. His homilies were always focused on Gods love for us and how we are to be our Lords hands and feet. It came slowly over time but I just started really caring about everyone in my life in a different way. There was a moment in my life when I just stopped everything and said “I see what you did there Lord. You are good!!” Praye
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On one of the most horrible days of my life, the day after my daughter was stillborn, a dear friend called another dear friend (who also happens to be a priest) and he dropped what he was doing to visit with us, to make us laugh at a time when that was the last thing we wanted to do, and to pray with us and for us. The love and faith they both showed us is something that means the world to me and that I still cling to on the hard days.
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The apostolic oblates at ProSanctity. When I was in college and searching, they were so full of joy, so open and accepting and loving that I couldn’t help but be drawn to them. I saw that Catholics can be joyful and have fun and still be holy! This new perspective on the faith by these ladies’ wonderful example changed everything for me!
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In college, Bill and I had an amazing role model in the faith / spiritual mentor named Christopher Gustafson. He was the director of the crisis pregnancy center that I was volunteering at, and he inspired us so much in our faith journey! He is the one who introduced us to the Theology of the Body. He was so patient, answering our questions for hours on end about theology, morality and liturgy. It was through the Theology of the Body that I was able to love Jesus on a totally new deeper level, realizing more what Jesus did for us on the cross. Thank-you God for all the amazing role models and spiritual mentors you have put in my path since then. God is so awesome!
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I would have to say my mother in law has been an amazing role model of our faith. Her guidance and prayers have been most helpful. It took a while, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, I finally got there!
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Once, when I had grown lax in making it to Sunday mass, a friend said, “I would just not feel right about that.” It made all the difference in the world. Now I would not think about missing mass on Sunday. And a whole lot more grace has followed from there.
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I taught with a man who was not afraid to share his faith, especially with fallen away Catholics. He would tell me, and others that he knew were Catholic, that he hadn’t seen me at church lately. At his funeral, I saw one of my friends who he had been ” working” on for some time. I commented on how Armando finally got him back to church. He laughed, but you never know when the seeds Armando or I planted might take root.
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