SPSE’s San Francisco team found the Civic Center a great place to encounter people of ALL types: professionals, city and county employees, lawyers, law students, professors, homeless, and local residents. But what did the team say? What one thing did most all have in common?
The answer is fear. A culture that judges value by how much immediate pleasure something can give is a culture that leads people toward boredom and a sense of meaningless. But such a culture breeds fear. For meaninglessness cries out for meaning, especially in the face of the persistent suffering and death. In a meaningless world, fear — of death, of suffering, of being judged, of being unwanted or unloved — then leads to sin, because nothing of depth is offered as an alternative to pleasure-seeking, and so new, strange experiences of pleasure are sought, and we are degraded even deeper.
What we really want is HOPE for something better, indeed, for the best of all. What gives hope is GOD, through true FAITH in Him. And in such faith we find the ultimate meaning of perfect LOVE — the one Love of One Who will never abandon us and never lie to us, the one Love Who laid down His life for us “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). We need Jesus Christ.
Sensing this great need in our dying culture is what gives many SPSE evangelists the courage to keep taking the Faith to the streets. There, we meet people at all stages of the Faith journey. Some need to begin to rebuild trust, some become suddenly curious about Who Jesus really is, some need to move from “head knowledge” about Jesus Christ to opening “the heart” to Him, making a conscious decision to entrust their life to Him. And some need to know where to find the grace to break habits of sin and to move toward holiness.
All of this awaits within the Catholic Church. “What faith confesses, the sacraments communicate: by the sacraments of rebirth, Christians have become ‘children of God,’ ‘partakers of the divine nature’. Coming to see in the faith their new dignity, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life ‘worthy of the gospel of Christ.’ They are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and through prayer” (Jn 1:12; 1 Jn 3:1, 2 Pet 1:4, Phil 1:27, CCC 1692).
You can do this too! These are not trained theologians or professional evangelists but everyday Catholics who love Jesus and His Church. Join us today!