Denver, CO. Here is a new report from Steve, the coordinator of the Littleton, Colorado SPSE team, about his team’s presence at a recent public event [https://streetevangelization.com/littleton/]:
It was a good time. There were many “fall-aways.” Meghann brought a young lady that was baptized Catholic but goes to some ‘Rock band church’ where her husband is the drummer. She was “beyond excited” – she always was drawn to the church and wanted to learn more but hadn’t done anything about it. She took CDs, medals, rosaries, and my contact card, etc.
An elderly deaf man approached and gathered up a little of everything. He told us where he was coming from by pointing at the ‘Reasons to Return to the Catholic Church’ pamphlet and then pointing at himself.
Jonathon Arrington and I talked to two “fall-aways” for 30 minutes before they had to leave, though they wanted to talk more. One basically is a Protestant, but calls himself Catholic. He rejects basically everything. Apparently he read only writings of the church fathers which never mention the Eucharist.
A Muslim guy from India came up and kept talking about Fatima. He left with miraculous medals & sermon CDs.
Quite a few pointed at the Latin mass magazines saying “I wish that was here.” I handed them a card with mass times on it saying, “It IS here!”
We gave away a lot of holy face medals as well. Those were very popular along with the image of the Bonnie Prince made by monk friends of mine from the Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay. I also had pamphlets made up of the story of Claude Newman and his miraculous medal, Fr. DeSmet (apostle of the Rockies), and the Jesuit eight at Hiroshima (even though I met many that said they never even heard of the atomic bomb dropping in Japan).
Those were the highlights, but another interesting thing was that Meghann found the Planned Parenthood tent and took abortion tracts and CDs to pass out in front of it. And when we left, I just had to stop by the “freedom from religion” tent and ask them to “convert me.” Thirty minutes later one of their guys wrote down things to look up later: the Guadalupe tilma and NASA scientists & the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano. That booth was across from the communist booth which was next to Protestant booths which were, in turn, next to the LGBT booth which itself was across from messianic Jews tent. The angriest person at the “freedom from religion” tent was a fallen-away Catholic, now atheist.
We’re going try to find more events to do this at, and place tracts and DVDs in places around the parish neighborhood, St. Francis de Sales style.
“Fall-aways” are unfortunately very common. Fortunately, however, these former Catholics tend to be very interested in speaking with our evangelists. Like the shepherd in Christ’s parable, we are called to seek out the lost, and rejoice with the angels when they are brought safely home. Praised be Jesus Christ! Will you join us in serving His Kingdom? Join or start a team!