Boise, ID
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The following story comes to us from team leader Lucy with our team in Boise, ID:
Early in the session, a group of five people on bikes stopped by. The lead guy, “Dan”, asked, “What makes the Catholic Church different from Protestants?” Chuck engaged him in conversation, but Dan didn’t want to listen, refuting, shouting, and arguing. His wife, two adult sons, and daughter-in-law were all well-versed in their version of faith and shrugged off any Bible verse contradicting their ideas as being “taken out of context”. They were faith-alone, Bible-alone, once-saved-always-saved, dispensationalist Protestants. They stayed for most of the session and did very little listening. Fortunately, there were two evangelists to engage with Dan and family while the other two team members continued to give away Rosaries and cover us in prayer. Dan has cancer and has less than a year to live. Please pray for him and his family, that their ears be opened to hear the truth and their hearts be softened toward Catholicism, and pray for Dan’s healing.
At the beginning of the encounter, Dan’s adult children moved forward and positioned their bikes so they were blocking our table. When I asked them to move, they ignored me. Later, they became interested in something Dan and Chuck were saying, and then moved around to the other side of the group. Meanwhile, James and I quietly and peacefully offered Rosaries to other passersby. A gratifying number of them squeezed their way around the bicycles to reach the table and get a Rosary and its pamphlet on how to pray it.
Meanwhile, Nancy and Dan’s wife were talking. (Keep in mind that this is Nancy’s first encounter as an evangelist!) The lady first wanted to know, “if Catholics worship Jesus” and “is He our Lord and Savior?” The evangelist assured her that Jesus is the reason for everything we do, and His sacrifice on the Cross was everything. She told our visitor, “By His stripes we are healed”, and they agreed that the OT prophecy was completely amazing. The woman, knowledgeable about the OT, said “The OT is the NT concealed and the NT was the OT revealed”, perhaps not knowing that she was quoting St. Augustine. However, when Nancy asserted that Mary is the New Eve and the Ark of The New Covenant, our visitor was hesitant.
Of course, she wanted to know if we worshiped Mary and had idols. She asked about praying to Mary. Nancy pointed out that our visitor had her beautiful children with her, and that no one wants them to succeed more than she does. Similarly, Mary the Mother of God wants Jesus’ mission to succeed, that all of us get to Heaven. The evangelist went on to say that we’re Mary’s children, too, and we ask her to pray for us. That seemed to make sense to our visitor.
Then she wanted to know about Confession. Nancy told her that we absolutely confess to Jesus, that the priest is there as Jesus’ representative. She went on to describe what a merciful gift Confession is, and asked our visitor why she would not want to do this? She replied, “It would be embarrassing.” The evangelist responded, “Exactly. It’s the opportunity for humility.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!