I have been going to the college campus right next to where I live as an opportunity to evangelize students and invite them to the local catholic campus ministry. I have met quite a few students every week and enjoy talking to other women who are looking for a community to be a part of. Since it is a public university there are many other christian groups that also come on campus with pamphlets and signs to try to reach students. I wanted to share my encounter with one of those christian evangelists who was passing out his information to students.
This man was standing by the library with a sign that had scripture passages and jewish symbolism all over. He was an older gentleman and was alone passing out slips of paper with his contact info to bring students to study the bible with him. While not many students interacted with him, I prayed for the Holy Spirit to show me when the time was right to talk with him.
The second week I went to campus was freezing cold, and I saw that he seemed a bit more alone than usual which prompted me to go over and talk with him. I offered him some food that we were handing out and asked him where he was from. He told me all about growing up in South Carolina and being raised in a christian household. He told me his story about living a life full of sin until the age of 37 when the Lord broke into his life and offered him mercy. He was a part of a group of christians with no church affiliation, but they studied the scriptures and he told me it was sad that many christians dismiss the old testament. I told him as catholics that we hold all of scripture to be sacred and understand that both work in unity to reveal Jesus, to which he replied that he didn’t see many catholics who acted in that way. I pulled out my phone and opened up the catechism, telling him that while some people do not place honor to sacred scripture the Church officially declares in paragraph 128-130 in the catechism that there is unity between the Old and New testaments! “As an old saying puts it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”
He was a bit surprised and agreed with what I shared, so he began asking me more questions. We talked about the sabbath day and vigil mass, as well as the covenants of the Old testament. The Holy Spirit brought to mind many scriptures passages again and again throughout the conversation and he was pretty impressed that I could call to mind scripture at ease (little did he know I too prayed with the scriptures.) I talked with this man for maybe an hour and decided that I would offer to pray for him. He accepted and we prayed for christian unity, for the Lord to protect us as we proclaim his message of mercy, and for the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts to understand his Word.