John Boucher - Sharing the Faith That You Love: Four Simple Ways to Be Part of the New Evangelization

S HARING THE F AITH
T HAT Y OU L OVE

Four Simple Ways to Be Part
of the New Evangelization

John and Therese Boucher

Copyright 2014 by John and Therese Boucher

All rights reserved

Published by The Word Among Us Press

7115 Guilford Road

Frederick, Maryland 21704

www.wau.org

18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-251-9

eISBN: 978-1-59325-455-1

Nihil Obstat: Rev. Michael Morgan

Censor Librorum

December 12, 2013

Imprimatur: +Most Rev. Felipe J. Estvez,

Bishop of St. Augustine

December 12, 2013

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture passages contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other, except for brief quotations in printed reviewswithout the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948980

Dedicated to

Robert Fenner

who taught us how to share faith with love

19542012

and

Dr. Wayne G. Rollins

filled with zeal for the gospel.

How I wish John and Therese Bouchers book, Sharing the Faith That You Love, had been available years ago when I first started helping Catholics evangelize!

Coming from an openly anti-Catholic, fundamentalist background, I had breezily presumed that most Catholics were not real believers but baptized pagans who were all busy earning their salvation. After I became Catholic, I heard an older woman talk in tones of the greatest love and reverence about receiving the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, and I was instantly convicted of my arrogance, and repented as a result.

After that, I told myself that the mysterious Catholic silence about conversion and evangelism that I kept encountering must be the result of a spiritual reality that I, who had been raised in the extroverted world of American evangelicals, could not easily understand or appreciate. I told myself that Catholic culture is introverted, and that introverted people do not talk easily or casually about such deep matters. Catholics are silent because they are deep, living out of a relationship with God that transcends words.

For eighteen years, I held onto this diagnosis while simultaneously struggling to grasp the spiritual poverty I often encountered when I asked Catholics to tell me about their experiences of being used by God. I assumed that some lingering Protestant ways of thinking were hampering my ability to hit pay dirt. I must be asking the wrong questions or using the wrong language, I thought, to evoke the sharing of the spiritual depth that I was certain had to be there.

Of all the unlikely remedies, it was a dyed-in-the-wool cradle Catholic who finally set me straight. Fr. Mike Fones, OP, my second co-director at the Catherine of Siena Institute, is a lifelong believing and practicing Catholic, along with his parents and siblings. Fr. Mike never took a vacation from being Catholic or spent any time in the Protestant world. To top it all ofthe ultimate Catholic success storyhe become a priest!

After a discouraging experience of listening to small group discussions at an early Making Disciples seminar, our teaching team was eating lunch and discussing why the participants found it so difficult to identify spiritually hungry people in their parishes. I was still blaming myself because I had written the exercise when Fr. Mike turned to me and said, Sherry, give it up. It isnt because you were once Protestant or arent asking the right questions. You arent finding it because it is not there. Most Catholics are silent about conversion and a relationship with Christ because most of us have nothing to say.

Or, as I would put it now, lay Catholics havent been reading the Bible or the Catechism or papal encyclicals to find out what it means to be Catholic; they have been reading each other. The fact that ordinary lay Catholics dont talk about intentional discipleship makes it very, very difficult for most of them to think about it. A powerful culture of silence around conversion and discipleship is the primary reason why so many active Catholic adults and leaders have told me, I did not know I could have a personal relationship with God until today.

The Bouchers not only understand all this, but they have created a terrific way to break the silence! Sharing the Faith That You Love is intended for use by individuals or small groups who are interested in exploring evangelization. This book is the field-tested fruit of the Bouchers decades of experience with real-life evangelization with family and friends, as well as the many years of teaching the art of evangelization in small groups at both parish and diocesan levels. Their book will help Catholic men and women embark upon a relationship with God for the first time, or strengthen their existing relationship, while at the same time teaching them how to help others encounter Jesus in a life-changing way in the midst of his Church.

Sharing the Faith That You Love is filled with encouraging real-life stories, powerful prayer experiences, inspiring quotes from saints and popes, creative and thought-provoking spiritual workouts, and exercises that will get you in touch with your own experience of God as well as with the obstacles that are keeping you from effectively sharing the faith with others. This book will help you and your fellow parishioners move beyond wordless witness.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the book is its focus on trusting the work of the Holy Spirit and taking the long view. John and Therese tell several stories of evangelical conversations that seemed to be failures at the time but, years later, were revealed to be turning points in another persons relationship with God. They gift us with a warm, balanced, evangelical Catholic wisdom at its practical best, written in language that will speak to both cradle Catholics and to converts from other backgrounds.

Every pastoral leader who is interested in helping Catholics become comfortable with an intentional relationship with Jesus and with sharing that relationship with others should encourage them to read Sharing the Faith That You Love.

Sherry A. Weddell

Co-Director, Catherine of Siena Institute

Author of Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus

Life is just one big disappointment after another, Therese thought as she trudged down the stairs to the campus post office. Here I am, at my second-choice college. Here I am, with one of my horrible migraines. Here I am, a failure at pursuing a religious vocation. Whats next?

A lingering feeling of depression clung to Therese as she opened her mailbox. A junk-mail invitation to an Antioch Weekend retreat! What good would that do? she thought. Ive already tried novenas, rosaries, and months of Friday night benedictions.