Thomas Cavanaugh - How to Win Friends for Christ . . . One Conversation at a Time

Fr. Thomas Cavanaugh and John D. Love

Copyright 2017 by Thomas Cavanaugh and John D. Love

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Published by The Word Among Us Press

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ISBN: 978-1-59325-308-0

eISBN: 978-1-59325-492-6

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February 4, 2016

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Contents

: Fr. John Horn, SJ

Foreword

W e become what we behold. And when, in faith and through prayer, we willingly receive and accept how Jesus beholds us, a light penetrates our hearts. This light is the active presence of the Holy Spirit. In a real sense, the laboring love of the Holy Spirit heals us from seeing ourselves through the demeaning lies of this world and through the accusatory tactics of the evil one. Instead, the light of the Holy Spirit strengthens us to see ourselves as the radiant beauty that we are, as beloved sons and daughters of the Father in and through Jesus (Matthew 3:17).

To see ourselves in the light of the Holy Spirit is to see ourselves through Jesus eyes. It is a light that cannot be overcome by any darkness (John 1:5). St. Clares instructions to her sisters encourages all of us: For his is the splendor of eternal glory, the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud. Queen and bride of Jesus Christ, look into that mirror daily and study well your reflection, that you may adorn yourself, mind and body.

As Christian disciples on mission, we need to learn how to identify and surrender to the light of the Holy Spirit so that we can enjoy, in friendship with Jesus, the spiritual inheritance that he has gained for us. The more we learn to live in this friendship and receive the Holy Spirit, the more we will attract others through a contagion of hope. This is the hope that evangelizes the world! We live each day in a manner that gives witness to this hope, which is born of friendship with Jesus. Surely it pleases the Father to give us the kingdom, to have us taste and see Gods reign in everyday faith (Luke 12:32). He is pouring the Holy Spirit into our hearts at this present moment (Romans 5:5). We are being beheld by Love!

Several years ago, Fr. Thomas Cavanaugh made a thirty-day silent retreat, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and entered into an intense intimate encounter with the indwelling Trinity. In the light of the Holy Spirit, he was given a new depth of passionate friendship with Jesus as well as a call to evangelize hearts by inviting others into the warmth and beauty of this friendship.

Fr. Thomas returned to the seminary, and as he shared about the wonder of this call to live as a missionary disciple, he became friends with Dr. John Love. The contagion of the Holy Spirit brought them together in the hope that this book would encourage many others to live as friends and companions of the risen Jesus. In writing this book, they have lived, and invite us to live, in the truth of what Pope Benedict taught us:

Only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him.

This speaking to others about our friendship with Jesus is the foundation for our call to proclaim his love and mercy to the family of nations in the New Evangelization. Through the great gift of this book and by exercising a lively faith, you will be given new graces to live in the awesome beauty of friendship with the risen Jesus.

In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [The Joy of the Gospel], Pope Francis said that the Lord was able to attract people by the way in which he looked at them, seeing beyond their weaknesses and failings (141). Jesus gaze, burning with love, expands to embrace all his people, he wrote. If he speaks to someone, he looks into their eyes with deep love and concern (268, 269).

Indeed, we become what we behold! With what this helpful book teaches us about evangelization, we can heed the call of Pope Francis to go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ (Evangelii Gaudium, 49). As the people of God, we learn to embrace everyone because we are the disciples of the One who knelt before his own to wash their feet (24).

I want to pray a blessing for you now. As you read this wonderful story, may you see yourself anew through the eyes of Jesus in the light of the Holy Spirit. May you see yourself as a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), a creation who is the Fathers delight (Isaiah 62:4). May the boundaries of love expand in your heart to receive more joy as a missionary disciple of Jesus.

Fr. John Horn, SJ, D.Min.
Faculty, St. Vincent DePaul Seminary, Florida
Cofounder, Institute for Priestly Formation

INTRODUCTION

Blazing a Trail

T here are plenty of clubs, activities, and meetings that crowd a seminarians schedule, so when several seminarians decided to start the New Evangelization Club at Mount St. Mary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, several years ago, they spread the news about the new club by word of mouth. Their fledgling club had just gotten the go-ahead for a mission trip to a college campusGeorge Mason University in Fairfax, Virginiaand they knew they would need to prepare. They wanted to be intentional and personal about gathering the group that would take the first mission trip for the club. In their thirty-minute meetings, they would practice giving their personal testimonies and how to approach people in gentle and disarming ways that would open the doors to conversion. They also realized that they would need to know more about what the Church had to say about evangelization and how to do it. So they asked me to speak to them.

I was already teaching a required course to the deacons in the seminary that included a unit on evangelization, so I was familiar with the documents and some resources for evangelization in the Catholic tradition. I put my thoughts together and prepared to summarize what I had learned for the members of the budding New Evangelization Club. I was teaching a class called Evangelization and Conversion that same semester, and I had done different kinds of evangelizing work for a number of years. After a quick prayer, I knew just what to tell the missionaries-in-training, and I still have the half sheet of paper on which I jotted my notes.