Catholic and Confident: Simple Steps to Share Your Faith

By Henry Libersat

Catholic and Confident is designed to help Catholics embrace their call to spread the message of salvation to everyone in their lives.

Providing references from various popes and the Second Vatican Council, this book shows the need for laypeople to evangelize and affirms their unique place in the world to do so.

Real-life examples of Catholics who are living their call combined with practical suggestions make this a valuable resource. Readers will find a new vitality of faith, a greater understanding of God's presence in their lives, and the peace that comes from living and sharing confidently as God calls them to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781635824766

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

On Sunday mornings, I arrive with my wife, Peg, at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Altamonte Springs, Florida, at 8:00 am. Peg attends Mass at that hour; I usually assist as deacon at the 10:00 am Mass, so during the 8:00 am Mass, I sit in the sacristy for my morning prayer and listen to the homily. Then I walk over to the rectory to await the priests and other deacons for breakfast. It’s one of the few times we manage to get together for a little fellowship along with lay cantors and a nun who serves as sacristan.

One Sunday morning I sat in the rectory living room, reflecting on our parish, the Church in general, and my life in particular. At seventy-six years of age, I felt frustrated because so many people were leaving or never entering our Catholic Church. I suppose I was praying a bit, asking God what to do about evangelization, for which I’ve always had a passion. A quiet voice spoke clearly: Write a book.

Excitement flooded me. I had written several books, but I thought those days were over. I still sent out e-mail reflections: a monthly Way, Truth, and Life and an occasional Of Wine and Gall and Brothers in the Lord. The latter goes to the men in our Monday-morning Bible study and to the men who gather monthly for Scripture study in a ministry they have dubbed ACTS 29. I host a blog—www.HenryLibersat.com and have also succumbed to Facebook.

A possible title of the book came to me: You Can Do What Jesus Did because what he did was bring the message of the Father’s love to all humanity. What he did was live among us and teach us, by word and example, what it means to know and love God. He died so we might have eternal life. We, too, must witness to and preach God’s love, die to self for the sake of others, and lead them to the foot of the cross to discover the depths of God’s love for them.

My friend Bert Ghezzi asked me two very practical questions: Why do you want to write this book? And what is its goal? After some prayerful thought I came up with this—the reason and the goal: To convince Catholics that they are called by God to share their faith and that they have the grace and power to do so.

Happily, the publisher came up with the perfect book title: Catholic and Confident: Simple Steps to Share Your Faith.

That’s how this work began. And now here it is. In these pages may you find inspiration, consolation, and confirmation of your value to the mission of Christ.

PART ONE

The

Foundation

for

Sharing

Faith

I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go out and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

—John 15:15–16

The renewal of the Church is also achieved through the witness offered by the lives of believers: by their very existence in the world, Christians are called to radiate the word of truth that the Lord Jesus left us.

—Pope Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei, 6

CHAPTER ONE

God

Is

Calling

You

Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

—Romans 12:2

In earlier days Catholic evangelization was considered primarily the work of priests and other religious. These people brought God’s love to foreign lands, including the Americas. That was good! These priests and religious—many of whom were martyred for their faith—did wonderful work and brought millions into the Church.

But now, in the twenty-first century, God asks you, a layperson— young or old, married or single—to bring the Good News of salvation to everyone in your life: to your family, the people at work, and those you meet while shopping, sitting in your doctor’s office, coaching sports, or standing outside church before and after Sunday Mass.

The Second Vatican Council made this clear:

The laity…are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth. Thus, every lay person, through those gifts given to him [or her], is at once the witness and the living instrument of the mission of the Church….

—Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 33

…The laity become powerful heralds of the faith in things to be hoped for (cf. Hebrews 11:1) if they join unhesitating profession of faith to the life of faith. This evangelization, that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life, acquires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world.…

Therefore, even when occupied by temporal affairs, the laity can, and must, do valuable work for the evangelization of the world.

—Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 33, 35

Laypeople are the ones now mainly responsible for evangelizing. At baptism we began our life as disciples of Christ. We were filled with the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. We were made one with God. We share his divine life. We have the right, duty, and power to tell people about salvation through Jesus Christ.

But, you may object, I am unprepared. I don’t know Scripture that well, or theology.

It is love of God and neighbor, rather than academic degrees, which brings people to Christ and his Church. This duty and privilege is for all Catholics. No one is excused from the Great Commission of Jesus: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you (Matthew