Something Franciscans can aspire to

Here is the beginning of a blog that reflects the way I hope we as Franciscans strive to relate to everyone we meet:

Once while I was on retreat, a monk told a “conversion” story to some visitors who happened to walk in while I was sitting in the front room reading. Here’s the sum of what he said as I recall it:

A lot of our ministry here is offering an oasis of peace and prayer for people frazzled by the world. There was a woman who used to come to the pond by the monastery several times a week, and just sit there quietly staring. Once when I was walking by her I said, “Good morning.” She said, “Good morning. You’re probably wondering why I come here so much.” I replied, “Lots of people come here for reasons we don’t know. But God knows.” She said, “Well, no disrespect intended, but I don’t believe in God. But my husband died a few months ago. I live nearby and have driven by here for years. For whatever reason I felt pulled to come here after he died to allow myself a place to grieve. It’s so peaceful here. Is that okay?” I smiled and said, “Of course.” And I continued on my way.

She kept coming over the next weeks, and then one Saturday she walked into the retreat house and asked to speak to a monk. She said to the guest master that she’d been coming here to find peace with the world and realized, after almost six months, that she had just come to believe in God … She’s Catholic now. She says what drew her in was the sense on the monastery grounds that all was right with the world and she felt a strange sense of hope. But, she said to the guest master, “what really tipped me was a monk who stopped to speak to me one day. I somehow sensed in the brief time he took to talk to me that I was loved unconditionally. I made the connection in the moments after he walked away — maybe that’s what ‘God’ means. Then I was in.

I had no idea. But that’s usually when God does His best work through us [the visitors laughed]…

I was told when I worked at a hospice run by the Missionaries of Charity that Mother Teresa had a saying, “A saint is one in whose presence it’s easy to believe in God.” I’d say that sums up the best evangelizing strategy Christians have.

A link to the entire article is here.