Have you ever had a hard time sharing your faith? If you’re anything like me, sometimes you
just get so passionate about being Catholic that it can be difficult to see the
world from another perspective. I mean,
the Catholic Church is amazing! But if
we’re called to “go out to all the nations” and proclaim the Good News, that
requires us interacting with people who are not like me, people who have a
different background and viewpoint and might challenge me with things I’ve
never even considered or cared about and yet are still created in God’s very
own image and likeness. It can feel
impossible, pushing me out of my own little world into a bigger reality – one that
I don’t fully understand and don’t have control over, which makes it
scary. But it’s the challenge of being a
believer!
One of my favorite memories from my World Youth Day
pilgrimage was an encounter I had with a cashier. World Youth Day was over, and our diocesan
group headed to Prague for a couple of days before flying back to the United
States. I had only heard great things
about Prague – how beautiful the city is, how interesting the history is, how
much more impressive it would be after the Polish cities. But what struck me most about my 48-hour
experience in Prague was just how much it lacks faith – and even more so, how
much the city doesn’t seem to even desire it!
People are inspired more by John Lennon than by any religious figure. Beautiful gothic cathedrals have renovated interiors
so that they can function as office buildings.
Tourists take gleeful family photos under life-sized versions of the
crucified Christ and a mourning Mary Magdalene and Mary His mother. The tour guide pushed us away from churches
and into shopping districts. And almost
everyone we talked to seemed to see faith as something below them, as if their
culture had outgrown it and moved on to something better that more directly
fulfills their personal needs and desires.
Why believe in anything if you don’t have to?
This was striking after having a week immersed in Poland,
one of the most actively Catholic countries in the entire world. I mean, there were busy churches on every
street corner, offering 6 Masses a weekend and having confession for hours and
hours every day of the week. And then to
be surrounded by a million excited young Catholics at every moment of the day
and night? You can always create a
reason to doubt, but you’d be hard-pressed to do so in that environment. You could see the Holy Spirit moving with
enthusiasm and passion! So to go from
what could be described as a week-long faith-based pep rally to a culture that
prides itself on that fact that it is without faith was…a shock. A statistic we heard from our tour guide (that
I’ve looked into a little since and seems pretty accurate) was that 80% of the
Czech Republic identifies as either atheist or agnostic. What a difference from its next-door
neighbor!
Do they know what they are missing out on? Do they care?
Don’t they want to at least ask the question of “what if”? Walking through the streets, I felt a serious
sadness and a longing that I had never recognized before – a longing for a
whole country of lost people. It was
definitely a place that could have led me right where the evil one wants us to
go: into a state of hopelessness.
We got back from the tour and I ventured into the gift
shop of the hotel, looking for a couple of last-minute gifts for my godchildren. All of the “religious” items looked cheap or
ridiculous, but eventually I found a couple of cute marionettes (including one
that as dressed like Pinocchio!) and headed to the cashier. The teens in front of me couldn’t make up
their mind what they wanted and took longer than necessary, eventually deciding
not purchase anything. I smiled at the
cashier and made some sort of passing joke about teenagers and their great
decision-making skills. As she rung up
my items, she asked if I was part of the group who had just come from Poland. I said yes, and then she asked if I had gotten
to see the pope. I shared a quick story
about how yes, we had on multiple occasions, including when we were walking
early in the morning to our Jeweler’s Shop dress rehearsal and he drove by in a
car that was no more than 15 feet away from us!
She finished wrapping up my purchased, paused, and looked at me. She then said “My family and I aren’t
religious, but I love Pope Francis. He
gives me hope that there’s something bigger out there after all, helping us and
protecting us.”
I mean… how cool?!
No, we didn’t get to have some sort of big theological discussion, but
there was something even better expressed in that short conversation: HOPE. It
doesn’t matter if you’re Pope Francis’s absolute biggest fan or if you are
someone who often gets frustrated with the way the media takes his words out of
context all the time. The fact that the
pope, the main person in the Catholic Church, who is a priest and celebrates
Mass in persona Christi, who is a part
of the apostolic succession right from Jesus Himself, could inspire hope in someone
who claims to be agnostic at best and make them even a little tiny bit more
open to the concept of a God who intimately cares about them, is awesome! Isn’t that what World Youth Day is all about,
to inspire people to live & love the Gospel message, to let the Holy Spirit
move them in ways that they might not even realize but lead to the conversion
of hearts?
Every once in a while, I think about that lady, and about
her family, and about the city of Prague.
And I pray fervently for them.
There is a longing there, a desire for something bigger than them, someone
that gives them hope. We know that desire
is faith, and that someone is Christ. I pray
that the people of the Czech Republic come to realize that Truth one day – and that
they come to realize that the hope they have is real and true and worth it in
every way imaginable! Who knows, maybe
the next person who inspires them to have hope will be you.
