That Some Might Be Saved

In my field of work as a recruiter, I go to a lot of events that appear to be a waste of time. You might set up a table at a university or a career or grad fair and talk to two or three people, so you question whether its worth being there are at all. But if one of those students takes an interest in your school and ends up matriculating, it pays for itself a hundred times over.

You never know, either, what kind of outcome might come from your presence. In one instance a few years ago I was chatting with a prospective student in Venezuala from my kitchen table at 4am as part of an international virtual graduate fair. I didn't think anything of it until the student showed up at our office one day and I had a chat with him. He ended up attending our university, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, and went on for a second masters degree after his first was completed.

Even though some events seem like a total waste of time, what is the alternative? Not showing up and getting your name out there? If you show up you may or may not recruit potential students. But if you don't show up, you're guaranteed not to recruit anyone.

I'm getting ready to attend an evangelization conference in Detroit in a few weeks. I'm hoping it will give me some fire and tools to get our local team going; it is very very slowly coming together in our area, but we have yet to go out yet due to a number of factors. I struggle with sometimes become defeated before I even start, or having to ensure x, y, and z is in place before anything can more forward. Like anyone, I am susceptible to the fears of looking stupid, failing, and becoming dejected. But I have no right to any of these feelings until I actually fail first. You can't fail until you go out and take a risk first.

I'm not naive though. I know what we are up against in this culture. Deacon John Beagan had a sober assessment and perspective on the New Evangelization at Crisis in a recent essay.  Unless people are led to repentance and given clear teaching, evangelization efforts will be in vain. We are hemoraging people from the pews. For every one person that becomes Catholic, six are leaving the Church. This does not bode well for our future as a Church, our country, or Western Civilization as a whole.

I was chatting with a friend a few weeks ago, a lapsed Catholic, who felt that as long as he was a good father and family man and a "good person" that that was enough, and that religion wasn't that important. Not long after that I asked my father why he didn't go to Mass every Sunday (since it is a mortal sin to skip Mass), or at least go to Confession regularly, and it was similar excuses. I could think of a hundred more examples of people with similar attitudes.

Most of the world is marching blithely to Hell and have no idea. Very few have woken up to the life-and-death imperative of the Gospel. You write quietly and try to be respectful; you yell and you scream and you exhaust yourself trying to turn back the tide. But what's the use? It seems inevitable that most will be lost.

I don't think this is unbiblical either. Most will not be saved, in this generation or the next. Jesus exhorts his followers to choose the narrow path, which "few find" rather than the wide road that leads to destruction--the gate that "many choose to enter through" (Mt 7:13). All have the potential to believe and repent, for it is God's desire that all might be saved (1 Tim 2:4). In our own lives, Deb and I, when we abandoned certain sins and committed to living in a state of grace, going to Confession regularly and making use of the Sacraments and sacramentals, and trusted in God's will for our lives, God was able to work. For years we were not in a state of grace because of our use of contraception in our marriage; for me, personally prior to that, the use of pornography and masturbation rendered my spiritual life bereft of grace as well. But being in a state of grace makes all the difference for God to be able to work. It is essential to spiritual maturity.

When I went out to San Francisco to accompany my friend Joseph Sciambra and help him in his effort to help "save some" from the LGBT lifestyle at San Francisco's Pride event, it was with this hope--that even one might come to repentance and metanoia and reconsider their trajectory and come home. Joseph is great because he doesn't wait to go into the fray, he doesn't take it to some parish council and have a meeting about it--he just does it, in a soft-spoken but prophetic kind of way that is rooted in right (orthodox) belief. He knows what he has been saved from; he has stared into the abyss. There is nothing like a man who has been at death's door and seen what a life of debauchery has to offer to tell someone what to be careful of.

St. Paul writes that "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some" (1 Cor 9:22). This is my hope. If I die fifty years from now and have only reached one person with the Gospel who repents and believes and is saved, I will consider my life a success. But even that I wonder about. Is it time to change strategy?

John the Baptist is one of my favorite saints, but I am not like him. I admire him from afar. A part of me secretly sympathizes with his having no time to "dialogue" or "share perspectives" about the Gospel, or have Convocations on Evangelization or form a parish committee. It's more like:

You

Need

To

Repent

NOW

But I will be honest--I get very very dejected. I feel like a complete failure. I fear for my parents and family and for my friends because time is running out. I pray for myself too, that I might not undergo the test (Mt 26:41). 

So, I hope a few will be saved. I will do everything I can, keep planting seeds, keep writing, keep praying, keep forming my family, keep talking, keep hoping.