Catholics Next Door - Greg Willits, Jennifer Willits

Catholics Next Door (eBook)

Adventures in Imperfect Living

Greg Willits, Jennifer Willits (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
160 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-480-3 (ISBN)

These days, getting kids to focus on God instead of their iPods takes nothing less than supernatural intervention. Loving God and following him often makes you look weird to your neighbors. The Willitses understand the struggle, and in their very first book, they share their energetic, humorous, and imperfect attempts to live out their faith in today's world. Sometimes it helps to know that others are on the same narrow path as you, stumbling just as you do. Greg and Jennifer Willits' view of the world covers the gamut of daily life, from kids and comic books to marriage and dealing with technology, and shows readers that you don't have to be perfect parents with perfect kids to be good Catholics.

chapter one

OUR NEIGHBORS THINK WE’RE NUTS

Who Turned Out the Lights? | Greg

We live in a subdivision with only fifteen homes. It’s a shame that, despite the small size of our neighborhood, we don’t know our neighbors better than we do. In fact, we actually have on our block neighbors we’ve never even met.

But what we do know of those fifteen homes in our neighborhood is that we’re the only Catholics around. This seems somewhat strange. I have lived in areas of Ohio and other states where Catholicism is more prominent (though not always practiced). And Catholics make up 24 percent of the population in the United States.2

Because our faith is not always visible, and especially because Catholicism is often mocked and belittled, we need to remind ourselves of our responsibility to be witnesses for Christ:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and then put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14–16)

The idea of being a witness, a light of the world, a city set on a mountain, is a daunting one. Maybe you are an introvert, or you have had a bad experience sharing your faith, or you feel unprepared or unable to quote Scripture or find a topic in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It may seem easier to avoid letting people know you’re a child of God, that you’re a part of this great universal Church founded by Jesus Christ himself.

Perhaps you’re worried that if you share your faith, you may let God down by doing it poorly. Perhaps you think that someone else can do the job better. So you just coast along and try to stay under the radar.

Years ago, when our neighborhood was first under construction, Jennifer and I bought the very first home on the street and vowed to help create a neighborhood where people lent cups of sugar and eggs when needed, where you’d tie balloons on each other’s mailboxes when a new baby was born, where you’d bring a casserole when someone was sick.

Sadly, as more than a decade has passed, these hopeful aspirations have faded. Neighbors have come and gone, and our commitment to being neighborly has often been superseded by a desire for privacy, to live and let live.

This makes it even more important for us to be aware of every situation, and to take advantage of every opportunity to be a good neighbor, to reach out in small and large ways and make a difference in the lives of others. To be a light to the world.

The great news is that it’s easier to be a light than you may think. It involves being aware of others’ situations and taking advantage of opportunities to be good neighbors, to reach out in small and large ways and make a difference in the lives of others. It also requires a willingness to let your neighbors think you’re nuts.

A Catholic Superhero With Wonder Woman Boots | Jennifer

My husband was throwing underwear at my face.

I was wearing a custom-made superhero outfit, complete with flowing red cape and Wonder Woman boots. My face was stoic, since that’s how superheroes look, and my hair was aptly flowing in response to a well-timed breeze. At a very visible spot in our backyard, I followed Greg’s directions and climbed to the highest rung on the ladder of our children’s wooden playground set.

If this scene wasn’t bizarre enough to neighbors, who by now were taking notice, Greg suddenly yelled, “Action!” turned on the video camera, and proceeded to pelt my head with our son’s underwear. This went on for an uncomfortably long time, since Greg underestimated the challenge of successfully hitting his designated target (my face) with a floppy object (the underwear) while holding the camera steady.

On another occasion Greg made me dress up like a cave woman and run through the trees in his parents’ yard. And yet another time, he thought it would be funny if I picked an imaginary booger from the nose on a bust of a politician inside our state’s capitol in downtown Atlanta. All of this was caught on film and then shared on the Internet.

Sometimes we remove all doubt that we’re a little peculiar.

So why did Greg have me do all those scenes? Because we’ve got a story to tell! We were filming That Catholic Show, an online series, and all the silly moments mentioned above played their roles in helping put a smile on the viewer’s face while we explained our Catholic faith.

But apart from the statue of the Holy Family next to our front door, the five young kids running around our yard, the worldwide nonprofit Catholic organization we’re managing, and the international Catholic radio show broadcast from a room above our garage, our neighbors still might not have a clue that we’re the Catholics next door. After all, Catholicism isn’t meant to be seen on a billboard as much as it is meant to be lived, experienced, and shared.

If neighbors think we’re weird because we have lots of kids, are unafraid to homeschool when necessary, and work in radio ministry, then I’m glad to be like St. Paul, who said, “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10).

We didn’t sign up to be praised by worldly standards but only to follow the love of our lives, Jesus Christ, and the traditions and teachings of his holy Church.

While we may take our faith seriously, we are far from saintly perfection.

Trust me, there’s no levitating or bilocating going on in this house.

We do, however, love our Lord, our Blessed Mother, and our faith, and we love talking about these to anyone who will listen.

In addition to sharing our faith, we also seek to listen and to love. Remember the saying “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.”3

Once you ponder the wisdom of this statement, evangelizing people to our Catholic faith becomes easier than you might think.

For example, any time I go out in public with all five of my children in tow, I know I am silently witnessing a pro-family and pro-life message. Any time I wear a T-shirt that expresses our Christian values, I am a silent witness for the faith. Whenever I smile at a stranger, I spread a bit of God’s love. Anytime I pray for someone in need, answer someone’s call for help, or simply offer something before I’m asked, I’m living out my Catholic faith. From the loving way I treat animals, nature, and the environment to being responsible and generous with money, the opportunities to be Catholic seem almost limitless.

Catholicism is more than a religion to which we belong. It’s an action word synonymous with love and charity itself.

How do you witness your Catholic faith?

Gandhi Might Not Like Me Very Much | Greg

I was having lunch with a coworker years ago, feeling an incredible sense of urgency that, at that moment, I had an absolute moral responsibility to convert him before we’d finished our entrées. I was throwing his way every argument for Christ that I’d ever heard, while my coworker was completely unconvinced. He wasn’t argumentative. He didn’t shout me down or fight for another viewpoint. He simply didn’t believe what I believed. I walked away from that lunch convinced I’d failed not only my coworker but God as well.

Years later I know that my first mistake was in thinking that I somehow held the sole responsibility for converting this person—it wouldn’t be the Holy Spirit who converted him but I. That’s just stupid.

My second mistake was that, other than in words, I never showed this man what it was like to be a Christian. I never asked about his family life. I never looked for opportunities to lessen his workload or to compliment him. I never reached out to help him in any practical way.

Mahatma Gandhi purportedly said, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”4 That should shake us to the core. Are we just saying that we are Christians but not acting at all like Christ?

The reality is that we live in a complicated world. At times it may seem that everybody—family, coworkers, friends, and even strangers—wants a part of us. My frequent reaction is to put defensive walls around myself. I’m a friend from five hundred feet, a superficial friend. A superficial friend is also a superficial Christian.

Our modern secular world is built on the idea that we need to feed ourselves, serve ourselves, and give the rest of the world the leftovers.

But the Christian perspective—the one that will make your neighbors raise an eyebrow at first—is to put everyone else first.

How can we fulfill our obligations to all the people who depend on us and still have the time and energy to live the gospel in the world as Jesus called us to do?

His words are clear and unmistakable: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).

If Jesus were saying these words...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	19.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-480-X / 163582480X
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-480-3 / 9781635824803

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