Legion Members: Taking the “Accompanying” Line
20 November 2016: Rev. Frank Giuffre/Philadelphia Senatus
Reading: Handbook, pp. 312-313 [Chapter 40, Section 3, “No! … religion to us!”]
Contemporary Catholic speaker, writer, and evangelist Matthew Kelly often speaks
about his conversion from being a lukewarm Catholic, a fallen away of the Church, to a
dynamic Catholic, a passionate disciple of the Church. We might ask ourselves what made
all the difference and what served to precipitate the change in Kelly’s life. Was it a sermon he heard? A book he read? A Mass he attended? A shrine he visited? It was none of these.
It was rather the intervention of a faith-filled friend who loved Kelly enough to tell him the truth and who also loved him enough to keep in regular contact with Kelly over the long haul, walking him back to the Faith and working with him on deepening his faith. Like a doctor who prescribes to the physically infirm differing dosages of various medicines with each check-up, so this friend counseled Kelly back to spiritual health through continued contact as to the right prayers and practices needed at the right time – first challenging Kelly to stop in a church, then later to read the Gospels, then later to perform a work of mercy regularly (visiting a nursing home), and then later to pray the Rosary daily.
Describing the power this sustained influence had on him, Kelly would say, “[Without the guidance of my friend], I couldn’t have done what I did with my life.”
Kelly’s story and testimony highlights a lesson for Legion members in their effort of
“seeking conversions to the Church.” Definitely, it attests how essential the personal contact of “one soul upon another” (H, 314) is in the approach. But it also reminds us that something more is needed: not one personal contact, but sustained personal contacts, whereby one caring Christian helps a soul over the long haul, guiding him or her step by step along the journey to Christ and to the Church. Such a sustained contact and interaction coalesces with Legion mentality. After all, while the Handbook asserts that the most effective approach in the realm of conversions “must be an individual and intimate one” (H, 312), nowhere does it say that it should be a limited to one – that is, limited to one visit, one conversation, one meeting.
The Legion knows that what is needed for the individual’s spiritual healing is what was
employed for the paralytic’s total healing in Mark 2:1-10. We may recall in that scene how a totally helpless, handicapped man was brought to Jesus – through a packed crowd and a solid roof – by friends who were willing to make the long journey and difficult investment of their energy to see a comrade of theirs made well again. Legion members are called to use the same tactic: to carry those seeking conversion on the “stretcher” of regular visits and interactions, never swayed by obstacles, until these souls finally are led to a life-saving and life-altering encounter with Jesus. This kind of effort will be demanding. It may entail spending a lot of time, experiencing a lot of frustration, seeing very little progress on some days, and wanting to give up on others. But in many cases, it may just be the only hope for one who, like the paralyzed man, would have no other way of reaching Jesus. A Legion friend is needed to see them through!
Pope Francis has made a priority of promoting this approach when speaking on the
topic of evangelization, using the phrase “accompaniment” to describe the process by which believer walks with a potential-believer all the long journey (back) to the Church. He challenges us “to [be] a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way” (Message, June 1, 2014) with “prudence, understanding, patience and docility to the Spirit” (EG, 171). The Holy Father’s wisdom is marching orders for the Legion that, in assisting those who would convert to the Catholic Faith, we must take, not the company line, but the accompanying line. We must be willing to befriend “broken down” AND journey with those “broken down” the entire way home – and not be content with a single instance of “roadside, emergency service.”