Glory be to Jesus Christ!
I remember when I was in High School and my youth leader at the time invited me to come to the Marian Centre, a field-house of the Madonna House Apostolate. The Marian Centre is a soup kitchen in the inner city of Edmonton which serves hundreds of homeless men and women every week. It was a truly grace-filled invitation, and one that would help me to come back to my faith after a very rocky undergraduate experience at the UofA. The “offhand” invitation of a Bible Study leader who had experienced the love, faith and reality of the Christian messaged lived out at this Christian community had an impact that he wouldn’t see, but would lead me back to the Lord years later.
“Come and See.” So often today we fall into the misguided assumption that evangelization must require large groups of people to be “effective.” St. Andrew the First-Called evangelized the world through bringing his brother St. Peter to meet Christ. This personal invitation to relationship, this personal invitation to faith still echoes throughout the world.
Today, consider your introductions to the faith. Who encouraged you to come to the Lord? How can you continue to join St. Andrew in introducing others to the lifesaving Person of Christ? How can we encourage those in our families, friends and neighbors to “come and see?”
Through the prayers of St. Andrew the First-Called, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us!
