Saturday, November 13, 2010

Striving For Sainthood Through Little Ways

The other night I was hanging out with my friends and we began discussing how we are all called to be saints. We then bounced around different ideas on how we can work on making Catholics have a positive rap here in my liberal college town. So, here is the list we came up with...

Remember to smile. Everyone enjoys seeing a happy friendly face.
Listen patiently when someone needs to talk... after listening, instead of forcing advice on a person offer to pray together about what the other person needed to talk about. Bring problems to God.
No matter where we go to eat remember to always pray... and when we make the sign of the cross before and after make sure it is not a quick gesture, but a proud one.
Volunteer helping out at the local community kitchen or homeless shelter
whenever we meet someone to always think in our heads "you are worthy of being loved." By thinking this hopefully it will help us remember the other person is also loved by God.
Invite a friend to Mass
Always strive to learn more about our faith so that when people do come to us with a question we can be prepared. At the same time there is no way we can know everything there is to our faith. Part of being Catholic is knowing that we don't know everything, but we want to learn as well. It is a lifelong learning process.
Try not to gossip. this is a hard one, but the more we avoid talking about people behind their backs the more people will begin to respect us.
Dress modestly, but in a confident manner.
Be polite and courteous.
Be proud to do things like the Eucharistic Procession...
Enjoy wearing catholic t-shirts, or retreat t-shirts.
When in a group of friends who want to do things that are anti-catholic try to suggest to them in a friendly manner something else to do. If they don't want to go along with you, that's fine. Just politely say you are not interested in that and excuse yourself from their plans.
Remember to be a role model for those who you never know are looking up to you. Do not do something that you would regret seeing a younger person, or peer do.

These are just a few of the points we thought up. I wish I could tell you I remember them all, but I don't. We talked about a LOT of different ways.

3 comments:

Liz said...

it's interesting...i never openly go around telling people "HEY! I'm liz and I'm CATHOLIC!"

yet i can't tell you how many times people (that I am not good friends with per se, or who I didn't even know were religious) have come to me asking if they can come to Mass with me because they don't want to go alone or for help becoming more spiritual. it probably has a lot to do with my facebook being covered with photo albums of nuns, priests, and a pilgrimmage to italy and lots of saint quotes...but people take notice of these subtle things! :)

i need to work on the crossing myself in public...i'm always too chicken (yet I'm fine with being in a Procession?) unless i'm with a priest or in a large group. i love the list you came up with!

Teresa said...

Thanks, Liz! I am quite proud of it myself. It was a good discussion that was held. We missed you at Bible study today. :)

Teresa

Liz said...

I would have been there...except I inconveniently had an exam at 2pm :(