Rule Number Five: Do your homework, be prepared.
Imagine you have a discussion with a friend and he says “I’m leaving the Catholic Church. You have crazy ideas; I’m not interested anymore in this religion” and they walk away. Fast-forward five years, they come back and ask you, “You know, I’ve been thinking about coming back. Why is it that you believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?” And you answer “Uh…I don’t know.” That is the worst possible scenario.
When we are working with people to bring them into the fullness of a relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church., we should be prepared and ready with answers. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 Peter 3:15 that says “always be prepared to give an answer for those who ask ‘why do you have this hope in you?’” The word “answer” there in Greek is apologia. From that word, we get apologist which has become quite a popular word in [the] Catholic Church nowadays but I think it was forgotten for a while but it’s coming back into vogue again. Being an apologist does not mean “I apologize for being Catholic.”It doesn’t mean that at all, in fact the word in Greek is apologia which means to explain and to defend. We should be doing our homework so that we’re prepared to explain and defend the Faith when someone comes and asks us a question, or when we need to defend our own position and explain why we believe this, whether it’s with family members, and we need to be able to do it on the drop of a dime. So, this means we have to do our homework.
Now this is one of the mostfun of the rules for me. I have my favorites and I have my least favorites. But this is one of the most fun for me. I love a good argument, I love a good debate and so I love to study and prepare, not only because I like to share it with people but also because I love to learn. When my dad raised me, he didn’t give me a television. He said,“I want you to learn to have curiosity, an insatiable curiosity, and learn to love reading and learning” and certainly I do. The Catholic faith is so rich and deep and exciting, there’s so much to study and learn. We actually have an embarrassment of riches today. When I became Catholic, there were very few books out there that are Bible study for Catholics and apologetics, but today there’s a wealth of podcasts and books and recorded talks and all of the things that we need. Avail yourselves of these, buy yourself a basic library of apologetics and understanding Scripture. My grandson, named Dominic, the other day, said “Grandpa, I just went and had a meeting with the Baptist minister.” He’s only 18 years old and he said, “Boy, was that ever fun, Grandpa and I came home and we studied more and studied more and we went back the next week and I was really ready for that discussion.” Well, this is what we need to do to be prepared so that when people come and ask us, we don’t stand there like deer with our eyes in the headlights, but we have answers, we’re prepared to joyfully and lovingly explain the Faith in an exciting, and interesting way.
Practice makes perfect. If you want to be strong, it’s something like weight-lifting, you have to practice. Yeah, it can be painful at times, but in the long run, it makes you stronger. Start studying the Faith. Learn the Bible, especially the Bible in dealing with Protestants. That’s the common currency, that’s what they accept. Start to exercise, learn the Faith, defend the Faith, get your homework done.