Rule Number Two: love the person more than you’ve ever loved them before.
I remember after becoming a Catholic, and being quite aggressive sharing it with people, a woman came up and she got right in my face. And she started yelling at me about why I was wrong to be a Catholic. Her face got red, her veins popped out in her neck and she went on and on. After a few minutes, I reached out and I grabbed her and I gave her a big hug and I whispered in her ear, “Thank you for loving me and my soul” and then I stepped back. You should have seen the look on her face.
Love is an argument you can’t argue with. When we love people, it disarms them. They want you oftentimes to engage, to push, to argue, but love always wins in these kinds of situations. Jehovah’s Witnesses,for example,when they come to your door, they are taught that Catholics and Christians will hate them and the best thing you can do when people like this come to your door is to love them, accept them, share with them your own stories and they don’t know what to do because they don’t know how to deal with love.
Love is that wonderful thing that is like, you know, we say that honey draws more than vinegar does. Kids respond more to love than they do to anger. So, we often learn how to love people. If we don’t love someone, it will show, and if we’re not caring and loving for someone,[then] why should they listen to us?People will listen and engage with you because you love them, because you care for them. And again, we talk about “you can win the battle but lose the war;” you can win an argument but you can lose a soul. So, showing that love is so important.
Now, this especially plays into a husband and a wife scenario. Say, for example, that the husband is studying over on his own down in his little office and he decides to become a Catholic. He comes back and tells his wife, “Guess what dear? I’m going to become a Catholic.” Well, first of all, where’s the love in that? Where is the respect of the husband for the wife? The way to do this is to bring your wife in and respect her and love her and show your love by respecting her intelligence and asking her questions and engage together. Something that love does together. Love will draw people toward us, it’ll be closer. Don’t become a doormat. I’m not saying that we become doormats or we get pushed around, that’s not what I’m talking about. Genuine love sometimes is tough, we call it “tough love.” But at the same time, we should letthe person that we’re dealing with know that the reason that we’re there is not to win an argument, not to get them to become Catholic. But it’s because we genuinely love them because God genuinely loved usfirst. And that kind of flow of love, that sweetness and joy, is very attractive to people.
So, Rule Number Two is love them more than you’ve ever loved them before and make that the foundation of your whole approach to people whether they’re family or friends or someone you meet on the street.