Practicing Prayer and Witness of Life
It’s time to put into practice the mercy of God for sinners. We know that evangelization takes place in prayer, witness of life, and word. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 905, teaches that “the true apostle is on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word.”[1] But to effectively proclaim Christ in word, we need to embrace also prayer and the witness of life as tools of evangelization. This first practical activity, then, is meant to help us prepare for proclaiming the gospel in word, by intentionally taking up prayer and the witness of life. It has 4 steps:
- Ask the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind 1 or 2 people who need conversion. For some reason or another, they are far from the Lord — either they do not believe in Him, or they are separated from Him because of sin.
- Once you have that person or those persons in mind, begin to intercede for them daily, that the Lord might speak to their hearts, revealing Himself to them. Pray that they might come to know Jesus Christ and His merciful kindness to sinners. Pray that they experience personal conviction of their sins. Pray that they fall in love with the good God, our Heavenly Father, who loves them.
- As you continue to intercede for them, start to pray also that God reveal to you ways that you can show them kindness, to serve them, especially if they are someone that you see regularly. Then put those things into practice.
- When you are ready, please also post in the Community Forums about your experience doing this practical activity. There is a specific topic created for this. Also, give a constructive question or comment about the lesson, or somebody else’s post on their experience doing the practical activity. All of this is required for your basic certification!*
As you do this practical activity, as you pray and show kindness to others, be “on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word.” The following three lessons and practical activities will introduce you to ways of doing that very thing.
*If you are a new SPSE team leader, you have the option to replace practical activities and forum postings with similar activities associated with the team leader onboarding process, followed by a post on your team blog, a group discussion with your team, or a conversation with SPSE staff about your experiences. Please contact Brian Lee (brian@stpaulse.com) with any questions.
[1] The Catechism here is actually quoting a document of the worldwide bishops of the Second Vatican Council.