Introductory Story
Mark was raised in a nominally Catholic home and had never attended church regularly. When Mark was about 15 years old, he asked his parents for his very own copy of the Bible. He had recently learned that the Bible is the Word of God, and that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus founded. Mark yearned to have his own Catholic edition of the Bible so that he could read it whenever he wanted, as much as he wanted, and from cover to cover. He wanted to know the truth about who God is, and who he is and how he should live his life. After mistakenly getting him a Protestant, King James edition, his parents (amused at their son’s Catholic conviction) tried a second time. This time, they succeeded. They bought him the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition—the old Ignatius Bible with the blue cover.
During his first read-through of the Bible, Mark didn’t understand a lot of what he was reading. But there were what he calls “bright spots” in his reading, where the beauty and glory of the truth shone forth for him. One such text was from the Letter to the Romans, chapter 8:
If God is for us, who is against us? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This passage from Saint Paul gave Mark a sense of hope that reached beyond this life and into the next. Henceforth he knew that whatever difficulties he would encounter, whatever he might sometimes fear, “the love of Christ” made life worth living.
Another “bright spot” in his reading was Galatians chapter 2, verse 20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Another was Philippians chapter 1, verse 21: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
After some time had passed, Mark began to seek to understand more of what he was reading. He began to do research. And again, after time had passed, through his research, he became even more convinced of his original convictions—that the Bible is the Word of God and that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ.
As he sought and discovered the truth, Mark rejoiced in it. And he found that the truth was setting him free, by giving him more and more good reasons to believe that God was with him, that he was God’s beloved son, and that life was worth living. And he wanted many others to know and rejoice in the truth as he had.
Speaking the Truth in Jesus’ Name
Truth is of the greatest importance to our lives. Our attitudes towards truth, to a large degree, determine the course of our lives and the kind of persons we will be. None of us can escape the question of truth, but we relate to it in various ways. The vast majority of us talk as if truth is important to us: we insist on the truth of what we think and say, for example, and we complain about the lies and falsehoods (real or perceived) of our enemies. A smaller number of us also go further and speak openly about the value of truth as a virtue—but in reality give it little more than lip-service. An even smaller number go still further and really live as if truth is important; very, very few of us both seek the truth and act consistently according to what we profess to be the truth. But a person’s actions tell us what it is that he believes to be true—much more than what he thinks to himself or says to others.
Where does that leave us, we who are so often found to be false and hypocritical? How do we honor the truth, and live according to its demands? In other words, how do we become wise?[1]
The person who would live according to the truth must first seek the truth with sincerity: as the Scriptures say, “The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction” (Wisdom 6:17). Secondly, but no less important, the person who would live according to the truth must submit himself wholeheartedly to God—the source of truth—and to His commands: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). Thirdly, the person who would live according to the truth must cultivate humility and the habit of repentance. This is the only way to overcome our own weakness and hypocrisy regarding the truth. A hypocrite is much less a hypocrite when he consistently admits and repents of his hypocrisy.
Each of these three habits—seeking truth, submitting to God, and cultivating repentance—are intimately bound up with the Way of life given to us by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came from God as the Voice of Truth (and indeed The-Truth-In-Person) to show us the way to the Truth. He said, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” (Jn 18:37). He also declared, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6), and said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32).
Because of Christ, the fullness of truth can be found. This truth is found in the ways of life and in the teaching of the Catholic Church. We know that what the Church teaches is true because Jesus entrusted His own teaching to the Church, and gave the Church a share in His authority—called “the power of the keys”—promising that, “the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). He also told the Apostles, and through them everyone whom He sends, “He who hears you, hears Me” (Luke 10:16). And so we, if we are sent by Jesus, can also speak the truth in His Name.
What is the truth that we can speak in Jesus’ Name?
The truth that God exists. He created the material world and everything in it. The pinnacle of creation is the human race because we’re made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27).
The truth that we have sinned and separated ourselves from God. We lost the divine life for which we were created.
The truth that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to make atonement for our sins by His death, and to rise from the dead; that through lives of faith, we might be saved and have our share in the divine life restored—and even increased!
The truth that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, established a Church—an Assembly of those who believe in Him—to continue His saving mission on earth. That Church is the Catholic Church. It has the authority to teach in His name and has been given Sacraments—sacred signs—to give us the power to grow in union with God and avoid falling away from the life He promised us.
The truth that it’s everyone’s destiny to become a saint; to become a true son or daughter of God. This means that it is vital to pray every day, to do the good works of a Christian, to worship God in Christ—both in liturgy and in private—to receive the Sacraments frequently, and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone that we can. These things bring meaning to our lives as children of God and members of the Body of Christ. Nothing else will truly satisfy us.
With all these truths in mind (and our role as evangelists to speak them aloud), our “One Good Reason” method—a tool for conversational evangelization—was born.
In this lesson we will introduce the One Good Reason method. What is it? How did it come about? What are its benefits? How should it be used? Since it is a tool for conversational evangelization, what does it look like in the context of SPEI’s four-part conversational method—listen, befriend, proclaim, and invite? The point in this lesson (and in the whole module) is to provide you with a framework in which to practice “evangelical apologetics.”
“The weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
[1] Wisdom, in the Sacred Scriptures, is “most often a matter of practical knowledge” and embraces “the skillful discernment of the righteous in making godly moral choices.” Scott Hahn, ed., Catholic Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 2009), s.v. “WISDOM.”