22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time 2018 Newsletter
The Path of Knowing and Following Jesus
Former Catholics and nonbelievers of every stripe who are disdainful of Christianity often know very little about Jesus, and the little they think they know can be wrong. So they can be completely unprepared for the surprise of meeting him. The threshold of curiosity is a perfect time to explore the possibility that a personal God exists and that you can have a personal relationship with that God. It is essential that we help people wrestle with this first, most crucial issue of a personal God. Those who don’t believe in a personal God and the possibility of a relationship with that God will never be able to move beyond the threshold of curiosity.
There are three basic stages of curiosity:
1. Awareness: This is the moment when people become aware that there are more possibilities in life than they had imagined or experienced. One such possibility could be “I can have a personal relationship with a God who loves me.”
2. Engagement: This is when the curious person takes steps on his own to pursue his curiosity by, say, making friends with a Christian, reading about Jesus, and so on.
3. Exchange: the convert begins to experience intense curiosity. He moves from merely listening and semi-covert examination of Christians and their faith to actively asking questions and exchanging ideas.
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