Knucklehead not Knight

Sharing the stories of our faith-life

01/25/2022

Acts 22:3-16 Paul addressed the people in these words: “On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.’ My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me. I asked, ‘What shall I do, sir?’ The Lord answered me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.’ Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.”

What people remember about us are the stories that we tell about our lives. A perfect case in point is the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who will soon be canonized a saint. Although a brilliant theologian who earned two doctorate degrees, one from Louvain and another in Rome, authored 73 books, and taught for years at the Catholic University of America, what I remember about him are the stories he told about his life.

I will never forget his traumatic experience as an eight year old altar server. He was serving Mass for Bishop Spalding in the Cathedral of Peoria, Illinois, and he dropped the wine cruet which shattered. Sheen remembered: “There is no atomic explosion that equals in decibels the sound of a glass cruet hitting a marble flood in a cathedral in front of a bishop.” Instead of berating the little boy, Bishop Spalding spoke these kind and even prophetic words: “Young man, when you get big you will go to Louvain University, and someday you will be just as I am.” By that, he meant a bishop.

Little Fulton was ready for a scolding from Spalding, but instead he received a word of kindness and encouragement. I am convinced that same kindness would echo through Sheen’s life and ministry like the sound of that shattered wine cruet echoed off the cathedral walls. People would remember Sheen’s stories and Sheen’s kindness.

Today, January 25, is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Like Fulton Sheen, Paul, too, was a brilliant theologian, as he says in the first reading: “At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God.” Indeed, in Acts 17, Paul would marshal all his rhetorical skills and philosophical training to convince the Greeks at Athens about Jesus, but he had very minimal success.

Instead, what did Paul decide to do? He told the story of his conversion, first in Acts 22 and again in Acts 26. Why? Well, because in the end people really don’t remember all our doctorates or higher learning or philosophical arguments; they remember our stories. Paul learned that the best way to evangelize the world was with a good story.

My friends, sometimes we worry about how to share the Catholic faith. And parents and grandparents especially fear that the next generation will lose the faith, and some of those fears may be well-founded. As a result, we sometimes think the best way to evangelize is to memorize Scripture passages, or study the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or get a doctorate in theology from Louvain. To be sure, all those things are indeed helpful. But do you know what your children and grandchildren will finally remember about you? You guessed it: the stories you tell.

And by the way, do you know the best kinds of stories to tell about yourself? It’s the embarrassing ones, where you look like the knucklehead not the knight in shining armor. That is why we find that self-effacing story about Fulton Sheen dropping the cruet so endearing and captivating, and why people were far more moved and impressed by Paul’s story of being knocked off his high horse and humbled by blindness and needing others to lead him and teach him.

If you want to share the faith and be an effective evangelizer, think back to your childhood and youth, and cue up the stories that deeply touched and transformed your life, especially the embarrassing ones. Why? Because in such stories Jesus shines as the star, not us. St. John the Baptist said humbly: “He must increase and I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). After all, that is what people will remember about us anyway. And that is what they should remember.

Praised be Jesus Christ!