A friend and I were out for dinner last week, and as we started our meal with a prayer, a woman near us seemed to offer a similar gesture to our sign of the cross (some would say she was mocking us).

So I asked if she was Catholic as well — giving her the benefit of the doubt. She was. Well she was baptized, but not practicing. What ensued next was a conversation with her, her husband, and the two of us about free will, the Eucharist, and much more — and we got no where. Two and half hours later, my friend and I walked away from that conversation with a mix of frustration, sadness, and — to be honest — exhaustion.

I recalled Fulton Sheen’s famous saying, “there aren’t a hundred people who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

Sometimes, evangelization doesn’t go “our way”. And then we remember it shouldn’t, but rather a better way: His way. Our job isn’t to convince anyone. It’s to share and allow the Spirit to move.

Come Holy Spirit,