Dear Tony,<\/p>\n
I was truly sorry to hear that things didn\u2019t work out as well as you were hoping this year.\u00a0 But you shouldn\u2019t let yourself be discouraged.\u00a0 If the Catholic Student Union shrank instead of growing, well, there could be a lot of explanations.\u00a0 Maybe God is just purifying you.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the darkness before the light.\u00a0 Or maybe you need to speak with the Leadership Team about coming up with some better tactics for evangelization.\u00a0 In any case, the last thing the Holy Spirit wants is for you to get discouraged (which is the first thing the devil wants, by the way).<\/p>\n
As discouragement repellant, I suggest you start brainstorming about what you can improve, and I also suggest you start by reflecting on the example of today\u2019s saint.<\/p>\n
Anthony grew up in a poor, farming family in northern Italy.\u00a0 His parents were models of Christian virtue (for instance, his father was once stabbed while trying to reconcile two men intent on doing away with each other \u2013 instead of taking the stabber to court, he asked to be godfather to one his children, converting the violent fellow and winning a lifelong friend in one fell swoop).\u00a0 Their example didn\u2019t go to waste.<\/p>\n
As a boy, Anthony showed a prodigious intellect and a lively spirit as he studied his Catechism and joined his parents in their hard labor and their generous care for the poor.\u00a0 His mother saw signs of a priestly vocation in his piety and advanced Christian virtue (when some envious classmates started mocking him and throwing stones at him as he walked past them one day, he simply kept walking, telling the attackers that he forgave them and was willing to befriend them as soon as they liked), but his father wanted him to keep working on the farm.\u00a0 Soon, however, his extraordinary gifts and calling were undeniable, and with the financial backing of the farm\u2019s owner (they were tenant farmers), Anthony was able to go seminary in Genoa.<\/p>\n
There his unusual gifts were once again made evident, and he began officially preaching even before he was a deacon \u2013 drawing large crowds to his talks.\u00a0 His pastoral and intellectual talents continued to shine, and his interior life overflowed with the fruits of the Spirit, so much so that he received a special dispensation to be ordained years before the minimum age limit.<\/p>\n
As a young priest he founded three Congregations, two of which were disbanded soon after his death, the third, \u201cSisters of Our Lady of the Garden\u201d, continues to serve the ignorant and sick today on three continents.\u00a0 And that\u2019s one reason not to be discouraged \u2013 if God allows even canonized saints to experience failures in this earthly Valley of Tears (i.e. his first two Congregations evaporated into the mists of history), why would a budding saint like yourself complain about difficulties?<\/p>\n
Soon Anthony was made bishop of Bobbio, a small city in northern Italy.\u00a0 He was a model pastor there, winning hundreds, if not thousands of souls to Christ in just nine years.\u00a0 He died young, worn out by his work and by some mistaken medical treatments, but in that short span of time he accomplished a remarkable amount of good for the Church.\u00a0 In his first eight years he organized two diocesan synods and visited every parish in the diocese at least three times.<\/p>\n
And that, I think, is where you can find a new tactical approach to your evangelizing work on campus.\u00a0 Big events and exciting activities are necessary and useful, but when it comes to winning souls over to Christ, nothing beats the good, old-fashioned, one-on-one, person-to-person approach.\u00a0 If everyone in the Catholic Student Union merely set out to win over one or two students a year, through personal contact and testimony, through building up model Christian friendships and taking the initiative to speak about the faith, the Union would be growing by leaps and bounds.<\/p>\n
Something to think about, anyway.\u00a0 And why not ask St Anthony to give you hand \u2013 if he kept so busy while still on earth, I\u2019m sure he\u2019s eager to keep working from heaven.<\/p>\n
Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Tony, I was truly sorry to hear that things didn\u2019t work out as well as you were hoping this year.\u00a0 But you shouldn\u2019t let yourself be discouraged.\u00a0 If the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n