[Faith-Talk] Trying to Help a Prospective NFB Member Who Is Catholic

[Kane Brolin]

Brad:

Thank you for your respectful approach here.

The starting point in helping this elderly woman to approach her faith
journey as a blind Catholic  is not to wreck her self-image as a
faithful acolyte of the Roman Catholic Church.
 Such would be a fool-hardy thing to lead with.  Had I led with a
Baptistic presentation of the gospel on the first day we met,
disputing the validity of her interpretation of Scripture or
attempting to change her conceptualization of what the true church is,
I would have lost the trust of this 81-year-old lady altogether and
probably the whole family's trust, too.  While my own interpretation
of Christian teaching is closer to that of a Baptist than it would be
to a Catholic--something everyone in this family realizes already--I
think it is critical that I approach Mary where she is now,
demonstrating that Catholic sources such as the Xavier Society have
direct links to audio Bibles--including the King James Version, the
New International Version, and the English Standard Bible.  I firmly
believe that God is perfectly capable of shining the light of His Word
into any places He wants it to shine, without my forcing the point.
The first thing Mary needs is to know she can maintain an informed,
self-motivated approach to cultivating knowledge and to strengthening
her faith even as a blind person.  Once she grabs onto this
revolutionary ray of hope, then a world of possibilities opens up as
she comes to appreciate what I have done to affirm her dignity and
independence as a person of faith even though I do not share the same
flavor of religious devotion she practices.  Once I have proved how
much I love and care about her, then this could open the door for a
frank and fruitful exchange of views regarding what the nature of
Christ's church is, how one obtains eternal life, and how God's love
drives my passion for helping blind people to live the life they want.
This must be approached with a little circumspection here, not in the
way a hammer approaches a nail.

Thank you, Brad and Sarah, for your thoughts in this regard.

Kind regards,

-Kane