I can remember mentally running through all of the things I would rather have been doing, instead of traversing yet another cracked Steubenville street. But there we were, long after the last echoes of our group “Our Father” had finished reverberating through the downtown area, long after our street evangelization team had divided into groups, marching down yet another one of many side streets.
The three of us students could hear them before we actually saw them. Still four houses away, we could hear the back-and-forth yelling, words laced with unrepeatable profanities directed at the still unknown other party. There were two of them, and neither member of the heated conversation waited for the other to finish before beginning a tirade anew.
We heightened our pace as the house came into view, to reveal what appeared to be a husband and wife, both in their 60s, eyes solely fixed on each other, fists balled. Altercations still worse than this often characterized the downtown Steubenville area, and eager to avoid any sort of a confrontation, our group broke into a near-jog until the house was passed. I was positive that neither the husband nor the wife had seen us.
Now nearly three full house-lengths past the argument, the voices suddenly stopped. So did we. We turned to watch the husband leave his argument, mid-rant, and descend the wooden stairs, until he stood on the sidewalk from which we had only recently escaped, and spoke now in our direction.
“Well?”
He waited for our response, and we gave him none. He spoke again.
“You’re not even going to say hello?”
We claimed the next twenty minutes of their days for Christ. It was perhaps the easiest conversation I’ve ever had about God, because they hung on absolutely every word. We talked about love, about sacrifice, about the merits of Christ’s death on the cross. After we finished our exchange in prayer, they walked back into their house, wordlessly, her hand in his. For our part, we traded twenty minutes for three inexhaustible smiles on our way back to the university vans.
At no point during the day did we ask for a reminder of the pedestal upon which Catholics exist. The fact remains, we seldom ask to be reminded that whether it be the media, the movie-producing industry, or the next topic of your outspoken uncle’s rant on religion, Catholics bear the brunt of the weight of secular criticism, facetious or otherwise.
It’s hard not to hate that pedestal. It’s hard not to feel the eyes on your back when you introduce yourself as Catholic. If we suffer, Christ suffered first. The first pedestal the world ever saw was made of two pieces of wood, and it crucified God Incarnate.
That day, our pedestal allowed us to make all the difference. Through us God took a verbally abusive relationship and rendered it silent and once again loving. For all of the criticism which the Church today absorbs, for all of the Church’s shortcomings and flaws, it is nevertheless an establishment that does what we did on the daily: it peels back the layers of hate until love, once again, is the dominant impetus behind life.
At the end of the day, I wouldn’t have it any differently. To be identified by my system of beliefs? To be associated with faith in things unseen? Sign me up, and bring the rain.
