A CAUTIONARY TALE OF RCIA AND EVIL

A woman I know - not very well, yet - has told me that not long ago she lived close by a cathedral in a New Zealand city, and would sometimes go in and just sit and admire the architecture.

One day she was approached by a priest. A young priest (whose youth might be a factor in the story).

This priest said to me, "On the way over here from the manse," - you guessed it, this woman was not a Catholic - "God told me to speak to a woman sitting in the cathedral now, and bring her into the Faith."

"If you'd said that to me," this woman said, "I'd think you were barmy, but I could take it from a priest. He had the oil and everything with him. So I became a Catholic."

"WOT???" said I. "On the spot? You mean you didn't have to jump through those RCIA hoops?"

"Nup," she said.

And then she moved to the heart of the country and attended Mass there, and became friends with the priest, an import who asked her (she has a degree in English) if she would come to his country to teach English.

And then she got to hear that people were talking about her and the priest.

She stopped going to Mass.

It's a cautionary tale. Wonderful to know you can approach that person who you've been thinking might want to become a Catholic, and reassure them that it doesn't have to take months of meetings and potluck meals and 'sharings'.

And so awful to know the power of our tongue for evil.