Teachable Moments

Our family was invited to a co-worker's home for dinner this weekend. When they were new to the company, we invited their family to our house and, now that they were settled, they reciprocated. We were looking forward to the dinner because their children are similar in age to ours and we knew they were a very faith-filled Christian family; homeschooling their children and even serving as foreign missionaries in the past.

Just as we were about to pray before dinner, our guest apologized to us for serving a meal that included beef and, because we were Catholics, he knew that we didn't eat meat on Fridays. Since it's August, I laughed because I thought he was teasing us. Then, I was confused because he was genuinely worried that he had offended us. What a considerate host and what a misunderstanding! I assured him that Catholics only refrain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent.

Then, seeing this as an opportunity to teach more about our Catholic faith, I told him that we deny ourselves each week during Lent so that, in a small way, we suffer because Christ suffered and died for us. This discipline is sometimes misunderstood even by Catholics. In Jesus' time and area of the world, fish was an inexpensive, everyday food. Beef was an expensive, specialty food. Today in our area of the world, it's just the opposite. Ground beef is relatively inexpensive and common. The practice of the early Christians who ate fish on Fridays was a way to deny the best foods for themselves on that one day of the week that Jesus died.  If we truly wanted to sacrifice and deny ourselves the best foods on Friday, we would not eat a specialty food like fish or shrimp. We'd eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; a cheap, common food. Going to Red Lobster or a fish fry is yummy and enjoyable, but hardly a sacrifice.

Later, when reflecting on the evening, I was surprised again that our friends did not know that Catholics go meatless on Fridays only during Lent. It reinforced my awareness of what Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said, "There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be." Not that our friends hate the Catholic Church, they just don't know the beauty, dept, and timelessness of our faith. It's up to us to teach our family and friends during teachable moments like this one.

Learn more about Catholic apologetics so that you can teach and defend your Catholic Faith at work, school, the sports field, the playground, the gym, the neighborhood, the airport, the garage sale, the grocery, etc.