“It’s four o’clock. Time to call Robert,” Therese reminder herself in the middle of offering a parish workshop on faith. She knew from their weekly conversations that he would be in bed before the workshop ended, because of his struggle with the side effects of chemotherapy and stage four cancer. So Therese would have to skip out for a few minutes while John took over, in order to share about her day and her brother’s day.
At one point during their conversation, Therese said, “I’m teaching about faith today. It’s an interesting topic for me. Do you have anything I should add to the next talk?” She did not know what to expect in response since he was not a regular churchgoer.
“You’re talking to the wrong person. I don’t believe in that crap,” he responded.
“Well. Do you believe in hard work?” she asked. The answer was ‘Yes!’
“Do you believe in your doctor?”
“You bet. He’s taking good care of me!”
“Do you believe in marriage?” “Of course!” was his reply.
Then she gave her brother a minute to think. Robert got the message and broke the silence with, “Wow! When you put it that way, I guess I do have faith.”
This is one of a just a handful of conversations, in which Therese tried to open the door to a little faith sharing. “You never know what to expect from the Holy Spirit“, she had thought. And her confidence in the Holy Spirit created a peace with her, a peace that freed Robert to respond and to rethink his apparent disconnect between faith in God and daily life.