When’s the last time you told someone else about Jesus? It’s not always easy to bring up your faith in conversation. Our research in The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic has shown that even highly-engaged Catholics do not see themselves as evangelists.

But for Saint Denis of Paris, the story of Jesus was too good to keep to himself. 

Denis was a gifted preacher. When he spoke about God, it inspired many people to transform their entire lives. In fact, he was so good at bringing people to the faith that it caught the attention of the local pagan authorities. They had him arrested for his public faith and put him to death by beheading him. Legend has it that, in a miraculous and shocking moment, Denis picked up his severed head and walked away, continuing to talk about the wonders of God. 

Denis’ story is an extreme example, but it holds a powerful lesson for us today if we don’t dismiss it. You see, most Catholics are not too comfortable or competent talking about their faith with others. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t called to evangelize. What if there were actually a simple action step you could take to make evangelization a part of your week?

Here is the action step: Try to do one thing each week to share the faith with someone who crosses your path. Perhaps you tell them you are going to pray for them and a situation he told you about. Perhaps you give someone a Catholic book. Perhaps you try to present God’s perspective in a conversation. Or perhaps you invite someone to a Catholic event. Just do one thing each week. It could even be as simple as sharing a statistic or fact about Catholics with others: “Did you know that Catholic education saves the U.S. taxpayer eighteen billion dollars a year?” Or perhaps you sign up for a daily or weekly email from a Catholic organization and forward it to a different friend depending on the content.

If every member of your parish did one thing each week to share the faith with others, how different would your parish be a year from now? If every Catholic in America did just one small act of evangelization each week, how would the Church grow over the next decade?

Little by little, we can have an enormous impact. Just don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do. 



Feast Day: October 9

Feast Day Shared By: Saint John Henry Newman, Saint John Leonardi, and Saint Abraham

Patron Saint of: Paris, Possessed People, and Against Frenzy, Strife, Headaches, Hydrophobia, and Rabies

Symbols: Carrying His Severed Head In His Hands