VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Power of Personal Witness
16.01
July 20 th , 2013
FATHER LAIRD:
This is what the Church has been about from her beginning, but in the Second Vatican Council, the Church refocused our invitation on that, just as the modern world was becoming fully manifest. We look out at the world, and we say, “My gosh, it’s changed so much.” There are so many things going on in the world that raise our fears and give us uncertainty. Why then, my brothers and sisters, don’t we return to the one thing that is truly certain, the one thing alone that makes a difference?
We do that, of course, by the way we live our life. Catholics are really good at this. We’re really good at going to mass on Sundays, please God, although we need to get better at that. We’re really good at doing things, at living a silent witness, and that’s important, and it is transformative. This beautiful gift leads people to ask questions. This is how our life become the possibility of encounter. Why are they like this? Why do they live this way? What or who is it that inspires them?
To be entirely honest, I think sometimes when people meet you or me, they ask, “Why are they like this?” But not necessarily in a good way. I wonder if our spouses or our children or our friends ask that question with wonder. When Moses encountered the burning bush, when the disciples found Jesus coming amongst them in the upper room after the resurrection. Isn’t it the case that whenever we have experienced love, a love that meets us in our poverty, a love that frees us of our shame, isn’t that a very humbling experience, an experience that begins to foster in us gratitude?
The beautiful Good News that Jesus came to bring is that if we entrust our lives entirely to Him, if we live out of the treasury of the Good News, our very life can become a burning bush. Our very life will lead others to say, as the early Christians’ lives led others to say, “Why are they like this? What inspires them? I want to know more about this person that they’re in relationship with.”
We must live by the integrity of our lives a witness, but as Paul VI reminds us, silent witness is not enough. If you’re here today because you thought this was a talk about the power of silent personal witness, you’re terribly wrong. Because, as Paul VI reminded us, even though this witness, the integrity of our lives, walking the walk silently is essential, it’s not enough.
Nevertheless, this witness always remains insufficient because even the finest witness will, in the long run, prove ineffective. We must always be prepared to give account for the hope that’s in us. We must do this explicitly.
As human beings, words convey relationships. We must, my brothers and sisters, learn, if we’re going to respond to the new evangelization, if we’re even going to fulfill our responsibility as a

baptized Christian, then we must find a way to put words to our relationship with Jesus. We must be prepared to give a personal witness. This is the amazing thing about the divine economy, about the way in which God works, is He chooses fallible, sinful men and women to be the place for the possibility for others to encounter Him. That’s what we call the beauty of the Church. It’s also, my brothers and sisters, what’s meant to take place in your life and mine.
Hence, to wrap up this beautiful section from Evangelii Nuntiandi, “The Good News proclaimed by the witness of life sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the word.” Think of it this way.
Our beautiful Catholic faith, this beautiful church, all of our beautiful parishes in the archdiocese, wait for people to come into them to encounter the person of Jesus.
Just very concretely, if you were to do an analysis of the facility use of our beautiful churches, they are optimized maybe 10 percent of the time, at best. When? Sunday. Right? Please God, for every Catholic. What if every Catholic, who on Sunday encountered the Good News, renewed their relationship with the person of Jesus, went out into the world into their place of work, into their leisure, into their family life, into every relationship, and brought Jesus, first, by their silent witness, by the integrity with which they live their life? But secondly and you know how this happens, there’s always an opportunity to give words to my relationship with Jesus.
If every human heart has been created for the Good News, if God, who in the person of Jesus gave His life upon the cross so that all might come to life, then the consequences are pretty clear. There are people in your life that the pope, the bishop, the priest, St. Paul Cathedral, will never touch. What are you going to do about that? How are you going to respond to the invitation that the Church entrusts to you, that Jesus Himself has entrusted to you, to take the
Good News in all that you do and say, and bring that, and proclaim it to the world?
What are the differences here we’re talking about? Evangelization, or the evangelium, is the
Good News, right? It’s the beautiful telling of the Good News. It’s the whole purpose for the
Church’s existence. There are people who wish that the Church wouldn’t give a witness to
Jesus. There will never come a time when the Church will not witness to Jesus. It’s her purpose of existence. The question is, is whether Christians or Catholics will stop giving a witness to
Jesus. To put the point more pointedly this morning, how are you giving a witness to Jesus?
I’m sure you’re here because you want to do that with your life. I’m sure you’re here because you do that with the integrity of your life, but how well do you put words to your relationship with Jesus? Because our story, just like John’s story of having heard Jesus, and seen Jesus, and touched Jesus, becomes a place where others can come to encounter Christ.
Hence, the need for a personal testimony, our appropriation of the Good News. As Catholics, this is something where I think we stumble. Others are perhaps further along in this truth, that we have to put words to our relationships. We do that in marriage. We do that in parenting. We do that in our employment. Words confine and express our relationship. What is your story?
What are the words you use to personally articulate how the Good News has transformed your life? That’s the real invitation that’s before us.

Our goal is pretty simple. We’re going to learn how to give our personal testimony. Yeah, this is not a passive morning. This is not a morning where you come to hear me. Actually, you’ve come to hear one another. You’ve come to learn how Jesus has liberated the person sitting next to you, the person sitting behind you, because the invitation that Jesus offers us, my brothers and sisters, is to become the place of the possibility of the encounter, the beautiful gift of the
Church, the beautiful truth of what the Second Vatican Council called us to.
What all of the successive modern popes have called us to is a new evangelization. How is that going to happen? It’s not going to happen in our churches, per se, the physical structures of our churches. Though the witness of our church is essential, it’s going to happen in our place of work, in the grocery line, at the family reunion with someone who’s very difficult for me. That’s where the new evangelization is going to take place.
You are meant to be an evangelist, because we are always witnessing to something. The question is, would the people around me, would the people in my life, say, “That is a disciple of
Jesus. That’s someone who knows Jesus. I want to know the Jesus that they know.”
Our goal is to reach another where they are and point their way to Christ. Why? Because this is something very important when we’re giving our witness. St. Thomas said that which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. One of the reasons why the power of personal witness is so compelling is because when we enter into conversations with our friends, or our spouses, or our children, we know the receiver, and so we speak words that meet them where they are. The beautiful thing about a personal witness is it’s, by its very nature, attuned to the relationship that’s before me.
We can talk to people. As Catholics, we’re very good at doing this in catechetical language. We can talk to them about an hour of adoration, or a novena, or a rosary. Just do these things, and you’ll come into a deeper relationship with Jesus. But where we need to begin is to say, “You know, my son, I also struggled with rebellion when I was your age, and I have that rebellious heart even now, but if it wasn’t for the person of Jesus, who entered into my life, my rebellion would have consumed my life.” Or maybe a challenge with someone who’s left the faith. “I appreciate that this is a message you may not be able to understand or appreciate right now, but the gift of my faith, the gift of my relationship with Jesus, is something that I hope to share with you.”
That beautiful way of meeting people where they’re at, of understanding that every human being has been created for the Good News, but like us, every human being has speed bumps on the way to the Good News. The power of personal witness is an invitation to speak to people where they are.
Do you remember the story of Peter and John at the Gate of the Beautiful in Jerusalem? They come up, and there’s a beggar sitting at the gate. What do you have to do when you encounter another person? If we’re really going to encounter them, we have to meet them where they

are. That’s why Jesus loved us first in our sin. Jesus didn’t say, “Change, and then I’m going to love you.” He said, “I love you, and let my love become the power of your transformation.”
Peter and John met that beggar at the Gate of the Beautiful, and they said, “You know, I don’t have silver. I don’t have gold. But what I have, I give you.” What did they have? What’s the one thing every believer has? A relationship with the person of Jesus. But do we give that in every encounter?
What makes it, my brothers and sisters, the real opportunity, if we’re going to bring the kingdom of God ever more manifest upon this earth, it’s not the job of the pope. It’s not the job of the bishops. It’s not the job of the priests. It’s not the job of the religious. It’s your job. It’s the job of the baptized. That has been the way it has been in the history of the Church, and it is our invitation today to offer that same witness, because you can reach people that the pope, the bishops, the priests, will never be able to reach. You can reach people where they are.
Our challenge, isn’t it, our challenge is that we want people to be different, and then we’ll love them. We want them to be different, and then we’ll share with them the Good News. One of the reasons why I think that is, is because we have yet to fully appropriate the way in which
Jesus meets us in our sinfulness, in our own self-shame, in our own self-hate, in our own pride, in our own false righteousness. Jesus, who meets us there, and having had the encounter with
Jesus, how much easier it is, my brothers and sisters, just to go to other people and say, “You know, the only thing I have, I give you. The only thing of real value I have, I give you. Here is my relationship with Jesus.” Because that’s what we do. We become pointers to Christ.
What a personal testimony does, what a personal witness does, is it always speaks to the person before me about Jesus, about how Jesus also wants a relationship with them. Why?
Because if he wants a relationship with me, he surely wants a relationship with you.