I have been conducting this experiment for years, and except for two very special cases, the answer has always been the same: We remember what our parents did. We remember how they lived.
Isn’t that surprising? After all, good parents are giving directions constantly. “Do this! Don’t to that! Yada, yada, yada.” Yet what sticks and continues to shape our lives long after our parents are gone is not so much what they said, but what they did. (In fact, if what they said contradicted what they did, we rejected their advice as hypocritical.)
If you are a parent who fears that your children don’t listen to a thing you say, this new awareness may give you some consolation and reason to hope for the future. It’s not your words so much as your deeds that matter to your children.
Of course, if your behavior needs improvement, there’s no better time to work on it than right now — before it does further harm shaping your children’s long-term development.
Words are important. We use them to share the meaning of events with one another. But we’ve always known that deeds speak louder than words, especially when it comes to shaping human lives.
Our Greatest Power
Our greatest power to have lasting influence on the people around us is rooted in our everyday behavior, not in the words we use to tell others what to do. That’s true in all our relationships. And that’s how we can evangelize (or scandalize) without using words. In fact, that’s how we can sometimes evangelize (or scandalize) without even being aware of what we are doing.
For all Christians (including clergy, but most especially for lay Christians), evangelization is not nearly so much about talking the talk as it is about walking the walk. Of course, this has always been true. Way back about A.D. 200, a priest and theologian by the name of Tertullian noted that the deeds of love among his fellow Christians had led non-Christians “to put a brand on us” — expressed in the phrase “see how they love one another.”9 That had to be particularly gratifying to Christians of that time because their leader, Jesus, had told them: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).
IN THE CHURCH
Everyday Actions Influence Hundreds of Thousands
It’s clear that actions speak louder than words — and that we evangelize without words — when we look at the success of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in our Church. Every year thousands of adults freely join the Church after a long process of study, reflection, and discussion in parish RCIA programs.
What got them started down this path to becoming Catholic?
Over the years I’ve had a chance to talk with many of them, and I always like to ask them what drew them to the Church. Many are drawn to the Church by a spouse or other family member, which speaks of the power that our close relationships have to shape our lives and even, on occasion, turn them in a new direction. Nearly always, the others I meet who have gone through the RCIA process share stories about the impact a Catholic friend or neighbor had on them in the course of their everyday lives. Here are the kinds of things I hear:
Typically, they will add: “At some point we just started talking.” So yes, words are important. But nearly always the seed is planted when someone notices that a lay Catholic person, couple, or family seems to be endowed with something that makes them a little happier or considerate. Their lives seem more purposeful or satisfying.
It’s what we do that matters most. In fact, it’s what we do that prompts others to inquire about what we have to say. Only when our lives reflect a Christian dimension do our words have the power to attract instead of to repel.
As we consider our individual and collective purpose as Christians today — and our impact on the world — we have to ask ourselves several questions:
• Is love still Christianity’s primary “brand” today?
• If not, why not?
• Is our love the first thing that others notice about us as Christians?
• Or are there other things in our behavior that brand us in other ways? (Gandhi once observed: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. If Christians really lived according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.” At another time, he was reputedly asked if he would ever consider being a Christian. He said he would if he could find one.)
• What can I do to make that brand — how Christians love one another — the hallmark of my faith as people see me living it?
When we talk about being Christian but then don’t live consistently with our profession of faith, we drive people away from Christianity. It turns out that some people leave the Church for much the same reason that other people come to the Church: the behavior of Church members.
I served for many years as a Church spokesman in the media, so I am publicly associated with Christianity. That role provided me with many opportunities to meet people who have abandoned church participation. I’m always willing to listen to their stories, and in nearly every case it turns out that they don’t go to church at least in part because of someone who does. That tells us Christians that how we act shapes the brand that Christianity has in people’s hearts and minds today.
This is a particular burden for clergy because they can almost never escape being associated with the Church. Everything they are seen doing and saying reflects on people’s view of Christianity, and often people expect them to be perfect. But it is a burden for the rest of us, too. Whenever anyone knows we are Christian, whatever we do and whatever we fail to do can reflect on all Christians and on Christianity itself.