How Do I Know That You Mean What You Say?

I can't hear you because your actions are talking too loudly. Everyone has an experience that puts a punch behind this saying.

You are with someone who is blah, blah, blah-hing about one thing while their actions indicate the opposite.

Like the father who says, "Do what I say but not what I do."

Like the boss who says, "Work like your life depends on it," but shows up late and leaves early.

Like the friend who says, "I'd love to do that with you," and then never responds to your texts.

Like the significant other who says, "Of course I am listening," while changing the channels on the TV.

When someone's behavior contradicts their words, it is exceedingly difficult to see that person as credible.

From my vantage point, he or she deserves to be scrutinized or doubted or told, "Dude—I don't believe you."

It's not just individuals who leave you wondering. Businesses and organizations are also known to say this but do that. Consider same day lending agencies that claim they want to help you out of your financial woes by lending you money with a 24% interest rate. What! Or, how about financial groups that placed undue pressure on their employees to meet sales quotas resulting in the creation of thousands of fraudulent accounts. Really?

Sadly, you can also look at the Catholic Church, which is still recovering from the priest scandals of the past decade. People are still jettisoning themselves out of the pews, because the actions of many ordained are 180 degrees different from Catholic teachings related to human sexuality, marriage and love.

Credibility—hard to achieve and even harder to recover.

Sadly, the Catholic Church is guilty of this too.

I remember a conversation with a engaged couple who were both raised in the Catholic faith that illustrates this point.  Without going into the details, they were choosing to formalize their partnership with a party experience (band, dance, drinks, fireworks...) rather than with any ceremony of commitment.

When I asked them why they were foregoing vows or some ritual, their answer was direct—marriages don't last. You can't trust marriage any more.

How did they devolve from being practicing Catholics in high school to enlightened secularists by the age of 30? The simple answer is that the persons in their life—their parents, their siblings, their friends, their young adult minister, even their priest—said one thing about God's plan for marriage but did something else.

One set of parents separated. The other set abandoned their Catholic faith practices. Their siblings didn't marry in the Church and the parents never questioned them about it. Their friends in college portrayed the hook up culture as fun and appealing. And, when they moved in together, neither the priest at the Newman center nor the young adult minister charitably questioned them about cohabitation.

No one in their circle lived a credible Catholic life. No wonder they wandered off.

This couple is not alone. Young adults find it hard to believe that God's plan for marriage is right, good, true and beautiful without credible witness and visible joy. They will continue to forge a worldly path until we regain their trust and catch their attention with believable and infectious evidence that God's plan is credible and worthy of a second look.

It will take significant effort and time to reestablish the trust that has been lost.  For our part, we will need to:

1. Admit we've dropped a few balls. 

Especially in our lack of push back against cultural messages and practices. It always good to own up to our faults and failings—especially when we seek God's mercy and grace to correct our actions and omissions.

2. Know God's plan and be ready to share it on their terms.

The Pope directs us to: "Find the right language, arguments, and forms of witness that can help us reach the hearts of the young people, appealing to their capacity for generosity, commitment, love and even heroism, and in this way inviting them to take up the challenge of marriage with enthusiasm and courage."

Do you have a quick and easy way to share the beauty of sacramental marriage and its meaning that is invitational to a 2o-something? If not, work on it.

3. Meet people where they are.

Lapsed Catholics rarely darken the parish door. But, they are found in coffee shops, urban bars, and communing with nature. They take their office with them. Perhaps we should follow their lead.

4. Become radically hospitable.

Ask yourself how you can be with them before doing something, or put them at ease, or be a blessing to them, or get them to share. Practice being fully present.

5. Proclaim marriage, especially your own, as the greatest form of friendship on earth.

The Pope tells us that spouses should show others all the traits of a good friendship: "Concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability, and the resemblance born of a shared life."  Is there a way to promote mentor relationships between married couples and those just starting out?

We can regain the Church's credibility when we live as described by the Holy Father shortly after he became Pope.

"Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one's life. Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!"