What do We do When Others Don't Want to Talk about God?

[[Dear Sister, is it difficult for you to communicate with someone who is "allergic" to God or to talk about God? I wondered if you have trouble with that since you are on a spiritual path and some people are not. I am in love with Jesus and my family is on a more temporal path. I would like to talk with them about Jesus but feel kind of pressured not to do that. Isn't it part of my vocation to convert people to Christ? In your vocation I guess you don't meet a lot of people who don't believe in Christ, but what do you do when other people just don't want to talk about him? Should we cut them out of our lives because they are at a lower level spiritually? I am just struggling with all of this.]]

Important questions, thanks for asking them!  You are talking about two interrelated things, 1) being on a spiritual path, and 2) talking about that path to others. Both are difficult and the second may be more difficult than the first. So let me talk about these two things in order. First, what does it mean to be on a spiritual path? I define a spiritual path in terms of the Holy Spirit. It is a path we are inspired and empowered to take by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it is a path that helps us to achieve the fullness of our own humanity with all that characterizes that. When you approach the spiritual from this perspective, almost anything can be or become a spiritual path and that certainly includes all aspects of the spatio-temporal world. 

There are a couple of things I call to mind in reminding myself of this: first, the Word of God was fully and exhaustively revealed to us in Jesus, a human being who shared fully in our temporality, even to the point of sin and godless death; Secondly, the Catholic Church is a Sacramental Church built on God's transfiguration of spatiotemporal realities. As part of this second element, I am also reminded of c 604 and the vocation of consecrated virgins living in the world and the transfigured (or eschatological) secularity they live in the name of the Church. (By the way, secular might be a better word for what you are trying to express than temporal.) With sacraments, the Church says that God can transfigure this world and make it a symbol of the new heaven and new earth God is in the process of creating in and through Jesus. The Church asks us to take this world seriously and see it in the way God does. This has implications in the way we approach the world around us. We begin to look for the Holy Spirit's presence in everything, and we begin to see the essential holiness in even the most mundane. 

Once we begin looking in this way we also begin to characterize dimensions of what we see by words which are very much of God without being overtly religious. For instance, we begin to see truth and beauty, or in looking at creatures we see courage, integrity, compassion, hope, aspiration, joy, sincerity, and generosity. These characteristics and innumerable others are of God, they are divinely inspired and constituted.  God IS truth, beauty, integrity, etc. My sense is that when we begin to look at the world and talk about it in terms such as these, we can talk about God in ways that are illuminating and work around the "allergy" you first mentioned that afflicts many people.  Let me point out that carrying on conversations in these terms can be very challenging and that is especially true for people who consider themselves "spiritual" or "religious." For these people, conversing without using explicit references to God or God's Christ demands a lot; it requires a profound sense of God and the way God is related to this world.

While I agree that your ministry may involve proselytization, I don't think this is the approach I would use with people I love. Our families are captive audiences, so to speak and ordinarily, it is not our job to convert them, except in one major way. We are meant to love them and to indicate who we are as Christians by our love. Remember that being Christian means being truly human in the way Christ reveals what that means. It is our vocation to become human in this way and then, if we are asked, to express to others why we are capable of this. What Christians witness to is the God who is love itself and what that love makes possible in terms of wholeness, hopefulness, compassion, courage, integrity, etc. That witness may never require the words God or Jesus or Christ, and in some cases speaking this way may be counterproductive.

The notion that one person is at a lower level spiritually than we is a judgment we human beings are not capable of making.  But we are not meant to judge; God asks us to love others as we love ourselves; loving another means helping them to be the persons they are called and meant by God to be. What I am encouraging you to do is to invest in becoming fully human yourself and in summoning others to do as well. Use the categories, activities, and interests that drive the other person to learn who they are and love them. What you need to trust is that you are doing this in God's name. Even when you do not use the word God or speak of Jesus, if you are loving the other you are doing the work of God in their life. If you are allowing them to love you, you are doing the same thing. You and I may be in different places spiritually, but neither of us is higher than the other. That is an idea you must internalize. Look for your commonalities with the other, the places where you can use the same language and truly share with each other. Since this is rooted in truth and love, it is rooted in God. Again, trust that.

Finally, while I love to talk about Christ and God with others, it is not usually something that happens -- even with parishioners whose spirituality is every bit as dominant in their lives as mine is in mine. However, I don't cut them out of my life. Of course not! We talk about what is going on in our lives. We do what Mary and Joseph likely did with their neighbors. I don't mean we avoid speaking of God, however. But that need not be the only acceptable topic of our lives. Actually, it should not. If it is the only topic someone wants to discuss or is capable of discussing, then the problem is theirs, and solutions need to be found. I tend not to run into this problem much except in those who are tentative or insecure in their own spirituality or perhaps, their ability to relate to others. Sometimes this is combined with a fresh conversion experience and the result is nonstop talk about God. But this is not helpful for the person talking, nor those with whom they are trying to relate. We cannot and must not use God as an excuse for not being able to share with others. 

These are a few of the things we must keep in mind when we deal with the kinds of questions you have posed. The difficulties you are trying to negotiate are worth the struggle you are now experiencing. I hope this is helpful for you.