In her book Forming Intentional Discicples, which we’ve been discussing this summer with CatholicMom.com, author Sherry Weddell proposes five stages for evangelization.  The first step is “trust”, which refers not to the deep and abiding trust in God, but something much simpler: a connection to the faith of some kind, no matter how limited.  It could be a Christian friend, a fondness for The Sound of Music, a good experience with a Catholic-run charity — anything that provides an entryway to respect for the faith.

The second step is today’s topic, “curiosity”. The person who is “curious” about the faith has a mild interest in some question related to the faith.  Again, we aren’t speaking here of a consuming passion for knowledge of the faith.  Rather, it could be an interest in gothic architecture, or perhaps a passing fancy about what a nun’s life is really like.  As Catholic writers, we can feed that curiosity with our characters — whether faery-land (but authentically Catholic) detective-nuns, a steam-punk re-imagining of Father Brown and GKC, or inspiring real-life vocation stories like that of Father Tiến Dương.

To arouse curiosity, our lives must be noticeably different than average.  We must be disciples of Christ.  For most of us, that discipleship will become visible in small things we do — ordering the fish sandwich on Fridays, carving out time for Mass on Sundays, or insisting on wearing pants.  One of the things that grabbed my attention as a young adult was the people who didn’t swear: I knew they were serious Christians by their clean language.  Not one of them ever said, “Please don’t use that language around me.”  All the same, I felt I shouldn’t.  I felt I was violating their purity.

What are some other things that arouse curiosity?  Being a Catholic writer certainly does.  For the very talented, why bother writing Catholic stuff, when you could be making a lot more money in the secular market?  For the devoted amateur: How dare you! What could possibly be so important that it’s worth risking your reputation as you humbly try to share your faith?

Catholic author Fr. Dwight Longenecker, writing on the attention Pope Francis has garnered in the media, poses the paradox of the Palace and the Stable.  In our art — whether it’s writing, or music, or the liturgy — we garner attention on both sides of Catholic coin.  In the sublimely beautiful, we pose a question: Why all this beauty for no gain?  Why build a cathedral when you could build a mansion for yourself?  Why art for the walls of the parish church, when you could be buying art for your own home?  The simplicity of a cistercian monastery — and the monks within — frames the question from the side of the faith:  Why give up the whole world?  What is there to be gained?

Most of us are neither the stable nor the palace. We’re ordinary Catholics, muddling along, doing the best we can with our average lives.  And in our boringness, we’re the center of this whole mystery of curiosity.

How so? We make the faith possible.

The Amish arouse curiosity with their picturesque lifestyle and quaint customs, but few people seriously ask themselves, “Should I be Amish?”  It’s a fascinating — and indeed worthy — lifestyle, but most people instinctively understand that this level of asceticism is not their calling.  Most people are correct when they say, “I could never be a Cistercian.”  It’s a genuine calling, a noble calling, but not a universal calling.

We the average Catholic layfolk, arousing curiosity by asking for an extra half-hour for lunch break on a Holy Day of Obligation, we are the people who, by our lives, tell the world, “You can do this! Holiness is for everyone!”

The ordinary Catholic, on the quest for holiness, throws out a powerful challenge: If a goofball like Joe Schmoe can find happiness and peace in his pathetic little life, all because he started going to church every week and something changed, and now he’s 20% less grumpy than usual, and he even apologizes after yelling at you now, which he never used to . . . what changed? Could I be happy, too?  Is there something to this Catholic stuff?

The big players in the Catholic world — the great artists, the great saints — they play an important part in piquing curiosity.  But it is those of us in the pews who will ultimately lead our friends to Christ.