On a spring break visit, I asked Brendan, one of the twins, if there were many Catholic young ladies at his college. You see, I have viewed endless postings of him at various functions with pretty young ladies on his arm. Brendan replied that he thought about 40 percent were probably Catholic, and he added that the percentage isn’t much more at Notre Dame, a Catholic university. I then asked if the girls he dated were Catholic. He sort of laughed and said, "Not like you and I are, Teetee."
Being ROTC students, Brendan and his brother are models of "physical fitness" and work out constantly at the gym. At a couple of his Saturday night fraternity events the young lady he had escorted asked if she could accompany him to the gym the following Sunday morning and what time he would be going. His reply would always be, "I don't know what Mass I'll be attending, so I cannot give you a set time." Her surprised retort was, "You go to Mass?” He’d then asked, "Are you not Catholic?" She’d awkwardly reply, "Why yes I am, but I cannot remember the last time I went to Mass." When Brendan told me about these conversations, I asked why he hadn’t responded, "That's sad; you don't know what you're missing." He just laughed and said, “Guys just don't talk like that, Grandma."
A couple of weeks later I received a text from Brendan asking me to call that evening. He related a new incident almost exactly like the previous one. When the young lady inquired about going to the gym with him on Sunday morning, and found out he first attended Mass, she reacted the same way as the previous young lady and said she had not been to Mass for years even though she and her family were Catholic. This time Brendan responded, "Gee, that's really sad." End result, she attended Mass with him and has been going each Sunday since. He said sometimes they even go during the week if they are having a big test.
I cannot tell you how happy and proud this grandma is, and I hope Brendan will continue his missionary discipleship, being a new evangelizer in a way that he feels comfortable with and that is consistent with who he is and what he believes. Now I have to work on his brother.
Maria Martine is a member of the Rosary Society at Our Lady of Peace, New Providence, N.J.