We were at it again today. Handing out Bibles in the market and trying to talk to people. At first, it seemed a little heavy. People were kind of quiet, it was cloudy and it was just a slow day.
One man that was coming into the market told me that he could not read. We have heard that before and there are times when we believe it and there are other times when we do not. On his way out, I looked at him and wished him a good Sunday, "Buona domenica!" He looked at me and said, "I told you, I can't read!" In other words, he had not been listening to what I said! My response was, "I know, all I said was have a good Sunday!" "Oh!" he replied, "Thanks." and he continued out the door.
There are many times when people have a response ready when they see the table and no matter what we say, they respond with what they have prepared. We get some interesting responses sometimes.
Many of the people that we see in the market are older. There are a few young people that come in and buy things, but for the most part, the people are in their late 40's and up. We are now in the process of planning a table like this in the fall, but for the piazza and doing it in the evenings rather than the mornings so that we are able to have conversations with young people. The piazza is where many kids hang out in the evenings and that is where we want to start having an impact.
One last thought. A good friend of ours mentioned again today as he has mentioned before that it is good to see us doing this in the community. He is a very strong Catholic and he told me that the thing that he does not like about the vast majority of the priests is the fact that they stay in their office in the church all day and never come out to be with the people. This is what we are trying to do now. We need to put into practice the words that Christ gave us. Loving our neighbor means going out so that we can see and be with our neighbor. (The picture above is the piazza in our town and we hope to meet and talk to young people more this fall in an organized fashion and now in a more informal way.)
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