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How to be Annoying...

Remember Pope Francis' words from last week?

The church doesn't need couch-potato Catholics, it needs believers with "apostolic zeal," willing to preach the uncomfortable words of Christ, Pope Francis said.
"And if we annoy people" with this zeal for Christ, then "blessed be the Lord," he said in his daily morning Mass homily May 16.


Well, I saw this post today and he tells us all about how to be annoying without actually being annoying...weird, slightly annoyed by that explanation, but anyway ... I'm just going to quote from the post - and enough to get you weirdly hooked so you'll have to click over to catholicvote.org to finish the rest of the story or you won't be able to sleep!


HOW TO BECOME AN ANNOYING CATHOLIC (IN EIGHT EASY STEPS)

If you were paying attention last week, you’ll recall from  my newsy little post on Friday, that Pope Francis has charged Catholics with asking the Holy Spirit for “the grace to be annoying.” His words. Not mine.
“Today we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this Apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church, the grace to go out to the outskirts of life. The Church has so much need of this!…So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of Apostolic zeal, let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal. And if we annoy people, blessed be the Lord.”
I know what you’re thinking: Easy, peazy lemon squeazy, right?
Not right.
Admittedly, that was my first reaction too.
“Yes!” I thought. “Finally a grace that comes naturally to me. I don’t even have to pray for this one.”
The more I mulled it over though, the more I realized I was making the same mistake as that infamous Sicilian.
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You see, to be annoying doesn’t mean to be obnoxious or insensitive or the evangelical equivalent of a bull in a china shop. Those things are easy, peazy, lemon squeazy. At least for some of us. But to be a holy pain in the you-know-whatsis? To be a joyful, peaceful, effective, and utterly confounding witness to the Gospel? Well, that does require grace, plus a whole lot of hard work.
The pope already told us how to get the grace—implore the Holy Spirit. But what about the hard work? What practical things can we do to become the most annoying of annoying Catholics?

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