The Importance of an Open Mind

In mass today, the priest's homily was about the importance of evangelism, in particular, the need to keep an open mind and an accepting attitude during dialogue with another person about your faiths. Evangelism is all about trying to convince others to join or rejoin the Church. His message was that, both logically and in practice, people respond more positively to an open attitude than a close-minded approach. At the beginning, the people that someone is trying to evangelize usually view their faith as more valid than Catholicism, just because they've held it for their entire lives. Acting intolerant of other faiths is an easy way to turn them off in regards to learning about the Catholic faith. If you don't care about my beliefs, why should I care about yours? In summary, the best way to start up dialogue and begin the evangelization process is to have an open mind and seek truth while remaining loyal to Christ and His word.